Russia Ukraine War Updates: Moscow says it will cut back operations near Ukraine capital

55-year-old billionaire, Roman Abramovic has swapped the skybox seat he once proudly occupied at his beloved Chelsea football club in Britain for a spot on the sidelines of negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow aimed at ending Russia's bloody war in Ukraine.

Poland's government decided Tuesday to block imports of coal from Russia, part of a strategy to reduce energy dependence on Russia that gained new urgency after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Poland will impose financial penalties on any private entities importing Russian coal into Poland, with Polish customs officials carrying out checks, government spokesman Piotr Mueller said as he announced the new policy.

India has gone through a very "complicated and challenging time" in negotiating its diplomatic stand on the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and because of its multiple interests with other countries, it's been a "bit of dancing on a tightrope," Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor said on Tuesday. He was responding to a question during an interaction held here after inaugurating a three-day photo exhibition, 'Ukraine Untold (Glimpses)', on how the country looked barely a month before the war began.

The head of the Russian delegation in talks with Ukraine says that Moscow sees the latest meeting as a step toward compromise.

Vladimir Medinskiy said on Russian RT television that Russia sees Ukrainian proposals made Tuesday during the talks in Istanbul as a “step to meet us halfway, a clearly positive fact.

Some European Union (EU) politicians on Tuesday expressed the hope that India may be able to use its soft power to influence Russian President Vladimir Putin to choose the path of negotiations in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

At a virtual panel discussion organised by Dutch think tank Stichting The London Story, Jakop Dalunde from Sweden and Margrete Auken from Denmark, both members of the Green/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament, were joined by former Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran for a discussion entitled 'India’s Stance on Ukraine: Caught between EU and Russian Interests'.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman on Tuesday said that UK will judge Russia by 'actions, not words' over scaling down Ukraine fighting

Russia's military said on Tuesday it would “fundamentally" cut back operations near Ukraine's capital and a northern city, as talks brought a possible deal to end a grinding and brutal war into view. Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said the move was meant to increase trust in the talks after several rounds of failed negotiations to halt the conflict that has devolved into a bloody campaign of attrition.

The rupee spurted by 43 paise -- its biggest single-day gain in 2022 -- to close at a four-week high of 75.73 against the US currency on dollar selling by exporters amid hopes of a peace agreement between warring Russia and Ukraine and low crude oil prices. A weak dollar in the overseas markets and gains in the domestic equities for a second straight day also propped up the local unit, forex traders said.

Belgium has decided to expel 21 Russian diplomats for activities related to espionage or unlawful influence peddling. The diplomats were given two weeks to leave the country, foreign affairs spokeswoman Elke Pattyn told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians on Tuesday denounced Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an “atrocious" act that is causing enormous suffering. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I didn't mention Russia by name in comments made during a visit to Warsaw after meeting with Ukrainian refugees. Poland has accepted the largest number of people fleeing the war in Ukraine.

A superyacht named ‘Phi’ owned by a Russian billionaire became the first-ever vessel to be detained in London on Tuesday under the UK government’s sanctions over the ongoing war in Ukraine. Officers from the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) new Combatting Kleptocracy Cell said they served a detention notice on the 38-million pounds superyacht docked at Canary Wharf.

Company Johnson & Johnson is slated to suspend its supply of personal care products to Russia, reported news agency AFP.

The White House on Tuesday said that US President Joe Biden will discuss the Russia Ukraine war in a phone call with European leaders.

Ukrainian negotiators say Ukraine proposed adopting neutral status in exchange for security guarantees at the latest round of talks with Russia – meaning it would not join military alliances or host military bases, reported Sky News.

At least seven people were killed and 22 injured in a Russian strike on a regional government building in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, reported AFP.

Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on March 29 that Russia “significantly reduced” the Ukrainian military’s combat power and can now focus on the key objective of "liberating Donbas."

The first face-to-face talks in two weeks between Russia and Ukraine began Tuesday in Turkey, raising flickering hopes there could be progress toward ending a war that has ground into a bloody campaign of attrition.

Bloomberg News says it has suspended its operations in Russia and Belarus, citing international condemnation and sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. The financial news company said customers in both Russia and Belarus will be unable to access any of Bloomberg's financial products including terminals, data licenses, data feeds and electronic trading platforms.

Amid heavy fighting between Russia and Ukraine, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi travelled to Ukraine to start delivery of urgent technical assistance to ensure the safety and security of the country's nuclear facilities and help avert the risk of an accident that could endanger people and the environment.

The UN nuclear watchdog says its director-general has arrived in Ukraine for talks with senior government officials on delivering “urgent technical assistance” to ensure the safety of the country's nuclear facilities. The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Tuesday that Rafael Mariano Grossi's aim is to “to initiate prompt safety and security support” for Ukraine's nuclear sites. That will include sending IAEA experts to “prioritised facilities” and sending “vital safety and security supplies” including monitoring and emergency equipment.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saidhe will meet with the negotiation teams from Ukraine and Russia on Tuesday before the new round of peace talks between the two warring sides begin in Istanbul.

"We will have a short meeting with the delegations," Erdogan said at a press conference after a cabinet meeting.

Turkey is "almost the only country that makes sincere efforts to resolve the ongoing crisis between Ukraine and Russia through dialogue", Xinhua news agency quoted the President as saying.

Ukraine has neutralised a massive cyber-attack on core IT infrastructure that impacted the entire nation.

According to global Internet access tracker NetBlocks, the nation's online connectivity collapsed to 13 per cent, leading to the most severe Internet disruption registered in Ukraine since the invasion by Russia.

The Ukrainian Internet Service Provider Ukrtelecom was the target of a "massive cyberattack," the government said late on Monday.

According to the State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection (SSSCIP) of Ukraine, the cyber-attack had been neutralised.

"The first cyberwar in human history is under way," said SSSCIP Chairman Yurii Shchyhol.

Slovenia has reopened its embassy in Kiev, after it evacuated all its diplomats from Ukraine on February 26 two days after Russia launched its full scale invasion.

The Embassy was reopened on Monday by temporary charge d'affaires Bostjan Lesjak, while Slovenian Ambassador to Ukraine Tomaz Mencin continues to work from the Polish city of Rzeszow which lies close to the Ukrainian border, the Foreign Ministry in Ljubljana said in a statement

"Upon arriving in Kiev, Lesjak said that he can hear alarms and detonations in the distance but that the life of the people who remained in Kiev continues as normal," Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed by telephone Canada's support for Kyiv amid the Russian special military operation and additional sanctions against Moscow, the Prime Minister's Office said in a readout of the conversation on Monday.

Following the suspension of operations in Moscow by payment giants Visa and Mastercard, Russia have been exploring the alternative of transitioning their cards-based payments to China's Union Pay, which apparently supports Beijing's geopolitical strategy, said a media report.

China had bolstered the Russian economy by easing restrictions on wheat imports from Russia and signing energy cooperation agreements for the supply of 10 billion cubic metres of gas to China.

From April 5, the Japanese government will impose a ban on the exportation of luxury goods to Russia, including premium cars and precious stones, Economy Minister Koichi Hagiuda told reporters.

Roman Abramovich had suffered a suspected poisoning along with Ukraine peace negotiators earlier this month, Daily Mail reported.

The Chelsea Football Club owner was reportedly poisoned just weeks ago after a meeting in Kiev while he acted as a 'peacemaker' in the Russian war in Ukraine, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Following the meeting in Kiev, Abramovich, as well as two senior members of the Ukrainian team, developed symptoms that included red eyes, painful tearing as well as peeling skin on their faces and hands, sources told the newspaper.

Analysts at Bellingcat confirmed that three members of the delegation -- including Abramovich -- attending the peace talks between Ukraine and Russia on March 3 experienced "symptoms consistent with poisoning with chemical weapons", Daily Mail reported.

Since the Russian blockade in Mariupol began on March 1, some 5,000 people have been killed, 170,000 others still remain under siege, while 150,000 were evacuated from the strategic Ukrainian port city, according to preliminary estimates.

Of the 5,000 victims, 210 were children, Ukrayinska Pravda reported citing the government estimates.

Before the ongoing siege began, 140,000 residents left the coastal city.

Dmytro Khilyuk, a journalist working for the Ukrainian Independent News Agency (UNIAN), was abducted by Russian forces on March 4 from a village in the Kiev region, a media watchdog announced.

In a statement posted on its website on Monday, the Media Initiative for Human Rights said on the eve of his disappearance, Dmytro wrote on Facebook that his village of Kozarovychi in Vyshhorod district, was "under occupation" and that there was no water, the shops were empty and the internet connection was very weak.

He claimed in his post that Russian troops were "going from house to house", and people remained inside their homes as there were periodic shooting in the village.

Delegations from Ukraine and Russia have arrived in the Turkish city of Istanbul to begin a new round of peace talks from Tuesday aimed at ending the ongoing war.

The in-person talks slated to begin at 10.30 a.m. (local time, about 1 p.m. IST), will be hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Dolmabahce Presidential Working Office in Istabul's Besiktas district, reports Xinhua news agency.

While Russian delegation has settled in the Ciragan Palace Kempinski Hotel, the Ukrainian delegation has checked in the Shangri-La Bosphorus, both very close to each other in the district.

US President Joe Biden's administration has proposed $6.9 billion in its fiscal year 2023 budget proposal, which is aimed at addressing what it views as threats stemming from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

"This funding will enhance the capabilities and readiness of US Forces, (NATO) allies, and regional partners in the face of Russian aggression," Xinhua news agency quoted a budget document issued on Monday.

The United Nations chief has launched an initiative to immediately explore possible arrangements for “a humanitarian cease-fire in Ukraine” in order to allow the delivery of desperately needed aid and pave the way for serious political negotiations to end the month-long war.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday he asked Undersecretary-General Martin Griffiths, the head of the UN's worldwide humanitarian operations, to explore the possibility of a cease-fire with Russia and Ukraine. He said Griffiths has already made some contacts.

The 193-member U.N. General Assembly, by an overwhelming majority of about 140 nations, has called for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Ukraine twice -- on March 2 and on March 24 -- and Guterres told reporters he thinks “this is the moment” for the United Nations “to assume the initiative.”

Another round of talks aimed at stopping the war in Ukraine is scheduled for Tuesday as the fighting looks increasingly like a stalemate on the ground, with the two sides trading control of a town in the east and a suburb of the capital.

Ukrainian forces retook Irpin, northwest of Kyviv, from Russian troops, who were regrouping to take the area back, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday as he sought to rally the country.

“We still have to fight, we have to endure,” Zelenskyy said in his nighttime video address to the nation. “We can't express our emotions now. We can't raise expectations, simply so that we don't burn out.”

Ahead of the talks, to be held in Istanbul, the Ukrainian president said his country is prepared to declare its neutrality, as Moscow has demanded, and is open to compromise on the fate of the Donbas, the contested region in the country's east.

The Ukraine's national telecommunications provider Ukrtelecom has been knocked almost completely offline, suffering what network monitors called its most severe outage since Russia's Feb. 24 invasion. Government officials in Kyiv say they are investigating whether a cyberattack is to blame.

The outage began Monday morning and persisted into the evening. Alp Toker, director of the London-based monitor Netblocks, said connectivity for Ukrtelecom has collapsed to just 13 percent of pre-war levels.

Ukrtelecom is the seventh-largest provider in Ukraine in traffic moved but, as the pre-independence incumbent, is likely the lone provider in much of rural Ukraine, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at the network management firm Kentik.

Urktelecom provides telephone, internet and mobile service.

US President Joe Biden on Monday said that his weekend comment in Europe that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” was a moral outrage for his invasion of Ukraine, and that does not reflect any change in American policy with respect to regime change. As such, Biden refused to apologize for his comments, on which his administration has been having a tough time in explaining over the past few days.

“I'm not walking anything back. The fact of the matter is, I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing ..., which is just brutality, half the children of Ukraine. I just come from being with those families,” Biden told reporters at the White House.

The Pentagon may have to ask Congress for additional money to support Ukraine's battle against Russia's invasion, including to replenish America's arsenal for weapons sent to Kyiv, officials said Monday. Rolling out the Defense Department's USD 773 billion request for fiscal 2023, Pentagon leaders said the budget was finalized before the invasion so it has no specific money for the war. Congress approved a USD 13.5 billion emergency funding package in early March.

The leaders said it was too early to predict how quickly Ukrainian forces will use up the weapons and ammunition already being provided, and how much the US will need to replace what it sends to Ukraine, such as Stinger and Javelin missiles or body armour and other equipment.