NEW YORK (1010 WINS/AP) -- The battle for Ukraine's strategic port of Mariupol raged on Monday, as Ukraine rejected a Russian offer to evacuate its troops from the besieged city and Russian bombardment continued.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said about 400 civilians were taking shelter at an art school in the Azov Sea port city when it was struck by a Russian bomb.
Russia's war in Ukraine, now in its 26th day, shows no signs of abating. The invasion has wreaked devastation and destruction, exacting a heavy toll on civilians.
The U.N. says more than 3.38 million people have fled Ukraine.
There have been about 6.5 million internally displaced Ukrainians estimated by the United Nations refugee agency.
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Sunday, March 20, 2022
7:27 p.m. - Russia says if Ukraine surrenders Mariupol by 5 a.m. Moscow time, Russian troops will allow civilians trapped in the city to escape safely
The port city of Mariupol has seen some of the most intense fighting of the war so far.
Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, the director of the Russian National Defense Management Center, promised "All who lay down their arms are guaranteed safe passage out of Mariupol.”
Many of the roughly 400,000 residents of Mariupol remain trapped in the city with severely limited food, water and power.
Russia says that if Ukrainian forces surrender the city, Russia will open humanitarian corridors allowing those trapped in the city to escape. Without the corridors, the humanitarian crisis there is likely to continue.
3:15 p.m. - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose grandfather was a Holocaust survivor, criticizes Israeli neutrality in the Russian invasion during speech to Israel's legislature, the Knesset
During a virtual address to the Knesset on Sunday, Zelenskyy criticized Israel's denial of citizenship to non-Jewish Ukrainian refugees and the country's refusal to sell Ukraine defensive military equipment like the Iron Dome anti-missile system.
The Ukrainian President went on to criticize Israel for failing to impose sanctions on Russia and continuing diplomatic contact with the aggressor.
"Why are you busy with calculations [regarding Russia]?" said Zelenskyy in his speech. "Mediating without taking sides? You can mediate — but not between good and evil."
Several Israeli lawmakers criticized a comparison Zelenskyy made during his speech between the war in Ukraine and the Holocaust. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett declined to comment on the speech, but Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who is slated to become prime minister in 2023 due to a unique coalition deal, said "We will continue to help the Ukrainian people as much as we can and never turn our back to people who suffer from war."
2:10 p.m. - Turkish foreign minister says negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have “momentum” and peace deal is close
According to Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the two warring nations "have almost reached agreement on" a neutral Ukraine with no plans to join NATO and “demilitarizing” Ukraine with security guarantees.
Western governments remain skeptical of Turkey's claim as fighting remains intense in Ukraine.
Turkey has been acting as a mediator between the two countries. Just yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Moscow to meet for peace talks.
12:33 p.m. - Ukrainian President bans opposition parties, consolidates media under martial law
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy banned 11 political parties on Sunday citing alleged ties to Russia.
The ban comes just hours after Zelenskyy mandated all news television channels consolidate into one platform under martial law in service of a "unified information policy."
The parties banned include Opposition Party — For Life, Shariy Party, Nashi, Opposition Bloc, Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, State, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialists Party and Volodymyr Saldo Bloc.
8:34 a.m. - Ukraine says Russia bombs another shelter in besieged city
Ukrainian authorities said Sunday that Russia’s military bombed an art school sheltering some 400 people in the embattled port city of Mariupol, where Ukraine’s president said an unrelenting Russian siege would be remembered for centuries to come.
It was the second time in less than a week that city officials reported a public building where residents had taken shelter coming under attack. A bomb hit a Mariupol theater with more than 1,300 believed to be inside on Wednesday, local officials said.
There was no immediate word on casualties from the reported strike on the art school, which The Associated Press could not independently verify. Ukrainian officials have not given an update on the search of the theater since Friday, when they said at least 130 had been rescued.
Mariupol, a strategic port on the Azov Sea, has been under bombardment for at least three weeks and has seen some of the worst horrors of the war in Ukraine. At least 2,300 people have died, some of whom had to be buried in mass graves, and food, water and electricity have run low.
Saturday, March 19, 2022
6:34 p.m. - Pope Francis has paid a visit to some of the Ukrainian children who escaped the Russian invasion and are currently being treated at the Vatican’s pediatric hospital in Rome.
The Vatican says the Bambino Gesu hospital is currently tending to 19 Ukrainian refugees, and that overall some 50 have passed through in recent weeks.
Some were suffering oncological, neurological and other problems before the war and fled in the early days. Others are being treated for wounds incurred as a result of the invasion.
The Vatican says Francis travelled the short distance up the hill to the hospital on Saturday afternoon. He met with all the young patients in their rooms before returning back to the Vatican.
Francis has spoken out about the “barbarity” of the war and especially the death and injury it has caused Ukrainian children.
12:54 p.m. - UNICEF estimates 1.5 million children have fled Ukraine as refugee crisis continues unabated
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimated Saturday that 1.5 million kids have been forced out of Ukraine since the start of the war.
The United Nations refugee agency estimated 3.2 million Ukrainians have fled the country since the start of the Russian invasion. The war is the source of the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II.
There are also 6.5 million internally displaced Ukrainians who have been uprooted by the conflict, according to the UN's migration agency.
Most of the refugees have fled to border countries like Poland (1.9 million), Romania (491,000), Moldova (351,000), Slovakia (229,000) and Hungary (283,000).
8:30 a.m. - Russia fires at Kyiv suburbs, eastern Donetsk
Over the past 24 hours, Russian forces have fired at eight cities and villages in the eastern Donetsk region, using aviation, rocket and heavy artillery.
Ukraine’s National Police said in a statement on Telegram Saturday that at least 37 residential buildings and infrastructure facilities were damaged; dozens of civilians were killed and injured as a result of the attacks. The Russian military were firing at Mariupol, Avdiivka, Kramatorsk, Pokrovsk, Novoselydivka, Verkhnotoretske, Krymka, and Stepne.
The statement said that “among the civilian objects that Russia destroyed are multistory and private houses, a school, a kindergarten, a museum, a shopping center and administrative buildings.”
Kyiv northwestern suburbs of Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin and Moshchun have also been under fire on Saturday. The Kyiv regional administration reported that the city of Slavutich north of the capital was “completely isolated,” and that Russian military equipment was spotted in the region northeast and east of Kyiv.
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The office of the Prosecutor General in Ukraine has accused Russian security and military forces of kidnapping a Ukrainian journalist covering the Russian offensive in the east and the south of Ukraine.
In a Facebook statement Saturday, the Prosecutor General’s office alleged that Russia’s Federal Security Service, or the FSB, and the Russian military abducted the journalist of Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske on Tuesday in Berdyansk, an occupied port city in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region. The statement didn’t identify the journalist, but went on to say that the reporter’s whereabouts are currently unknown and a criminal investigation has been launched.
Hromadske on Friday tweeted that they lost contact with reporter Victoria Roshchyna last week.
“As we learned from witnesses, at that time the journalist was in the temporarily occupied Berdyansk. On March 16, we learned that the day before (probably March 15), Victoria Roshchyna was detained by the Russian FSB. Currently, we do not know where she is,” the outlet tweeted.
The FSB and the Russian military haven’t yet commented on the allegations.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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