Ukraine

Latest Developments in Ukraine: March 19

A little girl is seen as people line up to board buses at the Medyka Polish-Ukrainian border crossing on March 18, 2022.

For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.

The latest developments of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, all times EDT:

10:57 p.m.: The Washington Post reports that although the U.S. imports very little food, it's still likely to see higher food prices due to the conflict in Ukraine. Additionally, prices for fertilizer -- much of which is produced in Russia -- are likely to climb.

10:09 p.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address Israel's parliament by video on Sunday, the BBC reports.

9:11 p.m.: Mariupol's City Council says Russian forces are capturing residents and sending them to remote Russian cities, CNN reports.

9:07 p.m.: A ballet dancer with Ukraine's National Opera House has died after being injured Feb. 26 in the Russian invasion, CNN reports. Artem Datsishin's friends and colleagues shared the news on social media.

6:55 p.m.: Beton, a Ukrainian punk band, is rewriting the lyrics of London Calling a 1979 hit by the Clash into Kyiv Calling to highlight what's going on in Ukraine and raise money for relief efforts by the Free Ukraine Resistance Movement.

6:30 p.m.: Katya Hill tried to talk her brother, Jimmy Hill, into postponing his trip to Ukraine amid reports of Russian tanks lining up at the border. But he needed to help his longtime partner, who has been suffering from progressive multiple sclerosis, The Associated Press reports.

"He said, 'I don't know what I would do if I lost her, I have to try to do everything I can to try to stop the progression of MS,'" Katya said. "My brother sacrificed his life for her."

5:45 p.m.: Ukraine will receive a new shipment of U.S. weapons within days, including Javelin and Stinger missiles, Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said Saturday in a televised interview.

“The (weapons) will be on the territory of our country in the nearest future. We are talking about days,” Danilov said.

Ukraine's allies have delivered planeloads of weapons to bolster its military against the Russian invasion. Russia has criticized such deliveries from NATO member states.

5:10 p.m.: Russia reported its first use of hypersonic missiles in Ukraine on Saturday. It said the missiles destroyed an underground depot for missiles and ammunition Friday in Ukraine’s western Ivano-Frankivsk region.

What is a hypersonic missile, and who has them?

4:45 p.m.: In Belarusian regions near its border with Ukraine there are reports of "a rising tide of corpses and maimed servicemen being shipped out of Ukraine" either for treatment elsewhere or burial, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports.

4:25 p.m.: The Pope visits Ukrainian children in a Rome hospital.

4 p.m.: Reuters reported Saturday that 6,623 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors, according to a senior official. That is considerably fewer than managed to escape the previous day.

In an online post, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president's office, said 4,128 people had left Mariupol. On Friday, he said 9,145 people had left cities across the country during the day.

3:45 p.m.: The Russian cosmonauts wore yellow — the color of Ukraine — in a group photo after their arrival at the International Space Station.

Russia says don’t read too much into it.

1:42 p.m.: U.N. Secretary-General Antonio tweets, "Borders are not to be re-drawn at the whim of great powers. Territorial integrity and sovereignty are sacrosanct, for small states just as for large."

10:39 a.m.: Russia has conducted 1,403 airstrikes and fired 459 missiles at Ukraine since the invasion began more than three weeks ago, according to Ukraine's Defense Ministry, the Kyiv Independent reports.

10:38 a.m.: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns that if Russia is not stopped, other aggressors in the world will start more wars, according to Ukraine's Defense Ministry.

10:21 a.m.: The U.N. reports that at least 874 civilians, including 64 children, have been killed in Ukraine during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, 1,399 civilians, including 78 children, have been injured, mostly from shelling and airstrikes.

10:10 a.m.: Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a tweet, is calling on other nations to stop issuing visas and hosting Russians.

10:10 a.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin details his demands to Ukraine prior to any cease-fire negotiations in a call with Turkey's President Recep Tayip Erdogan, CNN reports.

10:00 a.m.: A bipartisan group of U.S. senators visit Germany and Poland to discuss Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to CNN.

9:45 a.m.: Two children and a woman are killed in Luhansk from Russian shelling, The Independent reports.

9:36 a.m.: Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala has said his country will take care of the “wives and children” fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has driven about 3 million Ukrainians to seek refuge in the EU’s eastern flank, The Guardian reports.

9:15 a.m.: Russian cosmonauts arrive at the International Space Station wearing suits whose colors appear to match those of the Ukrainian flag, The Associated Press reports.

9:12 a.m.: A curfew in Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine begins Saturday afternoon and will last until Monday, local official say, according to CNN.

5:50 a.m.: More than 40 Ukrainian soldiers died when a Russian rocket hit a military barracks in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, The New York Times reports.

5:22 a.m.: Russian military officials said Saturday that they fired a hypersonic missile for the first time in Ukraine to target a weapons storage site in the west of the country, VOA's Jamie Dettmer reports from Warsaw, Poland.

5:10 a.m.: Ballet dancers from around the world will come together Saturday for a gala to raise funds for Ukraine and send a message of peace, Agence France-Presse reports. The event, to be held at the English National Opera's London Coliseum, aims to raise more than $130,000 for a U.K. charity collective helping war victims.

4:28 a.m.: The New York Times reports that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says his nation will not take sides in the matter of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

4:09 a.m.: Al Jazeera reports that a humanitarian corridor for evacuations will open in the Luhansk region of Ukraine on Saturday.

3:25 a.m.: Russia has lost its bid to freeze a FIFA ban that will keep it from soccer's World Cup qualifying playoffs next week, ABC News reports.

2:47 a.m.: The BBC reports that former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants Vladimir Putin to face an international tribunal over his actions in Ukraine.

2:01 a.m.: Al Jazeera reports that Russian forces have cut off Ukraine's access to the Sea of Azov. Ukraine's defense ministry says the loss is temporary.

1:08 a.m.: U.S. think tank the Center for Global Development says the soaring food and energy prices since Russia invaded Ukraine could send more than 40 million people into "extreme poverty," the BBC reports.

12:36 a.m.: Reuters describes the scene in Mariupol: "Uncollected corpses wrapped in blankets, coats or any available covering lie in courtyards cleared of debris. Those killed are often buried in common graves.

"All around are the blackened shells of the sprawling tower blocks typical of Soviet-era dwellings. Twisted metal on balconies, shattered windows, woods, metal and other wreckage scattered between buildings and in streets."

12:04 a.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces are blockading Ukraine's largest cities to create a “humanitarian catastrophe” with the aim of persuading Ukrainians to cooperate with them, The Associated Press reports.

He says Russians are preventing supplies from reaching surrounded cities in the center and southeast of the country.

“This is a totally deliberate tactic,” Zelenskyy said in his nighttime video address to the nation.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.