Russia Ukraine War LIVE Updates: Over 2,100 Mariupol residents killed since invasion began, says Mayor

Ukraine says it has restored a broken power line to the Chernobyl power plant, the scene of a nuclear meltdown in 1986, which is held by Russian troops.

Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said that “heroes” from the national power grid company managed to restore the connection. The power is used to run pumps which keep spent nuclear fuel cool to prevent radiation leaks.

Ukraine said Wednesday that power had been cut to the site and that there was enough diesel fuel to run on-site generators for 48 hours. The International Atomic Energy Agency played down concerns, saying it saw little risk of the pools containing the spent fuel overheating even without electricity.

Belarus said Thursday it had set up an emergency power line to Chernobyl from its nearby border.

Russia claims it killed 180 'foreign mercenaries' in missile strike on Yavoriv military training ground in western Ukraine. The Russian government added that it will continue to kill foreign nationals in Ukraine whom it considers mercenaries: The Kyiv Independent

Russian President Vladimir Putin is "frustrated" by the progress his forces have made in Ukraine, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, as he vowed "every inch of NATO territory" will be defended.

"Vladimir Putin is frustrated by the fact that his forces are not making the kind of progress that he thought they would make against major cities, including (capital) Kyiv; that he is expanding the number of targets, that he is lashing out, and that he is trying to cause damage in every part of the country (reflects that),” Sullivan told CNN in an interview.

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, leading to intense battles in all major cities and towns of the country. Fragmented cease-fire talks are yet to bear results.

The United States, Sullivan said, has been warning since well before the invasion begun in February that the Russian plans involve attacking all over Ukraine - north, south, east and west.

"So, this (country-wide attack) does not come as a surprise to the American intelligence and national security community," he said.

America, he reiterated, will not have US military forces operating in Ukraine, and there are none operating there now.

"But we will defend every inch of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) territory, even as we seek to provide military assistance to the Ukrainian fighters who are bravely defending their homes and bravely defending their cities,” he said.

US President Joe Biden, he said, has been in close contact with the Ukrainian leadership and speaks to his counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy regularly.

"He speaks to him on a regular basis to get updates on what is an ongoing communication between Ukrainian negotiators and Russian negotiators," he said.

"That is the negotiation that matters, because, ultimately, it is Ukraine that will have to make its own sovereign decisions about the shape of any diplomacy going forward. From the United States' perspective, we're here to stay in touch with all the key players - the French, the Germans, the Israelis, and others, but ultimately to support the Ukrainians. And, as things stand right now, Vladimir Putin does not look like he is prepared to stop the onslaught,” he said.

Sullivan told Cable News Network (CNN) that the United States will continue to escalate pressure on Putin and continue to support the Ukrainians as they fight to defend their territory.

The death of an American journalist, he said, is a shocking and horrifying event. “It is one more example of the brutality of Vladimir Putin and his forces, as they have targeted schools and mosques and hospitals and journalists,” he said.

Brent Renaud, a video journalist, died in Russian firing near Kyiv on Sunday, local police said.

In terms of military assistance to Ukraine, Sullivan said American focus is on anti-air defence systems, as well as other forms of assistance.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan says Russia will face a response from NATO should any of its attacks in Ukraine cross borders and hit members of the security alliance. Russian missiles on Sunday struck a military training base close to Ukraine's western border with NATO member Poland and killed 35 people.

Sullivan tells CBS News' “Face the Nation” that President Joe Biden “has been clear repeatedly that the United States will work with our allies to defend every inch of NATO territory and that means every inch.”

Sullivan says a military attack on NATO territory would cause the invocation of Article 5. That requires other countries in NATO to come to the defense of the attacked nation. Sullivan says “We will bring the full force of the NATO alliance to bear in responding.”

Sullivan says NATO would respond even if a shot by Russia that hit NATO territory was accidental.

Ukraine's president says nearly 125,000 civilians have been evacuated through safe-passage corridors so far, and a convoy with humanitarian aid is headed to the besieged city of Mariupol. “We have already evacuated almost 125,000 people to the safe territory through humanitarian corridors," Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address released Sunday. "The main task today is Mariupol. Our convoy with humanitarian aid is two hours away from Mariupol. Only 80km (left).” “We're doing everything to counter occupiers who are even blocking Orthodox priests accompanying this aid, food, water and medicine. There are 100 tons of the most necessary things that Ukraine sent to its citizens,” Zelenskyy said.

Russia is trying to create new “pseudo-republics” in Ukraine to break his country apart, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation Saturday.

Zelenskyy called on Ukraine’s regions, including Kherson, which was captured by Russian forces, not to repeat the experience of Donetsk and Luhansk. Pro-Russian separatists began fighting Ukrainian forces in those eastern regions in 2014.

“The occupiers on the territory of the Kherson region are trying to repeat the sad experience of the formation of pseudo-republics,” Zelenskyy said. “They are blackmailing local leaders, putting pressure on deputies, looking for someone to bribe.”

City council members in Kherson, a southern city of 290,000, on Saturday rejected plans for a new pseudo-republic, Zelenskyy said.

Russia recognized the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic before invading Ukraine in February. Moscow said it had to protect the separatist regions, and is demanding that Ukraine recognize their independence too.

“Ukraine will stand this test. We need time and strength to break the war machine that has come to our land,” Zelenskyy said.

Russian forces carried out an air strike on a military range near Lviv in western Ukraine, expanding its offensive closer to the border with Poland.

The Russian military on Sunday morning fired eight rockets at the Yaroviv military range 30 kilometers northwest of Lviv, the Lviv regional administration said, without offering any details about possible casualties.

The Yaroviv military range, also known as the Yaroviv International Peacekeeping and Security Center, is located 35 kilometers from Ukraine's border with Poland.

Since 2015, the US has regularly sent instructors to the Yaroviv military range to train Ukraine's military. The range has also hosted international NATO drills.

On Friday, Russian forces shelled two airfields in the western cities of Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, firing more than 10 cruise missiles from Tu-95MS strategic bombers, the Ukrainian General Staff said.

 A bus carrying about 50 Ukrainian refugees overturned on a major highway in northern Italy at dawn on Sunday, killing one person, Italian firefighters said.

Italian state radio said there were several injured in the accident on the A14 autostrada near Forli', a town in the Emilia-Romagna region in northeastern Italy. It said the rest of those aboard were safely evacuated.

The bus landed on its side on a grassy slope just beyond a highway guardrail and near a farm field. Firefighters used two cranes in an operation to set the bus upright and remove it.

Italy's Interior Ministry said the bus had set out from Ukraine and was heading south to Pescara, an Adriatic port city, when it overturned.

The passengers were taken to a nearby police barracks for initial assistance, and would later resume their journey, the ministry said.

Some 35,000 Ukrainians refugees who fled war in their homeland have entered Italy, most of them through its northeastern border with Slovenia.
Forli' is in the region of Emilia-Romagna, which borders the Adriatic Sea.

What caused the bus to overturn was under investigation. 

At least nine people were killed and 57 wounded when a Russian airstrike hit a military training base in western Ukraine close to the Polish border, a local official said Sunday.

The governor of the Lviv region, Maksym Kozytskyi, said Russian forces fired more than 30 cruise missiles at the Yavoriv military range, located 30 kilometers (19 miles) northwest of the city of Lviv and 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Ukraine's border with Poland.

The assault brought the war closer to the border with Poland. A senior Russian diplomat has warned that Moscow considered foreign shipments of military equipment to Ukraine “legitimate targets.”

The United States and NATO have regularly sent instructors to the range, also known as the International Peacekeeping and Security Center, to train Ukrainian military personnel. The facility has also hosted international NATO drills.

Russian fighters also fired at the airport in Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western Ukraine located 250 kilometers (155.34 miles) from Ukraine's border with Slovakia and Hungary.

Governor of Ukraine's Lviv region has said that Russia fired 30 rockets at western Ukraine military facility that killed 9, and wounded 57 in an air strike on western military facility.

Ukrainian radicals were keeping 300 monks and civilians hostage in monastery, says Russian MoD.

Russia strikes military base outside Ukraine's Lviv, near Poland border: News agency AFP

The Lviv Regional State Administration said Putin's troops carried out an air strike on the international center for peacekeeping and security. According to preliminary data, they fired 8 missiles. Information about the victims is being specified.

Multiple explosions were heard in Lviv and Kherson and reports say that Lviv is under Russian missile attacks.

The Yavoriv landfill near Lviv was probably attacked by Russian troops, according to Ukrainian People's Deputy Irina Gerashchenko.

Seven Ukrainian civilians, including a child, died when Russia shelled a humanitarian convoy of refugees and forced them to turn back, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense said. The seven were among hundreds of people who tried to flee the village of Peremoha, 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Kyiv. An unknown number of people were wounded in the shelling, the report added.

As per Sputnik News (Russian media), at least six people were killed after Kyiv forces fired in a hospital in Ukraine's Volnovakha.

Russia is trying to create new “pseudo-republics” in Ukraine to break his country apart, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation Saturday. Zelenskyy called on Ukraine's regions, including Kherson, which was captured by Russian forces, not to repeat the experience of Donetsk and Luhansk.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has signed two decrees, according to one of which 106 Ukrainian soldiers were awarded state awards, the second decree refers to 8 fighters awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine.

Sirens have been activated in Uman, Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Poltava, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Lviv, Odesa, Volyn, Zaporizhzha, Berezivka, Izmail, Kiliya, Yuzhne, Chernomorsk, Bilyaivka, and Avdiivka

Ukraine has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that Russia plans to take full and permanent control of Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant under Rosatom management, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement. In a letter to the Director General, the President of Ukraine's nuclear power plant operator Energoatom, Petro Kotin, said that around 400 Russian soldiers were "present full time on site" and confirmed that the NPP remains under the control of the Russian military forces' commander.

A new mayor has been appointed in Ukraine's Melitopol city after the elected mayor was detained by the Russian forces, according to Zaporizhzhia regional administration. The elected mayor, Ivan Fedorov, was detained by Russian forces on Friday. Galina Danilchenko, the newly installed mayor was introduced on local TV, CNN reported citing the statement published on the Zaporizhzhia regional administration website.

2 Russian helicopters were shot down in Kherson Oblast, said Ukrainian forces. One of the pilots reportedly survived and will be taken to the hospital.

US Vice President Kamala Harris highlighted the unity between the US and its NATO and European allies and warned that Russia's military operations in Ukraine pose a threat to all democracies. "Russia's invasion threatens not just Ukraine's democracy; it threatens democracy and security across Europe," CNN reported quoting Harris who was speaking at the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting on Saturday in Washington.

Ukraine evacuated 13,000 civilians through humanitarian corridors on March 12, twice as much as the day before, said Deputy PM Iryna Vereshchuk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed the war situation in Ukraine with Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and sought his help for the release of the Melitopol mayor.

Russian forces pounded the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on Saturday, shelling its downtown as residents hid in an iconic mosque and elsewhere to avoid the explosions. Fighting also raged in the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv, as Russia kept up its bombardment of other cities throughout the country.