Street battles have broken out in the eastern town of Kreminna, just a day after it was captured by the Russians as they focus on taking full control of the Donbas region.
Kreminna is one of two towns where the Ukrainians said the Russians had managed to break through on Monday along the front line stretching for hundreds of miles.
Serhiy Haidai, Luhansk regional military administrator, said the town came under heavy artillery overnight, setting seven residential buildings on fire. He added that the Olympus sports complex, where the nation’s Olympic team trains, was targeted.
It comes after Ukraine warned that Russia had started its new offensive to take full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east.
It noted that a “new phase of war” began Monday when “the occupiers made an attempt to break through our defences along nearly the entire frontline in the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions”.
Follow the latest updates below.
08:57 AM
France: Oil ban is ‘in the works’
France is pushing other European nations to support a ban on Russian oil as Putin steps up his assault on Ukraine.
Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, said it was necessary “more than ever” to target the Kremlin’s energy industry, adding that further sanctions were in the works.
He told French radio: “I hope that in the weeks to come we will convince our European partners to stop importing Russian oil.”
The UK and US have already rolled out bans on Russian oil imports but the move has proved more divisive in Europe due to the continent’s heavy reliance on Moscow.
08:42 AM
‘British personnel have been paraded on television’ because Putin needs a “PR success”, says Tory MP
Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chairman of the defence committee, has said that ‘British personnel have been paraded on television’ because Putin needs a “PR success”.
08:25 AM
Putin to meet business owners and executives
Vladimir Putin will meet executives and owners of big businesses tomorrow, Bloomberg reports.
No agenda has been announced, but the Kremlin has said Putin will continue to hold meetings with various industries. The Russian leader has insisted the West’s “economic blitzkrieg” hadn’t worked and sanctions had failed.
Putin convened a gathering of Russia’s top business representatives on February 24 – the day he launched the invasion.
That televised meeting was later cited by the EU as a justification for sanctions against several individuals because it showed they were members of the “inner circle of oligarchs” close to the president.
08:21 AM
Russia calls on Ukraine to surrender steel plant by midday
Russia has reportedly called on Ukrainian forces and foreign mercenaries to leave the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol by midday Russian time (0900 GMT).
“All who lay down their arms are guaranteed to remain alive,” the defence ministry said.
It called on troops to withdraw from the steel plant between 1400 and 1600 Moscow time “without exception, without any weapons and without ammunition”.
Earlier on Tuesday, Russia-backed separatist forces said they were trying to storm the Azovstal steel works and take control of it as quickly as possible.
Ukrainian authorities said on Monday that no fewer than 1,000 civilians were hiding in underground shelters beneath the vast Azovstal plant, adding that Russia was dropping heavy bombs onto the Ukrainian-held factory in the besieged city.
08:19 AM
Russia claims it hit 1260 Ukrainian targets overnight
The Russian defence ministry has claimed its missile and artillery forces struck 1,260 targets in Ukraine overnight.
Russian anti-aircraft forces downed a Ukrainian MiG-29 jet in the Donetsk region, the ministry said.
08:10 AM
Russia’s new offensive in eastern Ukraine will fail, says Zelensky aide
Russia’s new offensive in eastern Ukraine will fail because Moscow’s forces lack the strength to break through Ukrainian defences, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
Oleksiy Arestovych, a presidential adviser said Russian forces were trying to find “sensitive spots” in Ukraine’s defences but added: “Their offensive will fail – I give you a 99% guarantee – they simply do not have enough strength.”
“The battle for Donbas, which was announced and apparently began yesterday, is under way and is going very cautiously. The battle will not go in Russia’s favour,” they said.
Russian forces were trying to push through Ukrainian defences along almost the entire front line in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.
08:07 AM
Western leaders to hold talks on Ukraine
Western leaders will hold talks on Tuesday over their support for Ukraine, after Russia launched a major new offensive in the east of the country, reports Joe Barnes.
The meeting, convened by US President Joe Biden, will focus on deliveries of lethal aid, after Nato countries agreed to deliver heavy weaponry, including tanks, helicopters and artillery systems.
Kyiv has appealed to its allies in the West to accelerate their deliveries ahead of what is expected to be one of the bloodiest and largest tank battles since the second world war.
Overnight, Moscow began its attack focused on seizing full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
While the area features a number of huge industrial cities, the battleground will also be contested over large, open expanses of land, making military mobility vital for the next phase of the war.
08:03 AM
Nuclear option ‘cannot be ruled out’, says former British Ambassador to Russia
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British Ambassador to Russia, has said that he wouldn’t entirely rule out Putin “going nuclear”.
07:54 AM
Britain to send armoured vehicles to Ukraine
Britain will reportedly soon send armoured missile launchers to Ukraine after Russia started its full-scale offensive to take control of the country’s east.
The Ministry of Defence demonstrated the Stormer High Velocity Missile (HVM) launcher for Ukrainians on Salisbury Plain two weeks ago, according to The Sun, with the paper adding the 13-tonne vehicles can be flown to the war on C-17 transport planes in days.
The Stormer is manufactured by BAE Systems, needs just three people to operate it and and uses Starstreak missiles, which can be used to take down low-flying aircraft.
Read the full story here
07:45 AM
Oil prices slump to lowest since invasion
Natural gas prices have slumped to their lowest since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine amid warmer weather and signs Putin’s demand for payment in roubles won’t kick in until next month.
Benchmark European prices fell as much as 12pc – the lowest level since Feb 23, just before the invasion began.
Traders have been focused on shipments from Russia after Putin demanded that “unfriendly” nations pay in roubles. The EU has rejected the demand, saying to do so would violate sanctions.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov yesterday said there was still “some time” for Europe to pay in the Russian currency. He added that payments for April shipments were mainly due “sometime in May”.
In a further easing of pressure on prices, Europe is expected to experience above-average temperatures over the next week.
07:44 AM
Labour: UK must not give in to blackmail when it comes to hostages
The UK must not give in to blackmail when it comes to hostages, shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry has said.
It comes after two British citizens were captured by the Russian army while fighting for Ukraine.
“We should be negotiating with the Russians to try to get them back,” Ms Thornberry, a Labour MP, told Sky News.
“But I don’t think that we can give in to blackmail, I’m afraid.
“If we start doing that it just encourages more snatching of hostages around the world.
“We need to make it clear that we don’t negotiate and give in to blackmail when it comes to hostages, and we’ve always said that we need to stick to that.”
07:39 AM
Fiji moves to seize Russian superyacht
Fijian authorities on Tuesday applied to block a superyacht reportedly owned by a Russian oligarch from leaving its waters, as the United States moved to seize it.
The yacht has been linked in some reports to oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, who is a target of US and European Union sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Fiji’s director of public prosecutions filed an application with the island nation’s High Court seeking to hold the motor yacht Amadea, which berthed in Lautoka last week.
It asked for the Amadea to be “restrained from leaving Fijian waters” while warrants to seize the property by local and US authorities were being prepared.
07:26 AM
Ukraine in pictures:
07:16 AM
Russia-backed special forces are reportedly storming plant in Mariupol
Russia-backed separatist forces are trying to storm the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, the RIA news agency quoted separatist spokesperson Eduard Basurin as saying on Tuesday.
The separatists aim to “liberate” the facility as quickly as possible, RIA quoted another separatist, Denis Pushilin, as saying.
07:10 AM
China to increase coordination with Russia, says senior Chinese diplomat
China told Russia it will continue to increase “strategic coordination” with it regardless of international volatility, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng gave this assurance to Russian ambassador to China, Andrey Denisov, on Monday, the statement said.
China has refrained from condemning Russia over Ukraine, where the United Nations has said there have been more than 2,000 civilian deaths since war started on Feb. 24.
07:06 AM
UK space industry prepares for lift-off after Putin triggers launch countdown
The first satellite of any kind will be launched on UK soil this year, from Spaceport in Cornwall, in a milestone for Britain’s growing space industry. It will be followed by more in Scotland, both this year and next.
Fortuitously, it comes as the UK gets to grips with losing cheap sources of space launches amid Vladimir Putin’s war, which has inadvertently dealt a blow to the space industry.
One immediate casualty was satellite company OneWeb, part-owned by the UK Government, which rescued it from bankruptcy last year. Having been barred from using Russian rockets, it struck a deal last month with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Howard Mustoe has the full story here
07:01 AM
Britons should not travel illegally to Ukraine, says Cabinet minister
A Cabinet minister has said that Britons should not travel illegally to Ukraine.
“We always have responsibility for British citizens, which we take seriously. We’ve got to get the balance right in Ukraine and that’s why I say to anybody: do not travel illegally to Ukraine,” Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary told Sky News.
Lewis was talking about Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslinl, the two British fighters who were captured in Ukraine by Russian forces.
The UK’s Foreign Enlistment Act blocks citizens from joining foreign militaries fighting countries at peace with Britain, and the government’s foreign secretary and defence minister have warned against Britons fighting in Ukraine after the war began in late February.
06:47 AM
Ukraine ‘should not distract’ from issues facing PM, says chair of defence committee
Ukraine should not distract from the difficult issues facing the Prime Minister, the chairman of the Commons Defence Committee has said.
Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative MP, said that now was the time for the Prime Minister to address partygate.
“If I may, I need to distinguish between what’s going on in Ukraine and the fact that, yes, there is a difficult issue facing number 10,” he said.
“But we shouldn’t use the fig leaf of our involvement with Ukraine to somehow say this is not a time to address those difficult challenges.”
He added that there is a “Rolls Royce Whitehall machine” that can provide advice to whoever is the prime minister of the day.
“So, whatever prime minister, whoever that will be, will get the same advice,” he said.
“If there were a leadership contest, you’d actually see, I think, a bidding war of candidates wanting to do more to lean forward to support Ukraine. “
06:43 AM
Volodymyr Zelensky: Battle for the Donbas begins as Russia launches major offensive
[embedded content]
06:42 AM
Britain ‘not looking to help Russia’, says Cabinet minister
Britain is not going to be looking at how to help Russia, a Cabinet minister has said, when asked about the prospect of swapping pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk for two British fighters who were captured in Ukraine by Russian forces.
The Britons appeared on Russian state TV on Monday and asked to be exchanged for Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who is being held by the Ukrainian authorities.
Asked on Sky News whether a possible swap was something the government would get involved with, Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said: “We’re actually going through the process of sanctioning people who are close to Putin regime, we’re not going to be looking at how we can help Russia.”
06:36 AM
Refusal to open humanitarian corridors ‘will justify war crimes’, says Ukrainian Deputy PM
Ukraine was for the third successive day unable to secure Russia’s agreement on establishing any humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians trapped in cities and towns, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Tuesday.
Ukraine estimates that 21,000 people have been killed in Mariupol alone.
Ms Vereshchuk warned Russia on social media that refusing to open humanitarian corridors will justify war crimes trials.
06:19 AM
‘I planned to stay – until a rocket landed on my home’: Final Donbas evacuees flee Russian offensive
It took a missile landing on the roof of their building to convince the Tantsiura family to finally leave their home in Krimenna, eastern Ukraine.
The town of nearly 20,000 inhabitants in the Donbas region was finally captured by Russian forces on Monday, after coming under increasingly intense Russian bombardment for weeks.
The day before, Denis Tantsiura had talked of the “incredible number of Russian troops massing in the area” as he explained his family’s flight, speaking from a displacement centre in Dnipro, an eastern city that has become a transit point for civilians fleeing fighting further east in the Donbas region.
Campbell MacDiarmid has the full report here
06:12 AM
Russian plane takes 15,000km detour to pick diplomats
A plane sent from Moscow to pick up expelled Russian diplomats from Greece and then Spain was forced to make a 15,000km detour due to a EU flight ban, flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 reports.
“While Spain and Greece made a one-time exception for the aircraft to enter their airspace, the flights navigated around other countries that maintain bans on Russian flights,” the website said.
It added that the total length of the flight was 15,163 km, “just shy of the current world’s longest flight between Singapore and New York”.
06:03 AM
Russia aims to take control of Donetsk, Luhansk regions
The Ukrainian military’s General Staff on Tuesday said that Russian forces were focusing on taking full control over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
It noted that a “new phase of war” began on Monday when “the occupiers made an attempt to break through our defenses along nearly the entire frontline in the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions”.
“The Russian military has continued to blockade and shell Mariupol and to deal missile strikes on other cities,” a statement issued early on Tuesday said.
05:52 AM
Pictured: Destruction in Ukraine as Russia’s invasion escalates
05:41 AM
No ceasefires expected in Ukraine
UN officials said there would be no ceasefires in Ukraine in the coming days, Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko said.
“It’s a new phase of escalation from Russia,” she posted on Twitter.
“To rephrase the mayor of Mykolaiv: this of course upsets us, but doesn’t stop us.”
Last night was “loud” in the regions of Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk, she added, alluding to sounds of possible explosions in the regions.
04:45 AM
Economists urge G20 to set up asset register
Leading economists Tuesday urged G20 leaders to draw up a world asset register for tracking tax evaders that could pressure Russia by exposing oligarchs’ hidden wealth.
Bestselling economists Joseph Stiglitz, of the US, and Thomas Piketty, of France, among others made the call in an open letter published in The Guardian ahead of Wednesday’s G20 finance meeting.
Building on progress in financial information-sharing over recent years, “it’s time for a global asset register to target hidden wealth,” said the letter.
Russian oligarchs are estimated to hold “at least $1 trillion in wealth abroad, often concealed in offshore companies whose true ownership is hard to determine”, they added.
03:59 AM
Russian village ‘hit’ by Ukraine
Ukrainian forces have struck a village near Russia’s border with Ukraine, wounding one resident, the governor of the Russian province of Belgorod has said.
It was not immediately clear whether the strike referred to by governor Vyacheslav Gladkov in posts on messaging app Telegram was carried out by artillery, mortars, missiles or was an aerial attack.
This month, Russia accused Ukraine of a helicopter attack on a fuel depot in Belgorod, as well as of shelling villages there several times, and firing missiles at an ammunition depot.
03:50 AM
Today’s top stories
-
Russian has launched a long-feared offensive against Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, starting what could become the pivotal battle of the war
-
In Kharkiv, local authorities said a man and a woman died in the latest shelling to hit Ukraine’s second city
-
Volodymyr Zelensky said that 18 people had been killed and 106 injured by Russian bombardment of Kharkiv in the past four days
-
Residents of Vasylkiv, a town south of the capital of Kyiv that is home to a military air base, reported a large explosion on Monday morning
-
Russian missiles also hit Lviv, killing at least seven people, according to its regional governor
-
Ukrainian soldiers have “liberated” at least three towns in a counter-offensive aimed at stifling the attack on the east of the country
-
The Pentagon announced four flights of US weapons have arrived in Ukraine since Joe Biden, the US president, authorised the latest $800 million in military assistance last week
-
Ukrainian soldiers have launched a courageous counterattack in Mariupol despite “overwhelming” numbers of Russian forces around the besieged city, new video shows
-
Vladimir Putin has bestowed military honours on a brigade accused of committing atrocities in the Ukrainian town of Bucha
