Earlier we reported that protests have been taking part in several Ukrainian cities under Russian control.

The demonstrations appear to have been peaceful, but images on social media show Russian forces arresting people and dispersing crowds in places like Enerhodar.

Crowds of protesters gathered in the city after Mayor Dmytro Orlov alleged that Russian troops had abducted his first deputy, Ivan Samoydyuk.

"We do not know what condition he is in," Mr Orlov said on Telegram. "He has not been in touch since yesterday."

One video allegedly taken in another city, Berdyansk, shows people being detained and beaten by Russian forces. The BBC has not been able to independently verify these images.

A Chicago-based artist has raised $145,000 (£110,000) so far for the aid effort in Ukraine by making a Lego-style figurine of the country's President, Volodymyr Zelensky.

The mini figure - by custom Lego creators Citizen Brick - went on sale with a price tag of $100 and quickly sold out.

Money raised is being donated to the charity Direct Relief, who have sent medical aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion began.

Image source, Reuters

Steve McAndrew from the Red Cross in Lviv told the BBC that the organisation was doing all it could to reach people in the besieged city of Mariupol.

Earlier today, Mariupol's city council reported that an art school in the city, where about 400 people were sheltering, was attacked.

McAndrew said the reports out of Mariupol "are troubling" and the latest he had heard was that around 350,000 people are trapped in the city.

He added that his colleagues are trying to get into Mariupol, but "it's very, very difficult" to gain access.

McAndrew said the Red Cross has several facilities to provide support in Lviv, for example, but one of the difficulties it is facing at the moment is ensuring those who need it can get to them safely.

"They can be safe with us, they just need to get to us, but we need to get to them", he added.

Lyse Doucet and Anna Chornous
BBC News, Kyiv

Image source, BBC News

What can you do with two million tulips left over from International Women’s Day when the mall housing your warehouse in Kyiv is hit by a Russian missile?

The task was set for designer Kateryna Mamonova, her twin sister Olena, and their friends across Kyiv. By the next day volunteers of all ages were laying down tulips of all colours to form a three-pronged spear, Ukraine’s symbol, in cobbled St Sophia’s square.

“The trident is an ancient symbol of the unity of Ukraine and we want to send a message of the beauty of peace to the world,” Kateryna explains while young and old go back and forth, arms full of flowers.

Image source, BBC News

It also sends a message that, for all the air raid sirens and booms of Russian artillery fire on the outskirts of Kyiv, they’re here to stay.

“My grand grand grand fathers and mothers were born and died in this city. For me, Kyiv is my heart,” declares restauranteur Tetyana Mytrofanova, one of the organisers in sparkling red boots and a yellow jumpsuit and blue beret, the colours of Ukraine.

“I do a lot of little things,” she says, listing how she’s helping to feed people and help those displaced from cities like Mariupol and Kharkiv where fighting rages. “Everyone plays their part.”

There’s a ripple of excitement when Ukrainian rock star Oleg Skrypka rocks up.

“Absolutely, we can stop Russian tanks with our culture,” he insists. “With music I found a channel to provide emotional support to our people, and unite people around the world."

Image source, BBC News

He breaks into a rousing rendition of Ukraine’s national anthem, his deep voice booming across a tulip-covered square.

Next stop for the tulips: hospitals across the city to share the cheer.

Pictures by Robbie Wright

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu who is mediating peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, has said the two sides are close to an agreement.

Cavusoglu told the AFP news agency "it is not an easy thing to come to terms with while the war is going on, while civilians are killed" but he added "we see that the parties are close to an agreement".

Cavusoglu visited Russia and Ukraine this week, as Turkey has strong bonds with the two sides.

He added that Turkey was in contact with the negotiating teams but refused to speak about the details of the talks as Turkey plays "an honest mediator and facilitator role".

The two sides are negotiating on six key points

• Ukraine's neutrality
• disarmament and security guarantees
• the so-called "de-Nazification" of Ukraine
• the removal of obstacles on the use of the Russian language in Ukraine
• the status of the breakaway Donbass region
• the status of Crimea annexed by Russia in 2014

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video on Saturday: "This is the time to meet, to talk, time for renewing territorial integrity and fairness for Ukraine".

Image source, Getty Images

We’ve been trying to establish the facts around Ukrainian allegations that Mariupol refugees are being forcibly transferred to Russia.

Lyudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights ombudswoman, said Russian forces besieging Mariupol had taken several thousand residents – mostly women and children – to a holding camp, then to Taganrog. That Russian coastal city is 112km (70 miles) east of Mariupol. From there some were sent to other parts of Russia, she told Ukraine’s 24tv.ua news.

Mariupol mayor Vadym Boichenko called it the “kidnapping” of Mariupol residents by Russian troops, likening it to what the Nazis did to civilians in World War Two.

Fierce fighting is raging in the streets of Mariupol. Intense Russian shelling - for more than two weeks - has damaged or destroyed most of the port city’s buildings.

Reuters news agency interviewed some Mariupol refugees at a Taganrog sports hall on Thursday. An elderly couple - Lyudmila and Viktor Slivka – said Russian troops had given them just 10 minutes to pack some belongings and leave home.

Russian media allege that Ukrainian troops are using Mariupol residents as “human shields”. But Ukraine says its forces are resisting indiscriminate Russian shelling of homes and public buildings. Satellite and drone pictures show a devastated city.

Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reports that 500 refugees arrived in Yaroslavl on Saturday – a city some 1,400km north of Taganrog.

Another group of Mariupol refugees told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency in Taganrog that they were leaving by train for Ryazan, 1,000km to the north. RIA did not say how many were in that group.

It was not clear from the Russian reports what relocation help was provided for the refugees, nor whether they were transferred willingly.

Nick Thorpe
BBC News, on the Romanian-Ukrainian border

Image source, Reuters

Children are being handed toys as they cross here at Siret on the Romanian-Ukrainian border and a long line of stalls from different countries are providing food and personal items.

There is a stall further along here from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the very well-organised Romanian police and fire brigade are the first people who go out to help people as they cross the border.

It's one of the most cheerful moments in the last three or four weeks I have spent on different borders.

Interestingly the numbers are down a little. Yesterday about 4,000 people crossed from Ukraine, perhaps half of what it was a few days ago.

Many Ukrainians are wondering whether they should stay inside the country - perhaps in relatively safe places the other side of this border in western Ukraine - as Russia's advance seems to be stalling.

There is also local border traffic with Ukrainians who had fled from the other side in the first weeks of the war now going back to feed their animals in some of the villages on the far side.

Here though, on the whole, Romanians are showing that solidarity we are seeing up and down the border - you see the balloons put out for children, bubbles blowing around - and there is a sense in the warm sunshine here that neighbouring countries are helping each other out in their hour of need.

The United Nations' Human Rights Office has said at least 902 civilians have been killed in Ukraine as of Saturday 19 March, following Russia's invasion of the country.

The UN adds that the real death toll is probably much higher.

Ukraine's prosecutor general's office said 112 children had been killed.

Volunteers in Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western Ukraine, have been knitting camouflage nets for Ukraine's armed forces.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Images have emerged on social media of protests taking place today in Kherson, Kakhovka and Berdyansk - all cities now controlled by Russian troops.

The rallies appear to be peaceful and have not yet been dispersed by Russian occupying forces.

One video, shared by news outlet Ukrayinska Pravda, shows crowds waving Ukrainian flags in Kherson, chanting "Kherson is Ukraine!".

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said on Twitter that 10 million people have now fled their homes in Ukraine as a result of Russia's invasion - more than a quarter of its population.

Russia's war in Ukraine started on 24 February and since then millions of people have fled to neighbouring countries. Poland has welcomed more than two million refugees and more than half a million Ukrainians have fled to Romania.

On Sunday, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said 3,389,044 Ukrainians had left the country since the Russian invasion began. Nine out of 10 of those who have fled are women and children. Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are eligible for military call-up and cannot leave.

Unicef, the UN children's agency, said more than 1.5 million children are among those who have fled abroad and warned that they face an increased risk of human trafficking and exploitation.

According to the UN, 6.48 million people are estimated to be internally displaced within Ukraine.

Thank you for joining our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. These are the latest developments:

• The authorities in Mariupol in southern Ukraine say Russia has destroyed a school with 400 women, children and elderly people sheltering inside. There are no details about casualties. The BBC has not been able to verify the claim
• Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky has said the terror in Mariupol will be remembered for centuries
• The United Nations estimates that the conflict has driven 10 million Ukrainians from their homes. The UN said they had either been displaced within the country, or fled abroad
• In his Sunday address, Pope Francis called on leaders to stop "this repugnant war"
• Russia says it has used a hypersonic missile - which can travel at five times the speed of sound - to strike at a target in Ukraine for the second consecutive day
• A senior Russian Navy officer has been killed - according to Ukraine's general staff. The Kremlin has not commented on the death of Andrey Paliy, who was the deputy commander of Russia's Black Sea fleet

Image source, Reuters

Russia said on Sunday it had used a hypersonic missile to target a fuel deport in Ukraine, the second consecutive day it has launched the cutting-edge weapon.

A strike on Saturday targeted an underground weapons facility, which Russia said was the first time it had used the advanced weaponry since the war began. The BBC could not verify Moscow's claims.

• Hypersonic missiles can fly in the upper atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound
• They are considered more maneuverable than conventional missiles and are more capable of avoiding interception from air defense
• Russia's defense ministry said the missile used to target the arms depot in the Ivano-Frankivsk region and the fuel deport near Mykolaiv is capable of reaching targets at a range of more than 2,000km (1,242 miles) and hitting speeds of over 6,000km/h (3,728mph)

• Last year, Russia said it had successfully test-fired a hypersonic missile from a frigate in the White Sea off its north-western coast
• It said it aimed to include the weapon when arming Russian cruisers and submarines
• Besides Russia - China, the US, and at least five other countries are working on hypersonic missile technology, though American research is believed to have fallen behind

For more on this listen to:The Inquiry - What are hypersonic missiles and why do they matter?

Image source, .

After days on the road, former UK Prime Minster David Cameron has arrived in Poland to deliver donations to Ukrainian refugees.

He made the 1,000-mile trip with things like clothing, bedding, nappies and first-aid kits collected by Oxfordshire food project Chippy Larder.

In a video on his Twitter account, he stood alongside Chipping Norton Labour councillor Rizvana Poole at a Red Cross depot where the donated goods have been handed over.

"It’s freezing cold and we’re pretty knackered but anyway it was good to make the trip, and good to know that we’re trying to do something for the refugees who are suffering so much," said Mr Cameron.

He added that he'd done "a bit of the driving" and their journey had gone smoothly "apart from one blown-out flat tyre that took rather a lot of time to change – because I managed to rent a lorry that didn’t have a spare tyre."

Russian advances have ground to a halt in many areas, with Ukrainian forces holding out in several cities and also launching effective counterattacks.

The failure of the initial campaign to seize major cities like Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa could result in a "very violent and bloody" stalemate that could last for weeks or months, warns the Institute for the Study of War.

According to the UK Ministry of Defence, the ferocity of the Ukrainian resistance has meant Russian forces have been forced to change their approach.

Ukrainian generals in Kyiv have said their focus at the moment is on keeping Russian artillery out of range of the city centre, but shelling continues to cause casualties and destroy homes.

The closest Russian troops to the north west of Kyiv are in the suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, about 25km (15 miles) from the city centre, but they have failed to cross the Irpin River so far.

Fighting continues in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where Russian-backed separatists held significant territory before the Russian invasion.

In the north east, Russian troops have almost surrounded the city of Sumy, but Ukrainian forces have prevented attempts to cut it off from the south.

Read more here.

Image source, EPA

Pope Francis used his Sunday blessing and address in Vatican City to say the conflict in Ukraine was an unjustified "senseless massacre" and called on leaders to stop "this repugnant war".

"The violent aggression against Ukraine is unfortunately not slowing down," the Pope said to the thousands of people who had gathered in St Peter's Square.

"It is a senseless massacre where every day slaughters and atrocities are being repeated," he added.

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

A Russian tank fired at a care home in the eastern Ukrainian town of Kreminna, according to the head of the Luhansk military civil administration.

Writing on the Telegram messaging service, Serhiy Hayday said Russian forces "cynically and deliberately" opened fire killing 56 residents.

Hayday alleged that the 15 survivors were "abducted by the occupiers" before being taken to a "regional geriatric home" in Svatove.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify the official's account.

Ukraine says it has killed a senior Russian naval officer, the latest military leader killed in intense fighting in the first three weeks of the invasion.

Ukraine's general staff wrote on Facebook that Captain first rank Andrey Paliy was killed by its forces during intense fighting, though the circumstances around his death are unclear and Moscow has yet to comment on reports. The BBC has also not been able to confirm this independently.

Paliy was the deputy commander of Russia's Black Sea fleet and is believed to be the first naval officer killed in the invasion.

But several other senior Army leaders, who have been forced onto the front line to try and revitalise Russia's stalled advance, have been killed by Ukrainian forces.

On Saturday, Kyiv said it had killed Lieutenant-General Andrei Mordvichev, the most senior Russian general to die in fighting so far.

Read more about why senior Russian officers are being targeted by Ukrainian forces here.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is "pretty demoralised, pretty stuck and pretty stalled," the former UK head of Defence Intelligence says.

Air Marshal Philip Osborn told Sophy Ridge on Sky News that Russian forces are "demoralised because they were poorly prepared and proven to be inadequate" and are now stalled because they have "lost momentum".

He adds: "We are seeing them pull resources and manpower from across Russia, even from Syria, and that is not a good indication for a supposed superpower”.

"They are stalled because they are running out of options,” he said, adding: "What is left to them now is to double down on brute force to put pressure on the Ukrainian government."

Image source, Getty Images

Ukrainian military officials have claimed that almost 15,000 Russian troops have been killed since President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion more than three weeks ago.

In an update posted to the Facebook page of Ukraine's general staff, officials said that 14,700 Russian troops have been killed in 25 days of fighting.

The update also claimed that a huge amount of Russian military hardware has been destroyed in the conflict, including around 476 tanks, more than 200 fighter jets, helicopters and drones and around 1,487 armoured personnel carriers.

The BBC cannot independently verify this claim, though Western sources believe Russia has suffered significant casualties and US defence officials have estimated that at least 7,000 Russian troops have been killed in action, with up to 21,000 injured.