Russia-Ukraine war: Zelenskiy urges talks with Putin; Biden flags ‘clear sign’ Russia considering chemical weapons – live

Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper was hacked on Monday, and a false story on Russian military deaths in Ukraine was posted on its site, the newspaper’s Kremlin correspondent said this morning.

Alexander Gamov, the journalist, said the story – which had said nearly 10,000 Russian troops had been killed – was fake and was deleted after a few minutes.

Reuters report that Gamov provided the explanation for the story, which was picked up by some western media, on the Kremlin’s daily conference call after Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was unable to comment on the incident.

Overnight on Facebook, the mayor of Boryspil, Volodymyr Borysenko, has urged civilians to leave the town. It is located just outside Kyiv, near Ukraine’s largest international airport.

In the video address, Borysenko said: “The fewer civilians in the city, the easier it is for armed forces to operate. There is no urgent need to remain in the city as firefights are going on around it. I call on the civilian population to be smart and leave town as soon as an opportunity arises.”

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has tweeted to say that he has spoken to Pope Francis. Alongside a photo of Zelenskiy at his desk, he said: “Told His Holiness about the difficult humanitarian situation and the blocking of rescue corridors by Russian troops. The mediating role of the Holy See in ending human suffering would be appreciated. Thanked for the prayers for Ukraine and peace.”

EU leaders intend to set up a “trust fund” for Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion and to help it rebuild after the war, according to a draft document seen by Agence France-Presse.

Leaders from the 27-nation bloc meet in Brussels on Thursday for a two-day summit focused on dealing with the fallout from the Kremlin’s assault on Ukraine.

“Bearing in mind the destruction and enormous losses brought upon Ukraine by Russia’s military aggression, the European Union is committed to provide support to the Ukrainian government for its immediate needs and, once the Russian onslaught has ceased, for the reconstruction of a democratic Ukraine,” the draft conclusions for the meeting said.

“To that end, the European Council agrees to set up a Ukraine Solidarity Trust Fund and calls for preparations to start without delay.”

The draft, still under negotiation, gave no further details on the planned size or working of the fund.

The EU has already agreed €1.2bn euros ($1.3bn) in emergency funding to help the Ukrainian authorities.

The fall of Mariupol would be an economic blow to Ukraine and a symbolic victory for Russia, writes Bermet Talant for us today.

Mariupol is a metallurgical centre for iron and steelworks, heavy machinery manufacturing, and ship repairs. Ukraine’s largest steel plants owned by the country’s leading metallurgical group, Metinvest, are located in Mariupol. One of them, Azovstal, was badly damaged by Russian shelling this week. Mariupol is also home to the largest trading port in the Azov Sea from which Ukraine exports grain, iron and steel.

Not only does Mariupol lie in the territory that is claimed by the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, an area recognised by Russia before the full-scale invasion, but it is also part of Vladimir Putin’s vision of “Novorossiya” – a territory stretching across eastern and southern Ukraine along the Black Sea coastline that is viewed by Putin as “historically Russian lands”.

Read more of Bermet Talant’s piece here: Why is Mariupol so important to Russian forces?

Dmitry Muratov, the Nobel peace prize-winning editor of Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta has announced he will be putting his Nobel medal up for auction to raise money for Ukrainian refugees.

In a statement posted to the Novaya Gazeta website, he said:

Novaya Gazeta and I have decided to donate the 2021 Nobel peace prize medal to the Ukrainian Refugee Fund. I ask the auction houses to respond and put up for auction this world-famous award.

The article also called for an end to combat fire, an exchange of prisoners and the release of the bodies of the dead, and the provision of humanitarian corridors and assistance.

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk has made a new appeal to Russia to allow humanitarian supplies into the besieged southern city of Mariupol and to let civilians leave.

Reuters report she said on Ukrainian television: “We demand the opening of a humanitarian corridor for civilians.”

Vereshchuk also said Russia’s armed forces were preventing humanitarian supplies reaching residents of the southern city of Kherson.

Earlier, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in a televised interview that one of Russian’s main priorities is to take control of the capital Kyiv, but trying to do so was “suicide”. He also said active hostilities between Ukraine and Russia could end within two to three weeks.

Our Emma Graham-Harrison reports in transit in Ukraine.

A quick Reuters snap here that 3,528,346 Ukrainians have fled abroad according to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR). More than 2 million have crossed into Poland, the agency said.

Ukrainian MP Dmytro Gurin has described the situation in his hometown of Mariupol as a “war crime”, telling Sky News in the UK that “the shelling never stops, the shooting never stops. Now there’s 300,000 people in Mariupol without food. It’s not war any more. We clearly see that Russia wants to start hunger just to force its diplomatic position.”

Gurin said he was currently “very pessimistic” about a diplomatic resolution to the situation, saying that any agreement with Vladimir Putin would be worth “less than the paper it was written on”.

Finland’s Nokian Tyres has said it would continue production in Russia to retain control of its local factory.

Nokian’s chief executive, Jukka Moisio, told Helsingin Sanomat in an interview that the company did not want its Russian factory to end up “in wrong hands” to avoid its Russian factories being used to make tyres for the military.

“In our opinion it is better that the factory is in our control than in someone else’s,” Moisio told the paper.

Anne Kauranen reports for Reuters that shares in Nokian fell as much as 13% on Monday, after Finnish media reported that the company had seemed to tell analysts in a call last week that it would seek to win market share from rivals that are exiting Russia. Nokian denied this on Tuesday.

Ika Ferrer Gotić, who is a news producer and anchor at the N1 news channel, has posted this video clip which she says shows Ukrainian children sleeping on the floor in Warsaw’s Central Station in Poland.

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been found guilty of large-scale fraud by a Russian court, report Reuters.

Russian prosecutors are seeking to move Navalny to a maximum security penal colony for 13 years on charges of fraud and contempt of court.

Navalny is already serving a two-and-a-half year sentence at a prison camp east of Moscow for parole violations related to charges he says were trumped up to thwart his political ambitions.

Kirsten Grieshaber has been reporting for Associated Press from Berlin on the enrolment of young refugees from Ukraine into makeshift schools there. On Monday seven-year-old Myroslav Kerashchenko was one of 40 children who joined classes.

His mother, Mariia, told reporters: “It gets me emotional when I see all the help and solidarity here. Every day, I hope that we can go back to Ukraine, but it is too dangerous for now, so in the meantime it is wonderful that my son can go to school in Germany,” she added.

The classes for the refugees were put together by Burcak Sevilgen and Faina Karlitski, who in only two weeks raised the funds, organised the rent-free classrooms and advertised their programme on the messaging service Telegram. The lessons will prepare the children for entering Berlin’s regular school system.

Natalia Khalil, 33, from Rivne in western Ukraine, is teaching the third and fourth graders, while Tatjana Gubskaya, 56, will be in charge of the first and second graders. Gubskaya fled Ukraine with her daughter and a seven-year-old grandson, who is in her classroom.

“The kids are grateful to have some kind of routine again and meet other children from Ukraine — they and their mothers have all been very stressed lately,” said Gubskaya.

The teachers will be paid €500 per month (£420) in donations until they have work permits and can be officially hired.