Ukrainian officials say a Russian strike has hit a children’s hospital and maternity facility in the besieged southeastern port city of Mariupol.

According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, there are still adults and kids under the rubble. The number of victims is yet unknown, local authorities report.

Radioactive substances could be released from Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant because it cannot cool spent nuclear fuel after its power connection was severed, Ukraine’s state-run nuclear company Energoatom said.

The plant has been disconnected from the power supply.

Energoatom says the nuclear plant needs electricity to cool down the spent fuel. If heated, radioactive substances can be released into the environment.

The connection to power can’t be restored while the fighting is ongoing, transmission system operator Ukrenergo reported.

Russia announced a new ceasefire in Ukraine to let civilians flee besieged cities, but there were only limited signs of progress providing escape routes for hundreds of thousands of people trapped without medicine or fresh water

The routes include Enerhodar and Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, from Sumy to Poltava, from Izium to Lozova, from Volnovakha to Pokrovsk, from Vorzel, Borodianka, Bucha, Irpin, and Hostomel to Kyiv.

Russian air strikes have reportedly killed 22 people in Sumy overnight.

Head of Sumy regional state administration Dmytro Zhyvytskyy said that were three children were among those killed in the northeastern city.

Yesterday saw 5,000 people successfully evacuated from Sumy to Poltava Oblast on March 8, according to Dmytro Lunin, who heads the Poltava Oblast Military Administration.

Those evacuated were mostly women and children, as well as citizens of Turkey.

The United Nations says more than two million people have now fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, many have found refuge in Poland.

Civilian casualties have reached 1,335 since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

So far, 474 civilians have been killed and 861 injured. 38 children have been killed and 71 wounded, although The agency believes the real figures are considerably higher.

Poland is to supply the U.S. with its entire stockpile of MIG-29 jets, free of charge.The planes are then expected to be shipped to Ukraine.The Polish government asked other NATO members to follow the country’s example.

More organisations are suspending business in Russia.Following international pressure to withdraw from the Russian market, Coca Cola announced that it will temporarily suspend its business in the country.

Britain says taht it had impounded a plane connected to a Russian billionaire under new aviation sanctions which give authorities the power to detain any Russian aircraft and to ban exports of aviation or space-related goods to Russia.

Transport minister Grant Shapps said one aircraft had already been impounded at Farnborough Airport in southern England while further investigations were carried out.

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