Russia Ukraine War LIVE Updates: Ukraine's Odessa introduces weekend curfew over 'missile strike threat'

Russia's central bank says it's lowering a key interest rate, and said more cuts could be on the way.

A missile hit a train station where thousands of people had flocked to flee in eastern Ukraine, killing 50 people Friday, Ukrainian authorities said, while warning they expect to find more evidence of war crimes in areas abandoned by Russian troops.

A woman on the verge of giving birth with her leg flayed open by shrapnel. A shockwave that shattered the glass and ceramic lining of a room with medical waste. A nurse who suffered a concussion. This is what the Ukrainian doctors remember of the Russian airstrike that destroyed the Mariupol maternity hospital where they once worked.

The European Union has imposed sanctions on two adult daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of a new package of measures targeting Russia's economy, businessmen and oligarchs in retaliation for the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, according to two EU officials.

The German government on Friday unveiled a package of loans and other financial assistance to help companies hit hard by the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia.

A day after voting against the resolution suspending Russia’s membership of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) at the UN General Assembly over civilian killings in Ukraine, China on Friday defended its vote, saying such a "hasty move" will set a “dangerous precedent.”

The United Nations says prices for world food commodities like grains and vegetable oils reached their highest levels ever last month due to fallout from the war in Ukraine.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday its Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in international prices for a basket of commodities, recorded a double-digit percentage-point increase in March from the record level already set the previous month.

FAO said the index came in at 159.3 points last month, up 12.6% from February's all-time high since the index was created in 1990.

The Rome-based agency says the war in Ukraine was largely responsible for the 17.1% rise in prices for cereals, including wheat and all coarse grains. Russia and Ukraine together account for around 30% and 20% respectively of global wheat and maize exports.

Japan's government says it is expelling eight Russian diplomats over their country's invasion of Ukraine.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hikariko Ono announced the decision Friday. Deputy Foreign Minister Takeo Mori has notified Russian Ambassador Mikhail Galuzin, she said.

European countries have expelled dozens of Russian diplomats as their relationships have plunged over Moscow's war against Ukraine.

Europe and the United States have also stepped up sanctions against Russia, including restrictions on coal imports, following revelations of harrowing atrocities against civilians in Ukrainian cities.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is expected to announce additional sanctions against Russia in line with an agreement by the Group of Seven advanced industrialised nations.

The measures contained in a G-7 leaders' statement include a phasing out or banning of imports of Russian coal and oil. Japanese trade minister Koichi Hagiuda said Japan plans to gradually reduce its energy reliance on Russia.

Japan has already imposed a series of sanctions, including freezing assets of top Russian officials such as President Vladimir Putin, restricting exports to Russia including sensitive goods transferrable to military use, and removing key banks from an international messaging system.

Japan is trying to take a greater role in the international effort against Russia's invasion of Ukraine because of Tokyo's concern about its impact on East Asia, where China has taken increasingly assertive military actions.

Japan has already faced reprisals from Russia. Moscow recently announced the suspension of talks on a peace treaty with Tokyo that include negotiations over Russian-held islands which the Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of World War II. 

The European Union has imposed sanctions on two adult daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of a new package of measures targeting Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, according to two EU officials. The EU included Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova in its updated list of individuals facing an assets freeze and travel ban. The two EU officials from different EU member countries spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because the updated list of sanctions has not been published yet. The move from the European bloc follows a similar move two days earlier by the United States. In the wake of evidence of torture and killings emerging from war zones outside Kyiv, the EU decided to impose a fifth package of measures in retaliation for Russia's war. In addition to sanctions on individuals, the 27-nation bloc also approved an embargo on coal imports. That will be the first EU sanctions targeting Russia's lucrative energy industry over its war in Ukraine and is estimated to be worth 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) per year, the EU presidency said. The EU has already started working on additional sanctions, including on oil imports. 

Thousands of civilians were at the train station waiting to evacuate when rocket strike hit: Governor of Donetsk region in Ukraine

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and its Vice-President Josep Borrell Fontelles along with Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic Eduard Heger arrived in Kyiv on Friday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and discuss the bloc's proposals for the country invaded by Russia.

In its latest update on Friday, the UK's Ministry of Defence announced that Russian forces have fully withdrawn from northern Ukraine to Belarus and Russia. The Ministry added that "at least some of these forces will transferred to east Ukraine to fight in Donbas" which comprises the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. It also said that many of these of these forces will need "significant replenishment before being ready to deploy further east".

EU officials: Putin's daughters included in new package of sanctions targeting Russia. 
 

Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger and two top European Union officials are in Kyiv looking to shore up the bloc's support for war-torn Ukraine. 

US President Joe Biden has lauded the suspension of Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council, from the world organisation's leading human rights body, saying this "meaningful step" by the international community has further demonstrated how President Vladimir Putin’s war has made his country an “international pariah”. The 193-member UN General Assembly on Thursday voted to adopt a draft resolution moved by the US to suspend Russia from the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) over allegations that Russian soldiers killed civilians while retreating from towns near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. The ‘Suspension of the rights of membership of the Russian Federation in the Human Rights Council’ resolution was adopted with 93 votes in favour, 24 against and 58 abstentions. India abstained from voting.

The Russia-Ukraine war has added to the uncertainties amid which the European Central Bank (ECB) chose to adopt a prudent stance in formulating its agenda for rate hikes, according to minutes released by the central bank. Commodity prices have surged and energy prices in the euro area have hit record highs since the eruption of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted that Russia has "suffered significant losses" in its ongoing war in Ukraine, but denied that Moscow has carried out "war crimes" in Kiev. "We have suffered significant losses of troops. This is a great tragedy for us," Peskov told Sky News on Thursday without giving an exact number of the Russian casualties.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Russian forces were collecting bodies in the besieged city of Mariupol, which has been virtually wiped out by weeks of heavy shelling, "to use them for propaganda purposes". In his nightly video address, the President said: "More and more information is coming that Russian propagandists are preparing, so to speak, a 'mirror response' to the shock of all adequate people from what they saw in Bucha.

US President Joe Biden announced that he "applauds the overwhelming vote" by the UN General Assembly to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council in the wake of Moscow's ongoing war on Ukraine. In a statement issued by the White House on Thursday night, Biden said: "This is a meaningful step by the international community further demonstrating how (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's war has made Russia an international pariah.

China has described reports and images of civilian killings in Ukraine as disturbing, and urged that they be further investigated, even while declining to blame Russia. That's drawn questions about the resiliency of Beijing's support for Moscow, but speculation that it is weakening appears to be misplaced. 

Today is the 44th day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

Russian retreat reveals destruction as Ukraine asks for help

Sumy region completely free of Russian forces. Sumy Oblast Governor announced on Facebook that the region is clear of Russia's forces, but explosions may still be heard as rescue service workers dispose of ammunition left by the Russian military: Ukraine's The Kyiv Independent

The UN General Assembly has delivered Russia a crushing diplomatic blow suspending it from the Human Rights Council, but India abstained on the action keeping up its neutral stance. Thursday's was India's eighth abstention on actions at the UN relating to Ukraine.

Congress voted overwhelmingly Thursday to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and ban the importation of its oil, ratcheting up the US response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine amid reports of atrocities. House action came after the Senate approved the two bills with 100-0 votes. The measures now go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

The United States has sharply increased the number of Ukrainians admitted to the country at the Mexican border as even more refugees fleeing the Russian invasion follow the same circuitous route. A government recreation centre in the Mexican border city of Tijuana grew to about 1,000 refugees Thursday, according to city officials. A canopy under which children played soccer only two days earlier was packed with people in rows of chairs and lined with bunk beds. US officials began funnelling Ukrainians Wednesday to a pedestrian crossing in San Diego that is temporarily closed to the public, hoping to process 578 people a day there with 24 officers, said Enrique Lucero, the city of Tijuana's director of migrant affairs. Tijuana has suddenly become a final stop for Ukrainians seeking refuge in the United States, where they are drawn by friends and families ready to host them and are convinced that the US will be a more suitable haven than Europe.

The United Nations' humanitarian chief said Thursday he's not optimistic about securing a ceasefire to halt the fighting in Ukraine, following high-level talks in Moscow and Kyiv that underscored how far apart the two sides are. Undersecretary-General Martin Griffiths gave the bleak assessment in an interview with The Associated Press in the Ukrainian capital after wrapping up talks with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and other top officials. That followed discussions with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and officials in Moscow earlier in the week. “I think it's not going to be easy because the two sides, as I know now...have very little trust in each other," he said. “I'm not optimistic,” he added later. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres dispatched Griffiths to the Russian and Ukrainian capitals to explore the possibility of establishing a cease-fire that would allow desperately needed aid into Ukraine and potentially lay the groundwork for talks aimed at ending the war.

Russian troops left behind crushed buildings, streets littered with destroyed cars and residents in dire need of food and other aid in a northern Ukrainian city, giving fuel to Kyiv's calls Thursday for more Western support to help halt Moscow's offensive before it refocuses on the country's east. Dozens of people lined up to receive loaves of bread, diapers and medicine from vans parked outside a shattered school now serving as an aid-distribution point in Chernihiv, which Russian forces besieged for weeks as part of their attempt to sweep south towards the capital before retreating. The city's streets are lined with shelled homes and apartment buildings, missing roofs or walls, and a chalk message on the blackboard in one classroom still reads: “Wednesday the 23rd of February - class work.” Russia invaded the next day, launching a war that has seen more than 4 million Ukrainians flee the country, displaced millions more within it, and sent shockwaves through Europe and beyond.

US President Joe Biden Thursday lauded the UN General Assembly decision to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, describing it as “a meaningful step by the international community”. “This is a meaningful step by the international community further demonstrating how Putin’s war has made Russia an international pariah,” Biden said hours after the UN General Assembly suspended Russia from the UNHRC with 93-24 votes and 58 abstentions. India abstained from voting. Biden said the United States worked closely with its allies and partners around the world to drive this vote because Russia is committing gross and systemic violations of human rights.

More than a month after its unjustified invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military is now a weakened one and has become a pariah from a geopolitical standpoint, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday. “Ukraine maintains its sovereignty and its ability to protect its country, defend itself. It maintains its government.
Russia is weakened militarily. And Russia, from a geopolitical standpoint, is a pariah. Countries will not volunteer to align themselves with Russia,” Austin told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during a Congressional hearing.