Image source, Getty Images

A further 370 Russian individuals and entities have been hit by UK sanctions that include asset freezes and travel bans.

New names in the list include:

• Dmitry Medvedev - Russia's president (2008-2012), prime minister (2012-2020) and chairman of the Security Council of Russia (since 2020)

• Dmitry Peskov - Putin's spokesman
• Sergei Shoigu - minister of defence
• Maria Zakharova - spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry
• Margarita Simonyan - editor-in-chief of Russian-backed news channel RT
• Pyotr Aven - co-founder of Russia's biggest investment bank, Alfa-Bank
• MIkhail Fridman - London-based oligarch who co-founded Alfa-Bank with Aven

Earlier, the UK hit Russia with trade restrictions, including an additional 35% tariff on vodka.

More on this story here.

Hugo Bachega
BBC News, Lviv

The south-eastern city of Mariupol is encircled by Russian troops and remains under constant bombardment with almost 400,000 people still trapped without running water, and food and medical supplies quickly running out.

In one large public building, hundreds of people are crammed in the basement. "Some have developed sepsis from shrapnel in the body," said Anastasiya Ponomareva, a 39-year-old teacher who fled the city at the start of the war but was still in contact with friends there. "Things are very serious."

Sergei Orlov, the city's deputy mayor, says things are "getting more difficult by the hour".

"From the humanitarian point of view, the situation is horrible. There isn't enough food, water, medicine, insulin, baby food. Everyone has specific needs," he tells the BBC.

"We get a lot of calls. For example, a mother who says: 'I have a child in my hands [who] is dying from hunger'. And unfortunately, we can't do anything. Or we get a call: 'Here's our address. We're blocked in the basement. What should we do?'"

Read more of Hugo's report about the situation in Mariupol here.

Disbelief over European leaders' trip to Kyiv by trainpublished at 12:43 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2022

12:43 GMT 15 March 2022

Rob Cameron
BBC Prague Correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

When the Czech prime minister Petr Fiala tweeted he and his Polish and Slovenian counterparts were on their way to Kyiv the initial reaction was - how?

Experts said helicopter or plane would be out of the question. The car journey from the Polish border to Kyiv is over seven hours, and also fraught with danger.

So there was disbelief when it emerged the three would travel to the Ukrainian capital by train - a seven hour journey in peacetime.

Fiala said they had informed EU colleagues last week, and would be travelling as an official European Council delegation.

But an EU official told the BBC the visit had "no formal mandate" from the council, and Brussels had only been notified it was going ahead last night.

The EU recognised the need to show full support to Ukraine, but President Charles Michel had pointed to the "security risks" of the trip.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, PA Media

We have more on what Ukraine's President Zelensky told European leaders in London earlier. He said currently his people were relying on the support of international partners rather than the Nato alliance.

"Of course, Ukraine is not a Nato member, we understand that. We have heard for many years about the open doors, but we also heard that we can't enter those doors."

He said other countries bordering Russia should think about their "independent defence capabilities" outside Nato.

Other key lines from his address:

• Speaking by video link, he said shipments of supplies from the UK and other nations were being rapidly used up: "The amount that we are getting per week is used usually by us within 20 hours"
• As a result, captured Russian equipment and old Soviet-era kit was being pushed into service, he said
• He welcomed Western sanctions, but said they were not enough to end Russian aggression, and called for a full trade embargo.
• He criticised firms which continued doing business with Russia
• Russian navy vessels should be barred from ports around the world and all Russian banks excluded from the Swift financial messaging system

The mayor of Kyiv says four people have been confirmed killed after air strikes hit the capital overnight.

"Rescuers are still extinguishing the flames from early morning," Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram., external

Initially, emergency services had reported the deaths of two people in an apartment block following the strikes.

Image source, Reuters

The Red Cross is hoping to evacuate civilians from the north-eastern city of Sumy - which has experienced heavy shelling - with 70 buses in two convoys today.

A spokesperson for the organisation also noted the dire situation in the besieged southern port of Mariupol – with people "essentially being suffocated in this city with no aid'.

This comes as the numbers fleeing Ukraine top three million, according to the UN, with around 1.8 million going to Poland.

The UN's children's charity, Unicef, says almost half the refugees are children – suggesting that every second a Ukrainian child becomes a refugee.

A growing number of those leaving have no relatives in Europe, nowhere to go and are said to be traumatised by what they've experienced.

Orla Guerin
BBC News

Image source, Orla Guerin/BBC

For the second day running, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv awoke to residential buildings on fire. It feels like this could become the new normal. There is a clear sense that the conflict is coming ever closer to city.

A 15-story block in the north-west of the city was still smouldering when we arrived, with fires flickering in parts of the blackened and charred building.

There was cinders and ash dropping, as neighbours stood in silent clusters looking on. Some stopped by walking their dogs.

The emergency services told us the building had been hit by a Russian shell, and two people had been killed.

There area was full of high-rise apartment blocks. We saw no sign of any possible military targets.

An elderly woman called Svetlana, who lives nearby, told us she was Russian herself and had never faced any problems with her neighbours.

She said the only fascists were the Russians who were bombing civilians.

Image source, EPA

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been speaking to European leaders in London and has expressed his frustration with Nato over their refusal to implement a no-fly zone. (More on that and why the West won't act here).

In a video call to UK PM Boris Johnson and other countries in the Joint Expedition Force,, external Zelensky said Nato was "the strongest alliance in the world" - but "some of the members of this alliance are hypnotised by Russian aggression".

"We hear a lot of conversations about the third world war, that allegedly it could start if Nato will close the Ukrainian sky for Russian missiles and planes and therefore the humanitarian no-fly zone was not yet established," he said.

"That allows the Russian army to bombard peaceful cities and blow up housing blocks and hospitals and schools. Four multi-storey buildings in Kyiv in the early morning were bombarded, dozens of dead."

Abdujalil Abdurasulov
BBC News, Kyiv

This is one of the residential buildings hit by strikes overnight in Kyiv.

There are a number of fire trucks, but it will take time to put out the fires because almost every single flat was damaged.

It's quite close to the area where the fighting is going on. There are reports that Russian forces are about 10 to 15km away.

There has been a lot of speculation about whether the Russian troops would be willing to bomb Kyiv. This place, the capital of Ukraine, has symbolic value for them, as well, with all those orthodox churches and historical sites.

However, sights like this suggest that Russian troops are ready to use brutal force in order to take Kyiv.

An airport in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro has been hit by Russian missiles, regional authorities say.

Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional state administration, says there has been "massive destruction".

"At night, the enemy attacked the airport in Dnipro. Two missile strikes," he wrote on Telegram. "The runway was destroyed. The terminal was damaged. Massive destruction."

Image source, Reuters

Earlier we brought you the news that a jet linked to Chelsea football club owner and Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich had landed in Moscow, according to Reuters

The news agency has also said that he travelled through Ben Gurion international airport in Israel - and there are now pictures of him there.

Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK last week for his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the EU has followed suit. He has denied having close ties to Putin.

Vitaliy Shevchenko
BBC Monitoring

Image source, NTV

A news presenter from one of Russia's most important TV channels has resigned and left the country, according to reports.

"I left [Russia] first because I was afraid they would not let me go just like that, then I submitted my resignation," Lilia Gildeyeva from NTV told prominent blogger Ilya Varlamov., external

Gildeyeva was an anchor on Segodnya (Today), the flagship evening news programme on NTV – Russia's third most popular TV station, which is owned by gas giant Gazprom and is firmly pro-Kremlin.

In 2021, Gildeyeva was included in President Putin's official list of journalists who received thanks for "achievements in developing mass media". And in 2008, she was thanked by Putin for "information provision and active social activity to develop civil society in the Russian Federation".

Gildeyeva's reported departure follows the anti-war protest by a news editor on state-controlled Channel 1 last night that we have been telling you about.

Adam Easton
Warsaw Correspondent

Image source, EPA

The Polish, Czech and Slovenian prime ministers are travelling by train to Kyiv for talks with Ukraine’s president and prime minister.

They are travelling as representatives of the European Union and will present details of a concrete support package for Ukraine, Michal Dworczyk, the head of the Polish prime minister’s office said.

The visit was arranged during the recent EU summit in Versailles, Dworczyk added.

The three leaders, who are accompanied by the head of Poland’s governing party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, will present a broad package of EU support for Ukraine, he said.

Their train has already crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border enroute to Kyiv.

Dworczyk reiterated that Nato will not engage militarily in the war but would do all it can to help Ukraine against the Russian attack.

If you're just joining us, these are the latest developments in Ukraine today:

• Large explosions have been heard in the capital Kyiv and two people have been killed as Russian air strikes hit residential buildings and a metro station. A long curfew will begin tonight until Thursday morning

• Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are due to continue today; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky published another video message overnight where he sounded a note of cautious optimism about the talks

• The prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia are due to travel to Kyiv later to meet Zelensky
• The EU has unveiled its fourth set of sanctions against Russia, aimed at crippling its ability to finance the invasion. The UK has also announced new sanctions targeting Russian vodka and luxury goods. More on sanctions here
• A journalist who interrupted Russian state TV with a sign reading "no war" has reportedly been detained

Image source, EPA

A curfew is to be imposed on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, from 20:00 (18:00 GMT) on Tuesday until 07:00 (05:00 GMT) on Thursday after recent bombardments on the city.

"It is prohibited to move around the city without special permission, except to go to bomb shelters," Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

"The capital is the heart of Ukraine, and it will be defended. Kyiv, which is currently the symbol and forward operating base of Europe’s freedom and security, will not be given up by us."

The UK has joined the EU in announcing new economic sanctions against Russia, external, hitting products with new import taxes, and banning the export of high-end luxury goods to the country.

An initial list of goods worth £900m, including Russian vodka, will face an additional 35% import tax on top of existing tariffs.

The export ban will likely impact luxury vehicles, works of art and high-end fashion - and is designed to deprive the oligarchs and Russian elite of such items, the UK says.

UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak says that the new taxes on Russian imports will "further isolate the Russian economy from global trade" ensuring that it doesn't benefit from the "rules-based international system it does not respect".

The actions of a news editor who interrupted a live news bulletin on Russia's state TV Channel One last night to protest against Moscow's invasion of Ukraine amount to "hooliganism", a Kremlin spokesman has said.

Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at the channel, held up an anti-war sign behind the presenter reading: "No war, stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here."

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Russian news agency Interfax as saying: "As for this young woman, this is hooliganism,"

"The TV channel, and those in charge, are looking into this. This is not on our agenda."

Image source, Russian Defence Ministry

A spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry says Russian forces have taken full control of Ukraine's southern Kherson region.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify the claims by Igor Konashenkov.

Interfax-AVN news agency quoted him as saying Russian forces had taken full control of the entire territory.

Video earlier this week showed residents in the city of Kherson staging another demonstration against the Russian occupation, despite forces firing warning shots.

Jessica Parker
BBC News, Brussels

The EU has unveiled its fourth package of sanctions against the Kremlin. It's targeting luxury goods exports as well as investments in Russia's energy sector.

More oligarchs and people who spread so-called "disinformation" will be added to the list of individuals subject to EU asset freezes. Sources have told the BBC that list will include Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich, who's already been sanctioned by the UK.

There'll also be a ban on exporting luxury goods, such as expensive cars and jewellery, to Russia. Also, restrictions on the import of Russian steel products and on new investments in the Russian energy sector.

While the EU has gone further and faster on sanctions than many expected, diplomats have told the BBC of an increasingly evident rift; between Poland and Baltic states - who want ever stronger measures - versus a more cautious approach favoured by countries such as Germany and Italy.

Jenny Hill
BBC Berlin correspondent

I think it's really worth emphasising the extraordinary amount of courage it must have taken for this journalist to stage such a high-profile protest.

We must also emphasise the likelihood that she will face pretty severe consequences

The Kremlin has imposed pretty severe penalties against people who take part in unsanctioned protests, for example people can be sent to jail for up to eight years.

People who publish what the Kremlin would deem to be false information about the Russian army and its activities can also face a severe jail sentence of up to 15 years. There are a whole other host of laws under which we assume she could be prosecuted. We'll have to wait and see what happens.

Protests have continued every day since this invasion began and nearly 15,000 people have been reportedly detained.

She's undoubtedly gong to become more of a symbol for those people. Will she change the views of Russians who largely watch state television and believe the Kremlin's line? That's more difficult to answer.