Recap developments from Russia's invasion of Ukraine for Tuesday March 15.
Summary
- Russia's invasion of Ukraine is into its 19th day.
- Thousands of people, including civilians and soldiers, have been killed in the conflict. As of Monday, the UN Human Rights office confirms at least 636 civilians have died in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began.
- The UN says more than 2.8 million people have fled Ukraine.
- Diplomatic talks between Ukraine and Russia end without breakthrough.
- The UK says Russia has reportedly installed its own mayor in Melitopol after allegedly abducting his predecessor last week.
8.40pm: That concludes live updates of the Russian invasion of Ukraine for Tuesday.
Breakfast will have the latest developments from Ukraine from 6am on TVNZ1 and OnDemand.
8.29pm: From 1News correspondent Anna Burns-Francis:
The US and China held seven hours of diplomatic talks on Tuesday, with much of the conversation taken up by the war in Ukraine.
The West doesn’t want sanctions weakened. (Source: 1News)
The US says the meeting was "intense" and the discussion around sanctions on Russia was "candid."
American intelligence leaked yesterday suggests Russia had asked China for both military and economic assistance - such as drones to use in the invasion, and even help with evading sanctions imposed by the US and Europe.
Read the full story here.
8.25pm: The latest intelligence update from the UK's defence ministry states Russia may seek to stage a referendum in Kherson so as to "legitimise the area as a 'breakaway republic' similar to Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea".
It says demonstrations have also taken place in multiple cities in Ukraine occupied by Russians.
"Russia has reportedly installed its own mayor in Melitopol following the alleged abduction of his predecessor on Friday 11 March. Subsequently, the Mayor of Dniprorudne has also reportedly been abducted by Russian forces.
"Russia is likely to make further attempts to subvert Ukrainian democracy as it attempts to consolidate political control of Ukraine," the ministry says.
8.12pm: Ukraine’s state emergency service says two people were killed in the shelling of Kyiv on Tuesday morning (local time).
8.00pm: From the Associated Press:
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says that talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations will continue.
Speaking in a video address, Zelensky says that the Ukrainian delegation did good work during Monday's talks. He doesn't provide further details.
Zelensky hails a Russian state TV employee who interrupted the main evening news program on Russian Channel 1 by running into a studio with a poster against the war in Ukraine. The employee was later arrested by police.
The Ukrainian president again addresses the Russian soldiers, urging them to stop fighting and saying: “I’m offering you a chance to survive.”
In a bid to shore up the economy badly battered by the war, Zelensky announces a plan to sharply reduce taxes for business.
7.31pm: The Associated Press reports at least one person was killed in the fire at the apartment building in the Svyatoshynskyi district of Kyiv.
A firefighter at the scene confirms the detail. They say several have been rescued alive but others are still inside as rescuers try to reach them.
Russian forces stepped up strikes overnight, Ukraine time, on the northwest suburbs of Irpin, Hostomel and Bucha, the head of the Kyiv region Oleksiy Kuleba says on Ukrainian television.
7.07pm: CNN journalists report large blasts in the capital Kyiv.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's state emergency service says an apartment building is on fire after the shelling.
6.19pm: Russian missiles have reportedly hit residential buildings in the centre of Kyiv, according to videos on social media reported by Ukrainian outlet Euromaidan Press.
6.00pm: The New York Times is reporting China’s top diplomat called on the international community to support peace talks between Russia and Ukraine to help de-escalate the situation as soon as possible.
5.37pm: From the Associated Press:
The United Nations chief warned on Tuesday that Russia’s war on Ukraine is holding “a sword of Damocles” over the global economy, especially poor developing countries that face skyrocketing food, fuel and fertiliser prices and are now seeing their breadbasket "being bombed".
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tells reporters that “Russia and Ukraine represent more than half of the world’s supply of sunflower oil and about 30 per cent of the world’s wheat” and that “grain prices have already exceeded those at the start of the Arab Spring and the food riots of 2007-2008".
He tells reporters that 45 African and least developed countries import at least one-third of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia, and 18 of them import at least 50 per cent.
These countries include Egypt, Congo, Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, he says.
5.20pm: Spain has seized a Russian oligarch's yacht in Barcelona, according to Reuters.
"Spain has temporarily seized a Russian oligarch's $140 million yacht in Barcelona, the country said on Monday, as two sources said the vessel belonged to the head of Russian state conglomerate Rostec, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin," the report says.
4.25pm: The Kyiv Independent is reporting heavy explosions in Kyiv early on March 15.
3.55pm: United States secretary of state Antony Blinken praises New Zealand for its tough sanctions against Russia.
He says in a tweet: "New Zealand’s measures show strong solidarity with Ukraine in concert with the international community."
Earlier on Tuesday, the Government announced further support for Ukraine with a Special Ukraine Policy allowing Ukrainians a two-year working visa.
3.45pm: The Kyiv Independent is reporting Mariupol City Council confirmed around 2357 people in the city have died as a result of the war as of March 14, and that all other estimates are false.
3.40pm: Tesla boss Elon Musk has challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to "single combat" to decide the fate of Ukraine.
Musk took to Twitter to say: "I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to single combat. Stakes are Ukraine."
2:40pm: The Kyiv Independent is reporting more than 40,000 Syrians have registered to travel to Ukraine and fight for Russia, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a non-governmental group.
2.15pm: CNN's White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins is reporting the leaders of NATO may meet in Brussels as soon as next week for what would be an extraordinary meeting amid Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
2.00pm: Photos emerging out of Ukraine capture the devastation of attacks.
Firefighters extinguish an apartment house after a Russian rocket attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city.
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows burning and heavily damaged apartment buildings and the destroyed Port City shopping mall in western Mariupol.
A Ukrainian soldier passes by a destroyed a trolleybus and taxi after a Russian bombing attack in Kyiv, Ukraine.
1.45pm: The Kyiv Independent is reporting a retired US Army General believes Russia will exhaust its ability to fight within ten days.
1.30pm: The Institute for the Study of War is reporting Russian forces made small territorial gains in Luhansk Oblast on March 14 but did not conduct any major attacks toward Kyiv or in north-eastern Ukraine.
1.00pm: The BBC is reporting UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is set to announce new sanctions on more than 100 individuals with links to Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime.
Last week the New Zealand Government also released a list of 100 people associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine that come under a travel ban, with Putin at the top of the list.
12.43pm: Talks between Russia and Ukraine are expected to resume overnight as attacks on Ukraine enter their 20th day.
As the BBC’s James Landale reports in the video below, there are hopes an agreement of a ceasefire will be reached.
12.08pm: The New Zealand Government says it is offering shelter for around 4000 family members of Ukrainians in New Zealand.
"The 2022 Special Ukraine Policy will be open for one year from today and enable Ukrainian-born New Zealand citizens and residents in New Zealand to sponsor a Ukrainian family member and their immediate family," Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta says in a statement.
New Zealand is also providing a further humanitarian aid to support people in Ukraine, the statement says.
"Our thoughts are with the people of Ukraine. New Zealand will be providing an additional $4 million in funding to support Ukrainian communities,” Mahuta says.
“Russia is causing a massive humanitarian crisis, with over 2.8 million people fleeing from the invasion in Ukraine to neighbouring countries. Reports also show over 1.8 million internally displaced within Ukraine following Russia’s attacks on humanitarian corridors and the targeting of innocent people, hospitals, schools, homes and civilian infrastructure.
“This funding is in addition to the initial $2 million we have already provided and will help those immediately on the ground while we continue to look at options for further support."
11.55am: From the Associated Press:
Activists have occupied a London townhouse linked to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, saying the property will be used to support Ukrainian refugees.
The UK government last week froze Deripaska’s assets as it expanded sanctions against wealthy Russians and companies to put pressure on President Vladimir Putin’s regime to end its invasion of Ukraine.
The sanctions announcement identified Deripaska as a prominent “pro-Kremlin oligarch” who is closely linked to Putin.
Activists on Tuesday stood on the balcony of 5 Belgrave Square and unfurled Ukrainian flags and a banner proclaiming that the property had been “liberated".
11.45am: The BBC is reporting that Putin has implemented a new law that makes it harder for foreign aircraft leasing companies to repossess their planes as Western sanctions begin to take effect.
"The new law will allow foreign jets to be registered in Russia "to ensure the uninterrupted functioning of activities in the field of civil aviation". Critics say it will allow Russia to seize privately-owned planes and put them to domestic use in the vast country.
"Russian airlines have 515 jets leased from abroad worth about $10 billion (NZ$14.8 billion).
"Foreign owners have until March 28 to get them back from Russian companies before sanctions kick in.
"But, as BBC Business Correspondent Theo Leggett explains, it's one thing to steal aircraft, it's quite another to keep them operating for any length of time.
"If Russia does go ahead and seize foreign-owned planes, it will immediately struggle to maintain them," the report says.
11.20am: The live main evening news program on Russia’s state television was briefly interrupted on Tuesday by a person who walked into the studio holding a poster against the war in Ukraine.
The poster read, “Stop the war, don’t believe propaganda. They're lying to you” as she chanted “Stop the war! No war”.
Earlier this morning, Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta tweeted: "On the air of the Vremya program, behind the back of the host Ekaterina Andreeva, a girl appeared with a poster, the content of which we are forbidden to transfer to Roskomnadzor and the Criminal Code.
"According to unconfirmed information, this is the editor Marina Ovsyannikova.
"She is currently under arrest."
This has been translated from Russian.
10.34am: Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky has extended his condolences to Brent Renaud, an acclaimed filmmaker shot and killed in Ukraine.
10.26am: The BBC is reporting more than 4000 civilians successfully evacuated Ukraine on Monday local time, according to Ukraine's deputy PM.
"In a video statement, Vereshchuk said that the evacuations were conducted through seven humanitarian corridors.
"Three other such corridors, however, were unable to operate successfully, she added," the report says.
10.19am: The war in Ukraine is threatening global food supply and putting some of the world's poorest countries at risk the boss of the United Nations World Food Program says.
9.56am: From the Associated Press:
The Russian military was largely stalled in its attempted advance in Ukraine in the past day and made little progress over the weekend, a senior US defence official says.
The official also says Russians have not taken total control of the airspace. The official says all of the Russian military forces that had been arrayed around the country are now inside, and that the Russians still retain about 90 per cent of their combat capabilities.
The official says there are no indications the Russians are trying to bring in reinforcements.
The official also says the US has not done any training of the Ukrainian military in the country since the Florida National Guard forces left as the war was beginning. And the official says a military training base the Russians hit in western Ukraine on Monday close to the Polish border wasn't being used as a shipment site for US military supplies to Ukraine.
9.06am: Footage showing soldiers firing from an armoured vehicle at Russian forces in Mairupol has been released by the Ukrainian National Guard, a paramilitary police force fighting alongside the National Army.
It shows a Russian armoured personnel carrier and forces being fired at from the vehicle, as seen on a monitor inside the vehicle.
8.18am: BBC reports a journalist working for America's Fox News has been injured while reporting outside Kyiv.
John Roberts, co-anchor of America Reports says live on air there are "very few details but teams on the ground are working as hard as they can to try and gather more information on what has happened".
7.24am: Evacuations of civilians continue across Ukraine. In Mariupol a convoy of 160 cars managed to leave the city.
Philip Crowther of the Associated Press tells Breakfast it’s a sliver of hope for the under fire city.
Philip Crowther of the Associated Press told Breakfast it’s a sliver of hope for the under fire city. (Source: Breakfast)
6.49am: From the Associated Press:
A Russian rocket attack on a television tower in the western village of Antopol on Tuesday killed nine people, according to the governor of the Rivne region. The village is only about 160 kilometres from the border of NATO member Poland.
Ukrainian authorities also say two people died and seven were injured after Russian forces struck an airplane factory in the capital of Kyiv, and that two people were killed in the northern Obolonskyi district of the capital when Russian artillery fire hit a nine-story apartment building. They say a Russian airstrike in the capital’s downtown area on Tuesday killed one person and wounded six others.
The United Nations has recorded at least 596 civilian deaths since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, though it believes the true toll is much higher.
6.30am: From the Associated Press:
The White House is weighing the possibility of President Joe Biden travelling to Europe in the coming weeks for face-to-face talks with European leaders about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to three US officials familiar with the deliberations.
1News’ US Correspondent Anna Burns-Francis explains. (Source: Breakfast)
The prospective trip is yet to be finalised. One possible destination for the meetings would be Brussels, which is the headquarters for NATO.
Biden’s potential trip would follow Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to the eastern flank NATO countries of Poland and Romania last week to discuss with leaders there the growing refugee crisis in eastern Europe sparked by the Russian invasion. The trip would underscore the Biden administration’s support for NATO allies. NBC News first reported that the discussions for a potential Biden trip are underway.
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