Russia-Ukraine crisis: Shelling kills 9 in outskirts of Ukrainian city

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised his country’s troops at a huge flag-waving rally in Moscow as Russian forces strike Ukrainian cities from a distance again, pounding the capital of Kyiv and the country’s west.

The war is now in its fourth week. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again appealed to Putin to hold talks with him directly.

Zelensky also said in his Friday night time video address to the nation that more than 9,000 people were able to leave besieged Mariupol in the past day, and in all more than 180,000 people have been able to flee through humanitarian corridors.

The UN migration agency says the fighting has displaced nearly 6.5 million people inside Ukraine, on top of the 3.2 million refugees who have already fled the country. Ukraine says thousands have been killed.

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• Ukraine’s Zelensky says it is time for meaningful security talks with Moscow

• Russia claims progress in talks with Kyiv on a neutral Ukraine

Here's the latest of all top developments on March 19:

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11.50pm: Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv facing air raids

Russian air raids on Mykolaiv were taking place in quick succession Saturday, a regional official said, a day after a deadly strike on a military barracks in the southern Ukrainian city.

Vitaly Kim, head of the regional administration, said there wasn't even enough time to raise the alarm over the raids "because by the time we announce this tornado, it's already there".

"The (alert) message and the bombings arrive at the same time," he said on social media.

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11.05pm: Ukraine says 6,623 people were evacuated from cities on Saturday

A total of 6,623 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Saturday, a senior official said, considerably fewer than managed to escape the previous day.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president’s office, said in an online post that 4,128 people had left the besieged city of Mariupol. On Friday, he said 9,145 people had managed to leave cities across the country during the day.

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9.20pm: Boris Johnson: Russian win would bring ‘age of intimidation’

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Saturday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “turning point for the world,” arguing that a victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces would herald “a new age of intimidation.”

But the British leader was accused by opponents of making a crass comparison by likening Ukraine’s fight against invasion to the U.K.’s exit from the European Union.

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8.30pm: Russia warns of Ukrainian mines in Black Sea

Russia on Saturday warned that mines that Ukrainians had deployed in the Black Sea against its "military operation" could drift as far as the Straits of Bosphrous and the Mediterranean Sea.

"After the start of the Russian special military operation, Ukrainian naval forces had deployed barriers of mines around the ports of Odessa, Ochakov, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny," the FSB security service said in a statement, adding that the mines were "dilapidated" and made in the first half of the 20th century.

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7.40pm: Troops push deeper into Mariupol as locals plead for help

Russian forces pushed deeper into Ukraine’s besieged and battered port city of Mariupol on Saturday, where heavy fighting shut down a major steel plant and local authorities pleaded for more Western help.

The fall of Mariupol, the scene of some of the war’s worst suffering, would mark a major battlefield advance for the Russians, who are largely bogged down outside major cities more than three weeks into the biggest land attack in Europe since World War II.

More details here

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5.25pm: Dozens dead after military barracks hit in Mykolaiv

Dozens of soldiers were killed after Russian troops struck a Ukrainian military barracks in the southern city of Mykolaiv, witnesses told AFP on Saturday while a rescue operation was underway.

"No fewer than 200 soldiers were sleeping in the barracks" when Russian troops struck early Friday, a Ukrainian serviceman on the ground, 22-year-old Maxim, told AFP without providing his last name.

"At least 50 bodies have been recovered, but we do not know how many others are in the rubble," he said.

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1.33pm: Shelling kills nine in outskirts of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia, deputy mayor says

Nine people were killed and 17 wounded in shelling of the suburbs of the city of Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine on Friday, deputy mayor Anatoliy Kurtiev said on Saturday.

The military has since declared a 38-hour curfew in Zaporizhzhia, which was being attacked by Russian forces with mortars, tanks, helicopters and rocket systems, Kurtiev said in an online post.

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1.19pm: Ukraine says 10 humanitarian corridors agreed with Russians

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced Saturday that 10 humanitarian corridors have been agreed on with the Russians.

They include a corridor from the besieged port city of Mariupol, several in the Kyiv region and several in the Luhansk region.

She also announced plans to deliver humanitarian aid to the city of Kherson, which is currently under control of the Russian forces.

More details here

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12.03pm: Big steel plant ‘being destroyed’ in Mariupol

In the besieged port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian and Russian forces are fighting for the Azovstal steel plant, one of the biggest in Europe, said Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, in televised remarks on Saturday.

“Now there is a fight for Azovstal. . I can say that we have lost this economic giant. In fact, one of the largest metallurgical plants in Europe is actually being destroyed,” Denysenko said.

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11.53am: Ukraine military orders 38-hour curfew in southern Zaporizhzhia city, says official

The Ukrainian military imposed a 38-hour curfew in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, starting at 1400 GMT on Saturday and ending early on Monday, deputy mayor Anatoliy Kurtiev said.

“Do not go outside at this time!” he said in an online post.

The regional capital has become an important point of transit for some of the 35,000 people estimated to have fled the besieged Mariupol city in the south-east.

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