Russia-Ukraine war: eight killed in Kyiv shopping centre strike; Russian troops disperse protest with stun grenades – live | World news

At least eight people have died after shelling hit a Kyiv shopping centre late on Sunday, destroying nearby buildings and leaving a pile of rubble and wreckage spread over several hundred metres.

A group of 50 Ukrainian orphans due to fly to the UK are stuck in Poland after a key piece of paperwork was not provided in time, PA news agency reports.

The group, whose ages range between two and 19, were due to fly from Warsaw to London today, before travelling up to Scotland later in the week.

However, a form that should have been sent by the Ukrainian government to a Polish ministry, needed to release the group, was not sent in time before the plane left for Heathrow airport.

The flight will not take place before Wednesday earliest, with organisers looking at alternative options. The children and their carers are awaiting the next flight in a hotel.

The SNP Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, who was due to join the flight, told PA:

We’ve been up against a race against time to get the paperwork that needs to be in place signed off on and there’s been a delay on that.

So, for the time being, it means that nothing is going to happen today.

I think the key thing is that a lot of people will determine everything is done to support the orphans that are currently in Poland.

That has always been the first and last concern of all of this, so we’ll continue to work with everybody to make sure that arrangements can be put in place to give the children that sanctuary in Scotland.

The Buena Vista Music Bar was one of Kyiv’s most popular cocktail venues until war arrived.

It has remained open despite the conflict engulfing the city, and is now a refuge for citizens, military and the press. People come for a hot meal, to meet others who have remained in the Ukrainian capital and to take in the day’s news.

Maks Leonov, the bar’s owner, is determined to keep the doors open for as long as possible.

Ukraine’s armed forces said Russian troops used stun grenades and gunfire to disperse a rally of anti-occupation protesters in the southern city of Kherson, Reuters reports.

As we reported earlier, video footage shared on social media today appears to show civilians in Kherson’s Freedom Square running to escape as projectiles land around them. Loud bangs and what sounds like gunfire can also be heard.

In a statement, the Ukrainian armed forces press service said:

Russian security forces ran up, started throwing stun grenades into the crowd and shooting.

At least one person was wounded, it said, but it is unclear how they were injured in the incident.

Reuters was unable to verify independently what weapons were fired. Russia did not immediately comment on the incident.

The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has called on China to play an “important role” in efforts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian negotiator and presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak urged China to join the west in condemning “Russian barbarism”.

It comes after the US president, Joe Biden, spoke with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, in a two-hour video call on Friday.

Biden described to his Chinese counterpart “the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians”, the White House said in a statement following the call.

On Sunday, China’s ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, said his country was not sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, but he did not definitively rule out the possibility that Beijing may do so in the future.

The US has said it cannot independently confirm or refute a Russian claim over the weekend that it fired hypersonic missiles at a Ukrainian target, but the use of such a weapon makes little sense from a military perspective.

A senior US defence official said:

It could be that they’re trying to send a message to the west. There’s just not a lot of practicality about it.”

Reuters reports:

Russia said on Saturday it had used hypersonic Kinzhal (Dagger) missiles to destroy a large weapons depot in Ukraine’s western Ivano-Frankivsk region.

Russia’s Interfax news agency said it was the first time Russia had deployed the Kinzhal system since it sent its troops into Ukraine on 24 February.

Moscow prides itself on its advanced weaponry, and President Vladimir Putin said in December that Russia was the global leader in hypersonic missiles, whose speed, manoeuvrability and altitude make them difficult to track and intercept

Germany has added to calls from western countries for Opec to increase oil production and avoid profiteering from global sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Reuters reports:

OPEC heavyweights Saudi Arabia and the UAE have resisted western calls, including from the US, to use their spare oil output capacity to tame prices that have surged as the invasion prompted fears of supply disruptions.

German economy minister Robert Habeck said:

I’m not asking that they join the sanctions … but I ask not to be a profiteer of European and US sanctions.”

The decision to ban Facebook and Instagram by a Moscow court on grounds that parent company Meta Platforms is an “extremist organisation” will not apply to WhatsApp messenger service.

On Monday, Moscow’s Tverskoi district court upheld a lawsuit filed by Russian state prosecutors on banning the activities of Meta on Russian territory, the court’s press service said in a statement.

The court said:

The decision does not apply to the activities of Meta’s messenger WhatsApp, due to its lack of functionality for the public dissemination of information.”

Russia has told the US ambassador that ties are on the verge of being severed following “unacceptable comments” from US president Joe Biden about Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.

Last week, Biden described Putin as “a war criminal”.

A Russian court has ordered Meta to stop Facebook and Instagram activities in Russia immediately, on the grounds of “extremist activity”.

The Russian state-owned news agency Tass earlier reported that a Moscow court rejected an attempt by Meta Platforms to have extremism charges against it dismissed.

The agency reported that Meta had asked for more time to prepare its legal position and had questioned the court’s authority to ban its activities at the request of state prosecutors.

At least 925 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since the conflict began almost a month ago, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said.

As of midnight 20 March, 925 civilians have died and 1,496 injured, it said.

The actual number of civilians killed so far in the war in Ukraine is likely to be considerably higher as the OHCHR, which has a large monitoring team in the country, has not yet been able to receive or verify casualty reports from several badly hit cities including Mariupol.

A 96-year-old Holocaust concentration camp survivor was killed in a bomb attack in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, German media are reporting.

Boris Romantschenko died on Friday after his home was hit by a projectile, according to his granddaughter. Romantschenko was a survivor of the Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Mittelbau-Dora and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.

In a statement today, the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation said it was “deeply dismayed” by the news.

Romantschenko had campaigned “intensively” for the memory of the Nazi crimes and was vice-president of the International Committee Buchenwald-Dora, the foundation added.

Russian and Ukrainian peace negotiators held a 90-minute video call on Monday and working groups will continue to meet throughout the day, a Ukrainian negotiator said, Reuters reports.

David Arakhamia, a member of the Ukrainian delegate, was quoted by Ukrainian media as saying:

Today we are working the whole day.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, warned on Sunday there was little chance of breakthrough in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

Thomas-Greenfield said:

We have supported the negotiations that President Zelenskiy has attempted with the Russians, and I use the word attempted because the negotiations seem to be one-sided, and the Russians have not leaned in to any possibility for a negotiated and diplomatic solution.

We tried before Russia decided to move forward in this brutal attack on Ukraine and those diplomatic efforts were not responded to well by the Russians, and they’re not responding now. But we’re still hopeful that the Ukrainian effort will end this brutal war.

A video posted on social media reportedly shows Russian troops throwing grenades and opening fire on a peaceful crowd in the southern port city of Kherson.

Kherson is occupied by Russian forces but there have been persistent civilian protests since it became the first major city to fall since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

Ukraine’s centre for strategic communications said Russian forces threw stun grenades at people attending a pro-Ukrainian rally. Some grenades exploded under protesters’ feet, it claimed.

At least two people were injured at the protests, according to reports.

Bombs are falling on Mariupol “every 10 minutes”, a Ukrainian officer inside the embattled port city told CNN.

Capt Svyatoslav Palamar, of the National Guard Azov Regiment, said he and his fellow fighters would not surrender in Mariupol.

He told CNN:

Bombs are falling every 10 minutes; Russian navy warships are shelling. Yesterday the soldiers defused four tanks, [as well as] armoured vehicles and troops. We still need ammunition, anti-tank weapons and air defence.

Ukraine rejected an ultimatum from Moscow to surrender Mariupol after a Russian deadline set at 5am Moscow time (7am GMT) on Monday passed.