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.
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
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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
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Russian has launched a long-feared offensive against Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, starting what could become the pivotal battle of the war
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In Kharkiv, local authorities said a man and a woman died in the latest shelling to hit Ukraine’s second city
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Volodymyr Zelensky said that 18 people had been killed and 106 injured by Russian bombardment of Kharkiv in the past four days
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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
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Russian missiles also hit Lviv, killing at least seven people, according to its regional governor
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Ukrainian soldiers have “liberated” at least three towns in a counter-offensive aimed at stifling the attack on the east of the country
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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
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Ukrainian soldiers have launched a courageous counterattack in Mariupol despite “overwhelming” numbers of Russian forces around the besieged city, new video shows
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Vladimir Putin has bestowed military honours on a brigade accused of committing atrocities in the Ukrainian town of Bucha
