Ukraine war latest: Zelensky warns of ‘Third World War’ if Russia talks fail as art school bombed

Mariupol has suffered some of the heaviest bombardment since Russia invaded Ukraine. Many of its 400,000 residents remain trapped in the city with little if any food, water and power.

Fighting continued inside the city on Sunday, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said, without elaborating.

The Russian governor of Sevastopol, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, said on Sunday that Post Captain Andrei Paliy, deputy commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, had been killed during fighting in Mariupol.

Capturing Mariupol would help Russian forces secure a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The city council said on its Telegram channel late on Saturday that several thousand residents had been “deported” to Russia over the past week. Russian news agencies said buses had carried hundreds of people Moscow calls refugees from Mariupol to Russia in recent days.

Speaking to CNN, US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield called the deportation accounts “disturbing” and “unconscionable” if true, but said Washington had not yet confirmed them.

Boris Johnson spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday night to ask what his military require in their battle against Russia’s invasion, No 10 says.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said the PM “set out his intention to advance Ukraine’s interests at this week’s Nato and G7 meetings and in upcoming bilateral engagement with key allies, and he asked for the president’s latest assessment of Ukraine’s military requirements in the face of Russian aggression”.

Mr Johnson himself put out the following tweet:

After being effectively held hostage by Russian troops for more than three weeks, 64 workers at the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine have been able to leave.

They have been replaced by 46 employees who volunteered to travel to the plant.

Around 200 shift workers and members of the Ukrainian National Guard were stuck at the power plant since 24 February – the first day of the war – when Russian troops seized it.

With the Russian side unable to guarantee their safety if they tried to leave the plant, the workers were trapped with food and medicines in short supply. They were forced to sleep on whatever they could find – the floor, tables, and a few small camp beds, they told the BBC.

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is joining the sweeping rejection of Russia’s culture and government that has seized the US amid Moscow’s bloody invasion of Ukraine.

The Washington DC-based cultural center “quietly” renamed a meeting space that was previously decorated with Russian art and dubbed the “Russian Lounge”, following a $5 million donation from businessman Vladimir Potanin in 2011, Politico reported.

Mr Potanin, who owns nickel mines in the country, is one of the Russian oligarchs with ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin who has thus far escaped US sanctions over the invasion, reports John Bowden.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has warned of a Third World War if negotiations with Russia fail.

He told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that talks with Vladimir Putin are vital and that Ukraine has been reeling since Moscow launched its invasion.

“We were losing people on a daily basis, innocent people on the ground. … Russian forces have come to exterminate us, to kill us,” Mr Zelensky said.

“Unfortunately, our dignity is not going to preserve the lives, so I think that we have to do any format, any chance, so in order to have … the possibility of talking to Putin. But if these attempts fail, that would mean … a Third World War.”

Asked if Ukraine is willing to make comprises to end the Russian invasion, including not joining Nato, as Putin has demanded, the president said: “You cannot reverse this situation anymore. You cannot demand from Ukraine to recognize some territories as intended for conflicts, and these compromises are simply wrong.”

The UN said recently that 6.5 million people have been displaced inside Ukraine since the start of the invasion.