Russia invades Ukraine: Over 11,000 Russian troops killed

The New Arab concludes its live coverage of the updates from Russia's invasion of Ukraine for Sunday.

Here were today's major developments:

Fierce battles

Ukraine's military says it is fighting "fierce battles" with Russian forces on the edge of the southern city of Mykolaiv, which controls the road to the country's biggest port Odessa in the west.

President Volodymyr Zelensky warns that Russia is preparing to bombard the historic city near the Romanian and Moldovan borders.

Chernihiv pummelled

Dozens of civilians are being killed in the battle for Chernihiv in the north, with those who remain in the city living in craters or among the ruins.

Mariupol evacuation fails again

Attempts to evacuate civilians from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol - which has neither power nor water - fail for a second day.

The Red Cross describes "devastating scenes of human suffering" in the battered Sea of Azov port.

Deadly and indiscriminate

The Russian push on Kyiv is becoming more deadly and indiscriminate despite Moscow's denials that it is targeting civilian areas. People are fleeing the towns of Bucha and Irpin as they are pounded by air strikes.

Airport destroyed

A barrage of Russian missiles destroy Vinnytsia airport in central Ukraine, Zelensky says.

Refugee crisis: fastest since WWII

Ukraine is the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II, says the UN. More than 1.5 million people have fled into neighbouring countries since Russia invaded on February 24.

Join us tomorrow for more updates and analysis on the developing conflict.

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Russian forces opened fire at a protest against their occupation of the southern Ukrainian city of Nova Kakhovka on Sunday, wounding five people, Ukrainian news agency Interfax Ukraine said, citing eyewitnesses.

#Russia More than 2000 people have been detained in Russia during anti-war protests. This is Moscow. This man is singing the state anthem of #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/4rndvpdK2v

— Hanna Liubakova (@HannaLiubakova) March 6, 2022

In central #Moscow, #Russia, thousands are marching in #protest against Putin’s war against #Ukraine: pic.twitter.com/ByXRu64Lj4

— Alex Kokcharov (@AlexKokcharov) March 6, 2022

Around 2,000 people had taken to the streets of Nova Kakhovka to show their opposition to the invasion by waving Ukrainian flags and calling on Russian forces to leave, the agency reported. Similar protests were staged in other occupied areas, it said.

Ukrainian engineers scrambled on Sunday to repair a gas pipeline damaged by Russian forces, halting supplies to parts of southeastern Ukraine, the Donetsk region governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

Engineers had shut down the pipe to prevent gas from leaking, he said, adding that gas flow downstream was now dropping and would stop completely later in the day.

Kyrylenko said that every location between the town of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region and the port of Berdyansk would be left without gas while the damage is repaired. The distance between the two towns is 117 km (73 miles).

"We are working hard to remove this problem as quickly as possible," Kyrylenko said.

Russian troops have damaged the Donetsk-Mariupol main gas pipeline. To avoid leaking the pipeline is closed. The villages from #Vuhledar to #Berdyansk will be without gas. Acc. to @Pavlo_Kyrylenko Head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration.#NOflyZoneUA #stopputin

— Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (@ua_parliament) March 6, 2022

Any country offering its air fields to Ukraine for attacks on Russia may be considered as having entered the conflict, a Russia defence ministry spokesman was quoted as saying on Sunday.

"The use of the airfield networks of these countries to base Ukrainian military aircraft and their subsequent use against the Russian armed forces may be regarded as the involvement of these states in an armed conflict," Interfax news agency quoted spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying.

Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmygal on Sunday said he had signed a formal request to foreign governments including the United States for termination of Russia and Belarus's memberships of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

"These two countries violated their obligations and directed their policies towards war," he said in a statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Sunday that Moscow planned to achieve its aims in Ukraine either through diplomacy or military means, the Elysee said.

Russia would reach its objectives in Ukraine "either through negotiation or through war", Putin told Macron according to a French presidential official, adding the Russian president also pledged "it was not his intention" to attack Ukrainian nuclear sites.

A barrage of Russian missiles destroyed a civilian airport in Vinnytsia in central Ukraine on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

"I have just been informed about a missile strike on Vinnytsia. Eight rockets... The airport was completely destroyed," he said.

Vinnytsia is in the western area of central Ukraine, far from the Russia and Belarus borders, in an area that has seen fewer such strikes.

‼️ Urgent appeal by President @ZelenskyyUa: a missile strike on #Vinnytsia consisted of eight missiles; the airport is completely destroyed.
The President called on the world to close the skies over #Ukraine and provide Ukraine with aircraft. pic.twitter.com/0s8nUneRZP

— Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (@ua_parliament) March 6, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused on Sunday what he called "Ukrainian radicals" for an incident on March 3 at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the Kremlin said.

French President Emmanuel Macron asked Putin by telephone about a fire at Europe's biggest nuclear power plant.

"Vladimir Putin informed about the provocation by Ukrainian radicals in the area of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant," the Kremlin said. "The radiation levels are normal."

Putin also accused Ukraine of preventing civilians from leaving Mariupol.

Ukrainian ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova called Russia a "terrorist state" in an interview with Fox News on Sunday.

"This is a terrorist state and we should treat Russia as a terrorist state," Markarova said.

She also renewed calls for the United States to provide Ukraine with anti-aircraft weapons and other arms.

At least 364 civilians are confirmed to have been killed in Ukraine since Russian troops invaded on February 24, and another 759 wounded, although the true numbers are probably "considerably higher," a U.N. monitoring mission said on Sunday.

The updated figures, relating to casualties through March 5, added a further 13 deaths and 52 injuries to the casualties that the monitors from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported on Saturday.

Russia is set to deploy up to one thousand more mercenaries to Ukraine in the coming weeks and will escalate its bombing campaign against Ukrainian cities, a US intelligence official told the American channel CNN on Saturday.

The US believes that several hundreds Russian mercenaries operate in Kyiv and thousands more in the rest of the country, but are faring poorly and need fresh replacements.

As many as 200 mercenaries may already have been killed in the war as of late February, according to the same US official.

Read more about it here

Police detained more than 2,034 people at anti-war protests in cities across Russia on Sunday, the OVD-Info protest monitor said.

Reuters was not able to independently verify that information or to reach the police for comment. Social media videos circulated by Kremlin critics showed hundreds of people marching in Moscow chanting "No to war!" and "Shame!"

Russia, Ukraine blame each other as Mariupol evacuation fails again

Pro-Russian separatists and Ukraine's National Guard accused each other of failing to establish a humanitarian corridor out of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the second time the sides attempted to arrange it.

Ukraine 24 television showed a fighter of the Azov Regiment of the National Guard who said Russian and pro-Russian forces that have encircled the port city of about 400,000 continued shelling the areas that were meant to be safe.

The Interfax news agency cited an official of the Donetsk separatist administration who accused the Ukrainian forces of failing to observe the limited ceasefire.

The separatist official said only about 300 people have left the city. Ukrainian authorities have earlier said they planned to evacuate over 200,000 people from Mariupol.

Russia is mustering forces to encircle the Ukrainian city of Dnipro and is turning its main attention to cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea, Ukraine's top security official Oleksiy Danilov wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday.

Russia still intended to try to capture Kyiv, he said.

Separately, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said Ukraine was expecting 639 million euros from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to support the economy during the Russian invasion.

More than 1,100 people in cities across Russia have been detained at protests against Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, a protest monitor said, more than one week after the assault began.

The OVD-Info group said that by around 2:20 pm Moscow time (1120 GMT) Sunday, 1,103 people had been detained across 35 cities, bringing the total number of demonstrators detained to 9,472 since February 24, when President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine to carry out a "special operation".

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in a phone call on Sunday that Russia would only halt its military operation if Ukraine stopped fighting and Moscow's demands were met, the Kremlin said in a statement.

Putin said the operation was going according to plan and to schedule, and that he hoped Ukrainian negotiators would take a more constructive approach at talks and take into account the reality on the ground, the Kremlin said in statement.

Italian brand Prada suspends retail sales in Russia

Italian luxury label Prada has announced it is suspending retail sales in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.

Prada is following in the footsteps of other multinationals and luxury brands, including the French giants LVMH, Hermes and Chanel.

"The Prada Group suspends its retail operations in Russia," the firm said on its Linkedin site, adding that the move was effective from Saturday.

"Our primary concern is for all colleagues and their families affected by the tragedy in Ukraine, and we will continue to support them," Prada said.

"The Group will continue to monitor further developments."

Russia banks turn to China after Visa, Mastercard suspension

Russian banks has said they planned to issue cards using China's UnionPay system after Visa and Mastercard moved to suspend operations in Russia over Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine.

Russian Visa and Mastercard bank cards will no longer be valid abroad, and cards issued abroad will no longer work in Russia, the global payments companies announced on Saturday.

Major Russian lenders Sberbank and Alfa Bank said they are working on a rollout of UnionPay cards.

"Sberbank is working on the possibility of issuing co-branded Mir-UnionPay cards. We will inform you later about the timeframe for the issue," Russia's largest bank Sberbank said in a statement.

The country's largest private lender Alfa Bank said it is "already working on launching cards on UnionPay, China's national payment system".

Rosbank, Tinkoff Bank, and the Credit Bank of Moscow (MKB) are also working on releasing UnionPay cards, Russian news agencies reported.

Ukraine warns Russia preparing to shell port city Odessa

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Russian forces are preparing to shell Odessa, a historic port city on the Black Sea coast.

"This is going to be a military crime. This is going to be a historical crime," he declared.

Russian forces have made progress in southern Ukraine since their February 24 invasion, overrunning the city of Kherson and besieging the port of Mariupol, but Odessa has so far been largely spared.

Ukraine is Europe's 'fastest growing refugee' crisis since WWII

The number of people fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine has topped 1.5 million, making it Europe's fastest growing refugee crisis since World War II, the United Nations has said.

"More than 1.5 million refugees from Ukraine have crossed into neighbouring countries in 10 days," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees tweeted.

The UN described the outflow as "the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II", having reported on Saturday that nearly 1.37 million refugees had fled.

UN officials said they expected the wave to intensify further as the Russian army pressed its offensive, particularly toward the capital Kyiv.

Since Russia invaded on February 24, a total of 922,400 people have fled Ukraine to Poland, Polish border guards said Sunday.

Hungary, Moldova, Romanian and Slovakia have also seen Ukrainian refugees arrive.

The World Health Organization said meanwhile that signs of attacks on health centres in Ukraine were increasing, which it said amounts to a violation of medical neutrality and international humanitarian law.

Russia strikes Ukrainian military air base with long-range weapons

Russia struck and disabled Ukraine's Starokostiantyniv military air base with long-range high-precision weapons, Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday.

"The Russia armed forces continue to strike the military infrastructure of Ukraine," Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

"On the morning of March 6, strikes were carried out by high-precision long-range weapons. The Ukrainian air force base near Starokostiantyniv was disabled."

He said a Ukrainian-controlled S-300 missile system had also been destroyed by Russian rocket forces. He said Russia had downed 10 Ukrainian planes and helicopters over the past 24 hours.

Russia to let banks cut back reporting results amid sanctions

Russia's central bank announced it was allowing lenders in the country to reduce the frequency of their financial disclosures, a measure it said was necessary to mitigate sanctions fallout.

Moscow has been hit with a damaging package of financial and cultural penalties by Western countries in the wake of Russia's military incursion into Ukraine.

The central bank in recent days has taken unprecedented measures, including capital controls, to shore up the struggling economy and the ruble.

"The Bank of Russia decided to temporarily reduce the volume of publication of financial statements of credit institutions," it said in a statement on its site.

"This was done to limit the risks of credit institutions associated with the sanctions imposed by Western countries."

It added, however, that financial institutions would still be required to submit reports to it, a step it said would "make it possible to fully exercise effective supervision over their activities and analyse the sector."

More than 64 people detained at anti-war protests in Russia

More than 64 people have been detained at anti-war protests in Russia's Far East and eastern Siberia, OVD-Info protest monitor said.

The monitoring group said people were detained at protests in the Russian Pacific port city of Vladivostok and the Siberian city of Irkutsk.

US, Poland exploring deal to supply planes to Ukraine: reports

Washington is working on a deal with Poland to supply Ukraine with Soviet-era warplanes to bolster Kyiv's defenses against the Russian invasion, according to US media.

Multiple news outlets reported on Saturday that US officials told them of the possible deal, in which Poland would send Soviet-era aircraft to Ukraine in return for American F-16 fighter jets.

Since Russia invaded 10 days ago, the economic and humanitarian toll of the war has spiralled and officials have reported hundreds of civilians killed.

Weapons, ammunition and funds have poured into Ukraine from Western allies.

"We are working with the Poles on this issue and consulting with the rest of our NATO allies," a White House official was quoted as saying in reports by the Wall Street Journal and NBC.

Ukraine conflict to last months, if not years - UK deputy PM Raab

The conflict in Ukraine is set to last months, if not years, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab has said, adding international allies would need to show "strategic stamina" to ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin fails.

"Our mission with our allies is to ensure Putin fails in Ukraine, and it's going to take some time - we're talking about months, if not years - and therefore we have to show some strategic stamina, because this is not going to be over in days," Raab told Sky News.

US top diplomat praises Moldova for taking in refugees from Ukraine

Washington’s top diplomat Antony Blinken has praised Moldova’s leaders for taking in refugees from Ukraine as he visited the country on a tour through eastern Europe in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

More than 230,000 people had crossed into Moldova from Ukraine since the war began on Feb. 24, and 120,000 of them had stayed in the country, Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita said in a meeting with Blinken in the capital Chisinau.

"For a small country like Moldova, this is a very large number" and Moldova will need assistance to deal with the influx, she said.

Blinken, the Biden's administration's secretary of state, said he admired Moldova’s generosity and hospitality in taking in those fleeing the conflict, which the UN refugee agency said could have caused 1.5 million people to flee Ukraine by Sunday.

Ukraine health centres have been attacked, WHO chief says

The World Health Organization has confirmed "several" attacks on health care centres in Ukraine and is investigating others, the agency's chief said on Sunday.

The attacks caused multiple deaths and injuries, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus added in a Twitter message.

"Attacks on healthcare facilities or workers breach medical neutrality and are violations of international humanitarian law," he said.

As of today, WHO has published 6 verified reports of attacks on health care in #Ukraine. More reports are being verified.

WHO strongly condemns these attacks that caused 6 deaths & 11 injuries.

Health facilities, staff & patients are #NotATarget.
💥 https://t.co/eXJXrgAaXT pic.twitter.com/jwyDSibCFQ

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) March 5, 2022

Russia, without evidence, says Ukraine making nuclear 'dirty bomb'

Russian media cited an unnamed source on Sunday as saying that Ukraine was close to building a plutonium-based "dirty bomb" nuclear weapon, although the source cited no evidence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine on February 24, with the aim to "demilitarise" and "denazify" its pro-Western neighbour and prevent Kyiv from joining NATO.

The West, dismissing that rationale as a pretext, has responded with harsh sanctions on Moscow and heavy military and other aid to Kyiv.

The TASS, RIA and Interfax news agencies quoted "a representative of a competent body" in Russia on Sunday as saying Ukraine was developing nuclear weapons at the destroyed Chernobyl nuclear power plant that was shut down in 2000.

Ukraine's government has said it had no plans to rejoin the nuclear club, having given up its nuclear arms in 1994 following the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Shortly before the invasion, Putin said in a grievance-filled speech that Ukraine was using Soviet know-how to create its own nuclear weapons, and that this was tantamount to preparation for an attack on Russia.

He cited no evidence for his claim.

Ukraine's Zelensky says held phone call with Biden

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that he spoke by phone with his US counterpart Joe Biden early on Sunday to discuss financial support and sanctions against Russia.

"As part of the constant dialogue, I had another conversation with @POTUS," Zelensky tweeted.

"The agenda included the issues of security, financial support for Ukraine and the continuation of sanctions against Russia."

As part of the constant dialogue, I had another conversation with @POTUS. The agenda included the issues of security, financial support for Ukraine and the continuation of sanctions against Russia.

— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 6, 2022

Putin threatens Ukraine 'statehood' as Moscow sanctions tighten

Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened the existence of Ukrainian statehood as his army's invasion of the neighbour faces stiff resistance and his economy is increasingly asphyxiated by sanctions.

"The current (Ukrainian) authorities must understand that if they continue to do what they are doing, they are putting in question the future of Ukrainian statehood," Putin said on Saturday.

"And if this happens, they will be fully responsible."

Kyiv has urged the West to boost military assistance to the besieged country, including warplanes, with President Volodymyr Zelensky pleading for Eastern European neighbours to provide Russian-made planes that his citizens are trained to fly.

Putin meanwhile escalated warnings against NATO, threatening a wider war if a no-fly zone is set up, as his forces resumed their offensive against a key Ukrainian city where security fears stalled a planned evacuation.

UK intelligence says Russia targeting populated areas in Ukraine

British military intelligence have said that Russian forces were targeting populated areas in Ukraine but that the strength of resistance was slowing the Russian advance.

"The scale and strength of Ukrainian resistance continue to surprise Russia," British military intelligence said in an update. Russia "has responded by targeting populated areas in multiple locations, including Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol."

"Russia has previously used similar tactics in Chechnya in 1999 and Syria in 2016, employing both air and ground-based munitions," British military intelligence said.