LIVE Russia-Ukraine crisis: Nearly 100 children have died since Moscow's attack

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said late on Monday that negotiations with Russia are to continue on Tuesday.

Zelensky also said he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as part of a negotiation effort to end the crisis with Russia “with a fair peace.”

“Our delegation also worked on this in negotiations with the Russian party,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “Pretty good, as I was told. But let’s see. They will continue tomorrow.”

Here's the latest of all top developments on March 15:

11:35pm: Polish, Czech, Slovenian PMs arrive in Kyiv

The Polish, Czech and Slovenian prime ministers arrived in Kyiv by train on Tuesday, the first visit by foreign leaders to Ukraine's besieged capital since Russia the attack last month.

"We have to halt this tragedy unfolding in the East as quickly as possible," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a post on Facebook announcing their arrival.

Ukraine had the "unequivocal support" of the European Union, he added.

7:45pm: Nearly 100 children have died since Moscow's attack

Nearly a hundred children have died in the war that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Canadian lawmakers on Tuesday.

The southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol was left without means of communication and was nearly running out of food, Zelenskiy said in a virtual address to Canadian lawmakers.

He added that 97 children had been reported dead in total since the war began.

6:30pm: Zelensky says Ukraine must recognise it will not join NATO

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says the country realizes that it can’t join NATO.

Speaking Tuesday to representatives of the U.K.-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), Zelensky said that “we heard for years about the allegedly open doors” of NATO, but “we have already heard that we won’t be able to join.”

The JEF may consist of Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway.

Zelensky again urged Western allies to provide Ukraine with warplanes.

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6:25pm: Ukraine parliament extends martial law by a month

Ukraine’s parliament voted on Tuesday to extend martial law for another 30 days from March 26, approving a bill submitted by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The war in Ukraine began on Feb. 24 when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched what he called a “special military operation,” the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.

5:07pm: 2,000 cars left Ukraine’s Mariupol via humanitarian corridor

Some 2,000 civilian cars have been able to drive out of the besieged southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol along a humanitarian evacuation route, the city authorities said Tuesday.

“As of 14:00 (1200 GMT) it is known that 2,000 cars left Mariupol,” the city council said on Telegram, adding that a further 2,000 vehicles were waiting to leave the city.

The statement did not specify how many people left in the vehicles.

Another 160 cars had left the city on Monday, the council has said.

5pm: Italy, US agree over “decisive, united” response to Russia attack

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and US national security adviser Jake Sullivan agreed at a meeting on Tuesday that there must be no let up in the response to Russia’s “unjustified” invasion of Ukraine.

“Draghi and Sullivan agreed on the firm condemnation of Russia’s unjustified aggression and the need to continue with a decisive and united response,” Draghi’s office said in a statement after the meeting in Rome.

4:15pm: Russian bombardment of Kyiv kills four

Russian air strikes and shelling hit Kyiv on Tuesday killing at least four people, authorities said, as attacking forces tightened their grip on the Ukrainian capital and the mayor announced a 35-hour curfew starting at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT).

Two large blasts echoed across the centre of the city just before dawn on Tuesday. Late on Monday, tracer bullets flashed across the night sky as Ukrainian forces apparently targeted an enemy drone.

“Today is a difficult and dangerous moment,” mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

More details here

4pm: UK slaps heavy tariffs on Russian imports

Britain on Tuesday imposed an additional 35 percent tariff on a swathe of Russian imports, from vodka to steel, and banned exports of luxury goods over Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.

“We want to cause maximum harm to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war machine while minimising the impact on UK businesses,” the Department for International Trade said.

“Russian vodka is one of the iconic products affected by the tariff increases, while the export ban will likely affect luxury vehicles, high-end fashion and works of art.”

More details here

2:53pm: More than three million refugees flee Ukraine war

More than three million people have now fled Ukraine since Russia attacked on February 24, the United Nations said Tuesday.

“We have now reached the three-million mark in terms of movement of people out of Ukraine,” Paul Dillon, spokesman for the UN’s International Organization for Migration, told reporters in Geneva.

More than 1.4 million of these are children, according to the UN children’s agency UNICEF, while 157,000 are third-country nationals, IOM said.

More details here

2:48pm: Red Cross hopes to evacuate civilians from besieged Sumy

The Red Cross is hoping to organise the evacuation of two convoys of some 30 buses with civilians out of the besieged northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy and their passage to a safe area, a spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Ewan Watson, spokesperson of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told a U.N. briefing in Geneva that the operation would be carried out with the Ukrainian Red Cross but was not underway yet. He noted there had been delays with similar evacuations from Mariupol, where he said people are “essentially being suffocated in this city now with no aid’.

Some 2.95 million Ukrainians have fled their homeland since Russian forces attacked 20 days ago, including 1.8 million in Poland, U.N. refugee agency spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh said. Some 300,000 have gone on to Western Europe, he said.

2:45pm: Ukrainian region issues country-wide air raid warning

The northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv issued a warning of country-wide air attacks on Tuesday, urging citizens to head to shelters.

It was not immediately clear whether other regions had issued similar warnings of new air strikes by Russian forces that attacked Ukraine on Feb. 24 .

“Attention. Air raid ALL UKRAINE! Take shelter!,” said the warning, shared in an online post.

2:40pm: Kremlin says too early for conclusions on Ukraine talks

The Kremlin said Tuesday it was too soon to draw any conclusions from talks to resolve the conflict in Ukraine as fighting intensified around the capital Kyiv.

“The work is complex, but the very fact that the work is continuing is in itself positive,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“We don’t want to give any forecasts. Let’s wait for tangible results,” he said.

2.36pm: Kyiv to impose 36-hour curfew from late Tuesday: mayor

Ukraine’s capital Kyiv will impose a 36-hour curfew from Tuesday night amid a “difficult and dangerous moment” after several Russian strikes, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

He added that the curfew will last from 8 pm (1800 GMT) on Tuesday until 7 am (0500 GMT) on Thursday.

1:27pm: Russian forces have been pushed back slightly from Mykolayiv city

The governor of Ukraine’s southern region of Mykolayiv said the security situation was calmer in the area on Tuesday because Russian forces had been pushed back slightly from the regional capital, which they have been trying to seize.

In an interview on national television, Governor Vitaliy Kim said Russian troops continued to fire at the city of Mykolayiv and that 80 people were wounded on Monday, including two children.

“You can be 99% sure that Mykolayiv region will continue to hold back the advance of the Russian troops. There is the Bug River, which they need to force their way across in order to advance,” he said. “We will not give up the bridges to the invaders.”