As it happened | At least 847 civilians killed in Ukraine since conflict began, says UN

Ukraine to receive more US Javelin and Stinger missiles within days, Ukraine official says

Ukraine will receive a new shipment of US weapons within days, including Javelin and Stinger missiles, Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said in a televised interview on Saturday.

“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 shipments to bolster its military against the Russian invasion. Russia has criticised such deliveries from NATO member states.

Pope visits Ukrainian children in hospital

Pope Francis has paid a visit to some of the Ukrainian children who escaped the Russian invasion and are currently being treated at the Vatican’s pediatric hospital in Rome.

The Vatican says the Bambino Gesu hospital is currently tending to 19 Ukrainian refugees, and that overall some 50 have passed through in recent weeks.

Some were suffering oncological, neurological and other problems before the war and fled in the early days. Others are being treated for wounds incurred as a result of the invasion.

The Vatican says Francis travelled the short distance up the hill to the hospital on Saturday afternoon. He met with all the young patients in their rooms before returning back to the Vatican.

Francis has spoken out about the “barbarity” of the war and especially the death and injury it has caused Ukrainian children.

Russia ridicules idea that cosmonauts wore yellow in support of Ukraine

Russia's space agency on Saturday dismissed Western media reports suggesting Russian cosmonauts joining the International Space Station (ISS) had chosen to wear yellow suits with a blue trim in support of Ukraine.

"Sometimes yellow is just yellow," Roscosmos's press service said on its Telegram channel.

"The flight suits of the new crew are made in the colours of the emblem of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which all three cosmonauts graduated from ... To see the Ukrainian flag everywhere and in everything is crazy."

Roscosmos Director-General Dmitry Rogozin was more acerbic, saying on his personal Telegram channel that Russian cosmonauts had no sympathy for Ukrainian nationalists.

Invasion a turning point for world: Johnson

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a “turning point for the world,” arguing that victory for President Vladimir Putin’s forces would herald “a new age of intimidation.”

Speaking to a Conservative Party conference on Saturday, Johnson claimed Putin was “terrified” that the example of a free Ukraine would spark a pro-democracy revolution in Russia.

He said “a victorious Putin will not stop in Ukraine, and the end of freedom in Ukraine will mean the extinction of any hope of freedom in Georgia and then Moldova, it will mean the beginning of a new age of intimidation across eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea.”

At least 847 civilians killed in Ukraine since conflict began, says UN

The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Saturday that at least 847 civilians had been killed and 1,399 wounded in Ukraine as of March 18.

Most of the casualties were from explosive weapons such as shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes, OHCHR said.

The real toll is thought to be considerably higher since OHCHR, which has a large monitoring team in the country, has not yet been able to verify casualty reports from several badly hit cities, it said.

Poland asks European Union to block all trade with Russia

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has repeated his call for the European Union’s executive body to block all trade with Russia and force Moscow to end the war on Ukraine.

Morawiecki spoke Saturday at the Telesystem-Mesko armaments maker in Lubiczow that produces anti-aircraft homing parts that Poland has made available to Ukraine, which is fighting a military invasion by Russia.

Morawiecki said that “a blockade of sea ports, a ban on entry by Russian ships under Russian flags with Russian cargo into sea ports, but also a ban on trade by land,” should be added to sanctions on Russia.

He said cutting Russia completely off sea and land trade with the 27-nation EU “will additionally force Russia to rethink ‘Maybe it’s best to stop this cruel war.”’

Morawiecki said he would make the appeal at the next meeting of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body.

No reason to believe that OPEC+ mechanism will be dismantled: Sergei Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday (March 19) he sees sees no reason to believe that the OPEC+ mechanism will be dismantled as no one is interested in that.

Speaking at the meeting with finalists of the management competition "Russia - a country of opportunities," Lavrov said the OPEC+ format will still be needed once new participants emerge on the global oil supply market.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel

Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken on the phone with Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, which is the second time this week the two leaders have talked.

According to the Kremlin’s readout of the call, Putin “outlined fundamental assessments of the course of the talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives,” while Bettel informed him about “contacts with the leadership of Ukraine and other countries.”

Putin also said that “incessant missile strikes by Ukrainian forces on Donetsk and other cities” of the self-proclaimed separatist Donetsk and Luhansk republics in eastern Ukraine are “leading to numerous civilian casualties.”

Bettel tweeted Saturday about his call with Putin, too. He stressed that since their first call earlier this week “the situation on the ground has worsened, especially in the city of Mariupol.”

Bettel added that “the images that reach us (from Mariupol) are intolerable. The goal needs to remain de-escalation, adoption of ceasefire & furthering negotiation processes.”

Watch | WION reports from the frontlines: Russian Missiles target Lviv's airport area

Zelensky to Swiss: Freeze oligarchs’ accounts

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Saturday for comprehensive peace talks with Moscow and also urged Switzerland to do more to crack down on wealthy Russian oligarchs who he said were helping wage war on his country with their money.

Zelensky, who makes frequent impassioned appeals to foreign audiences for help for his country, told an anti-war protest in Bern that Swiss banks were where the "money of the people who unleashed this war" lay and their accounts should be frozen.

Ukrainian cities "are being destroyed on the orders of people who live in European, in beautiful Swiss towns, who enjoy property in your cities. It would really be good to strip them of this privilege," he said in an audio address.

Neutral Switzerland, which is not a member of the European Union, has fully adopted EU sanctions against Russian individuals and entities, including orders to freeze their wealth in Swiss banks.

Russian invasion shut down 30% of Ukraine's economy, finance minister says

The Russian invasion has forced 30% of Ukraine’s economy to stop working, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said in a televised interview on Saturday.

“Our tax revenues do not allow us to cover our needs, (therefore) the main revenue stream is borrowing,” Marchenko said.

Up to 100 feared dead in Russian strike on military barrack in Ukraine's Mykolaiv: Report

Dozens of soldiers were killed after Russian troops struck a Ukrainian military barracks in the southern city of Mykolaiv, witnesses told AFP on Saturday while a rescue operation was underway. 

"No fewer than 200 soldiers were sleeping in the barracks" when Russian troops struck early Friday, a Ukrainian serviceman on the ground, 22-year-old Maxim, told AFP without providing his last name. 

"At least 50 bodies have been recovered, but we do not know how many others are in the rubble," he said.

Chinese envoy says NATO should not expand east

A Chinese diplomat says NATO should stick to what he claimed was a promise not to expand eastward.

In a speech on Saturday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng criticised the far-reaching Western sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine and said the root cause of the war in Ukraine “lies in the Cold War mentality and power politics.”

Echoing a Kremlin talking point, the Chinese envoy said if NATO’s “enlargement goes further, it would be approaching the ‘outskirts of Moscow’ where a missile could hit the Kremlin within seven or eight minutes.”

“Pushing a major country, especially a nuclear power, to the corner would entail repercussions too dreadful to contemplate,” he said.

He expressed an understanding for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s oft-repeated position, saying that NATO should have disintegrated and “been consigned to history alongside the Warsaw Pact.”

“However, rather than breaking up, NATO has kept strengthening and expanding, and intervened militarily in countries like Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan,” he said. “One could well anticipate the consequences going down this path. The crisis in Ukraine is a stern warning.”

Russia warns of Ukrainian mines in Black Sea

Russia on Saturday warned that mines that Ukrainians had deployed in the Black Sea against its "military operation" could drift as far as the Straits of Bosphrous and the Mediterranean Sea.

"After the start of the Russian special military operation, Ukrainian naval forces had deployed barriers of mines around the ports of Odessa, Ochakov, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny," the FSB security service said in a statement, adding that the mines were "dilapidated" and made in the first half of the 20th century.

Storms have cut cables to some of those mines that are now floating freely in the western Black Sea, pushed along by wind and the currents, it said.

Given the direction of the currents "the floating of the mines toward the Bosphrous and then on to the Mediterranean is not excluded", it said.

Watch-Gravitas Plus | India's Ukraine Dilemma

Ukraine calls on China to 'condemn Russian barbarism' 

Ukraine on Saturday called on China to join the West in condemning "Russian barbarism", after the US warned Beijing of consequences if it backed Moscow's attack on the country. 

"China can be the global security system’s important element if it makes a right decision to support the civilised countries’ coalition and condemn Russian barbarism," presidential aide Mikhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter. 

China has stayed out of the international outcry against Russia's actions in Ukraine, refusing to condemn President Vladimir Putin's invasion. 

Ukraine has evacuated 190,000 civilians from battle zones, says deputy PM

Ukraine has evacuated 190,000 civilians from frontline areas via humanitarian corridors since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a televised interview on Saturday.

She said corridors in the Kyiv and Luhansk regions were functioning on Saturday, but a planned corridor to the besieged eastern port city of Mariupol was only partially operational, with buses not being allowed through by Russian troops.

Brexit shows Britons love freedom in same way as Ukrainians, Johnson says

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Saturday that Brexit showed British people loved freedom in the same way as Ukrainians fighting Russia's invasion, comments that were branded tasteless by opposition lawmakers and commentators.

With Ukraine's ambassador to Britain present, Johnson told a Conservative Party conference it was the instinct of British people, like Ukrainians, to choose freedom every time.

"I can give you a couple of famous recent examples. When the British people voted for Brexit, in such large, large numbers, I don't believe it was because they were remotely hostile to foreigners. It's because they wanted to be free to do things differently and for this country to be able to run itself," Johnson said.

Dozens of soldiers dead after shelling of military barracks in south Ukraine:

Dozens of soldiers were killed after Russian troops struck a Ukrainian military barracks in the southern city of Mykolaiv, witnesses told AFP on Saturday while a rescue operation was underway. 

"No fewer than 200 soldiers were sleeping in the barracks" when Russian troops struck early Friday, a Ukrainian serviceman on the ground, 22-year-old Maxim, told AFP without providing his last name. "At least 50 bodies have been recovered, but we do not know how many others are in the rubble," he said. Another soldier estimated that the bombing could have killed around 100 people. Authorities have not yet released an official death toll.

Health facility set up in bomb shelter as fighting continues in & around Kyiv

Bulgaria won't send military aid to Ukraine

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov has ruled out providing military aid to Ukraine but said Saturday his country, a NATO ally, will continue to provide humanitarian assistance.

"Being so close to the conflict, right now I have to say that currently we will not be able to send military assistance to Ukraine. This will not be possible," Petkov said at a news conference in the Bulgarian capital with visiting US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Putin 'in better shape than ever', Belarus leader says

Russian President Vladimir Putin is healthy, sane and "in better shape than ever", his close ally Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has said in an interview with the Japanese television channel TBS.

"He and I haven't only met as heads of state, we're on friendly terms," Lukashenko said in a recording of the interview shared by state news agency BelTA. "I'm absolutely privy to all his details, as far as possible, both state and personal."

Ukraine confirms strike on missile warehouse

A Ukrainian military official has confirmed to a local news outlet that Russian forces carried out a missile strike Friday on a missile and ammunition warehouse in the Delyatyn settlement of the Ivano-Frankivsk region in western Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Air Forces spokesman Yurii Ihnat told the Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper Saturday, however, that it is yet to be confirmed whether the missile the Russians used was indeed Kinzhal, the county’s latest hypersonic missile, or some other kind.

Earlier on Saturday, a spokesman of the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said the Russian military hit the underground warehouse in Delyatyn on Friday with the hypersonic Kinzhal missile in its first reported combat use.

According to Russian officials, the Kinzhal, carried by MiG-31 fighter jets, has a range of up to 2,000 kilometers (about 1,250 miles) and flies at 10 times the speed of sound.

War could halt crop exports from Ukraine, says presidential adviser

Ukraine may not produce enough crops to export if this year's sowing campaigns are disrupted by Russia's invasion, presidential adviser Oleh Ustenko said in a televised interview on Saturday.

"Ukraine has enough grain and food reserves to survive for a year, but if the war continues ... (Ukraine) will not be able to export grain to the world, and there will be problems," he said, adding that Ukraine is the world's fifth-largest wheat exporter.

Russia fires at Kyiv suburbs, eastern Donetsk: Ukraine

Over the past 24 hours, Russian forces have fired at eight cities and villages in the eastern Donetsk region, using aviation, rocket and heavy artillery.

Ukraine’s National Police said in a statement on Telegram Saturday that at least 37 residential buildings and infrastructure facilities were damaged; dozens of civilians were killed and injured as a result of the attacks. The Russian military were firing at Mariupol, Avdiivka, Kramatorsk, Pokrovsk, Novoselydivka, Verkhnotoretske, Krymka, and Stepne.

The statement said that “among the civilian objects that Russia destroyed are multistory and private houses, a school, a kindergarten, a museum, a shopping center and administrative buildings.”

Kyiv northwestern suburbs of Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin and Moshchun have also been under fire on Saturday. The Kyiv regional administration reported that the city of Slavutich north of the capital was “completely isolated,” and that Russian military equipment was spotted in the region northeast and east of Kyiv.

More than 3.3 mn flee Ukraine, 6.5 mn internally displaced

More than 3.3 million refugees have now fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion, the United Nations said Saturday, while nearly 6.5 million are thought to be internally displaced within the country.

UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said 3,328,692 Ukrainians had left since the war began on February 24, with another 58,030 joining the exodus since Friday's update.

"People continue to flee because they are afraid of bombs, airstrikes and indiscriminate destruction," said UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi. 

"Aid is vital but can't stop fear. Only stopping the war can."

Putin 'in better shape than ever', Belarus leader says

Russian President Vladimir Putin is healthy, sane and "in better shape than ever", his close ally Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has said in an interview with the Japanese television channel TBS.

"He and I haven't only met as heads of state, we're on friendly terms," Lukashenko said in a recording of the interview shared by state news agency BelTA. "I'm absolutely privy to all his details, as far as possible, both state and personal."

Dozens dead after military barracks hit in south Ukraine

Dozens of soldiers were killed after Russian troops struck a Ukrainian military barracks in the southern city of Mykolaiv, witnesses told AFP on Saturday while a rescue operation was underway. 

"No fewer than 200 soldiers were sleeping in the barracks" when Russian troops struck early Friday, a Ukrainian serviceman on the ground, 22-year-old Maxim, told AFP without providing his last name. 

"At least 50 bodies have been recovered, but we do not know how many others are in the rubble," he said.

Another soldier estimated that the bombing could have killed around 100 people. 

Ukraine presidency claims Russian general killed in strike

Advisor to Ukrainian President Zelensky, Oleksiy Arestovych, has said that the commander of the Russian Eighth Army, Russian General Andrei Mordvichev, has been killed at the Chornobaivka airfield near Kherson. 

The Ukrainian Presidency claims the general was killed by strikes on an airfield just north of Crimea, saying he was the fifth top-ranking officer killed since the invasion began on February 24.

Aid agencies struggle to reach Ukraine's 'beseiged' cities

Aid agencies are struggling to reach people trapped in Ukrainian cities ringed by Russian forces, the UN's World Food Programme said Saturday, including hundreds of thousands of women and children.

"The challenge is to get to the cities that are encircled or about to be encircled," emergency coordinator Jakob Kern told AFP, describing the situation as "dire".

Lack of humanitarian access is making it almost impossible to deliver emergency food supplies to the besieged port city of Mariupol, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the northeastern city of Sumy.

It was a tactic that was "unacceptable in the 21st century", Kern said.

Russian forces kidnapped journalist: Ukraine

The office of the Prosecutor General in Ukraine has accused Russian security and military forces of kidnapping a Ukrainian journalist covering the Russian offensive in the east and the south of Ukraine.

In a Facebook statement Saturday, the Prosecutor General’s office alleged that Russia’s Federal Security Service, or the FSB, and the Russian military abducted the journalist of Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske on Tuesday in Berdyansk, an occupied port city in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.

The statement didn’t identify the journalist, but went on to say that the reporter’s whereabouts are currently unknown and a criminal investigation has been launched.

Hromadske on Friday tweeted that they lost contact with reporter Victoria Roshchyna last week.

“As we learned from witnesses, at that time the journalist was in the temporarily occupied Berdyansk. On March 16, we learned that the day before (probably March 15), Victoria Roshchyna was detained by the Russian FSB. Currently, we do not know where she is,” the outlet tweeted.

Ukraine says 10 corridors agreed with Russians

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced Saturday that 10 humanitarian corridors have been agreed on with the Russians.

They include a corridor from the besieged port city of Mariupol, several in the Kyiv region and several in the Luhansk region.

She also announced plans to deliver humanitarian aid to the city of Kherson, which is currently under control of the Russian forces.

In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces are blockading the largest cities with the goal of creating such miserable conditions that Ukrainians will cooperate.

He said the Russians are preventing supplies from reaching surrounded cities in central and southeastern Ukraine.

Satellite images on Friday from Maxar Technologies showed a long line of cars leaving Mariupol as people tried to evacuate. Zelensky said more than 9,000 people were able to leave the city in the past day.

Watch | Kremlin continues the assault as Russian troops bombard Kyiv, neighbouring cities

Stuck at Mexico border, anti-war Russians sweat their futures as Ukrainians enter US

Russians trying to enter the United States at the Mexican border are frustrated they are not getting in like Ukrainians are, despite leaving their homeland over the invasion of Ukraine.

US officials have let dozens of Ukrainians through this week but Russians remain in limbo, prompting some to camp on the pavement alongside a barbed wire border fence, defying warnings from Mexican authorities to leave.

Putin uses Ukraine talks to up violence: UK

Britain’s foreign secretary has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of using talks with Ukraine as a “smokescreen” while he ramps up violence against the country.

Liz Truss told the Times of London newspaper that she was “very skeptical” about Russia’s seriousness in the talks, accusing Russian forces of trying to create space to regroup and unblock their stalled campaign.

France and Austria replace Russia and Belarus at ice hockey worlds

France and Austria will replace Russia and Belarus at the men's ice hockey world championship in May, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) announced.

The IIHF suspended Russian and Belarusian teams on February 28 in response to the invasion of Ukraine. 

Ice hockey, along with judo, is one of the sports Russian president Vladimir Putin enjoys being seen playing.

France will join group A in Helsinki and face defending champions Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Slovakia, Denmark, Kazakhstan and Italy. 

Austria will be in group B in Tampere and play Olympic champions Finland, the United States, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Latvia, Norway and Great Britain in group B in Tampere.

Ukraine's prosecutor office says 112 children killed in war in Ukraine

The Ukrainian prosecutor general's office said on Saturday (March 19) that 112 children have been killed so far in the war in Ukraine. It also said on Telegram that 140 children had been wounded. 

However, the information could not be cconformed through officla sources. 

Disclaimer: A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While WION takes utmost care to accurately report this developing news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.

US to provide Stryker army company to NATO battlegroup in Bulgaria

The United States has agreed to provide a Stryker mechanised infantry company for Bulgaria's battlegroup under NATO's drive to bolster its eastern flank after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said. 

"The USA agreed to provide a Stryker company," he told a press conference with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. "This is a strong sign to all of our allies in NATO."

UK fears 'more extreme' Russian actions in Ukraine

Peace talks to end the Ukraine conflict could be a "smokescreen" for more extreme Russian military manoeuvres, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss warned Saturday.

"I'm very sceptical," Truss told The Times newspaper in an interview. "What we've seen is an attempt to create space for the Russians to regroup. Their invasion isn't going according to plan. 

"I fear the negotiation is yet another attempt to create a diversion and create a smokescreen. I don't think we're yet at a point for negotiation," she added.

Truss echoed comments by British intelligence that Putin could turn to "more and more extreme actions," adding "we've seen appalling atrocities already."

"The Kremlin has so far failed to achieve its original objectives. It has been surprised by the scale and ferocity of Ukrainian resistance and has been bedevilled with problems of its own making," Chief of Defence Intelligence Jim Hockenhull said on Friday.

"Russia is now pursuing a strategy of attrition. This will involve the reckless and indiscriminate use of firepower. This will result in increased civilian casualties, destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure and intensify the humanitarian crisis," he added.

Switzerland brands war in Ukraine 'devastating madness'

Russia's war in Ukraine is driven by "devastating madness", and Switzerland is prepared to pay the price for defending freedom and democracy, Swiss President Ignazio Cassis said Saturday.

Switzerland has decided to impose the same sanctions on Russia as the European Union but Cassis insisted Switzerland's neutrality was not at stake.

However, he said Switzerland could not simply stand by in the "confrontation between democracy and barbarism", and was prepared to take an economic hit.

"On February 24, the face of the world changed, and not in a good way. We must valiantly and tirelessly defend freedom and democracy. This has a price. A price that Switzerland is ready to assume", he wrote in Le Temps newspaper.

"This war is driven by a devastating madness which shatters all the principles and values of our civilisation."

Indian government defends itself for buying Russian oil at discounted price amid war in Ukraine

Amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, global crude oil prices are soaring owing to economic sanctions on Russia.

However, Russia is offering crude oil at discounted prices which India has decided to buy.

Watch this report: 

Russia said that it has used hypersonic missiles for the first time in Ukraine to destroy a weapons storage site in the West of the country.

Hypersonic missiles travel faster than the speed of sound and can manoeuvre mid-flight, making them hard to track and intercept.

Click Here to read a report on Kinzhal hypersonic missiles

Shelling kills nine in outskirts of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia

Nine people were killed and 17 wounded in shelling of the suburbs of the city of Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine on Friday, deputy mayor Anatoliy Kurtiev said on Saturday.

The military has since declared a 38-hour curfew in Zaporizhzhia, which was being attacked by Russian forces with mortars, tanks, helicopters and rocket systems, Kurtiev said in an online post.

Ukraine military orders 38-hour curfew in southern Zaporizhzhia city

The Ukrainian military imposed a 38-hour curfew in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, starting at 1400 GMT on Saturday and ending early on Monday, deputy mayor Anatoliy Kurtiev said.

"Do not go outside at this time!" he said in an online post.

The regional capital has become an important point of transit for some of the 35,000 people estimated to have fled the besieged Mariupol city in the southeast.

Zelenskiy figurines raise over $145,000 for Ukraine

A toy version of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy made by a small suburban Chicago toy company has made a big impact to the tune of $145,000.

Based in Naperville, Illinois, Citizen Brick started making unofficial 'Lego' figurines of Zelenskiy to raise money for the Ukrainian people after the Russian invasion started last month.

Owner Joe Trupia says what started out as a simple fundraising idea quickly ballooned into something much bigger.

“Having sold out the first batch of them immediately, but to people we knew, our regular customers, we kind of thought we were done with it. Then we started getting pings on the phone and we saw it was getting reposted on the Ukrainian Instagram page, which was kind of a shock. Suddenly, we were getting a lot of followers from Ukraine, people messaging us, it was kind of overwhelming.”

The Zelenskiy figurines sold for $100 each, while a molotov cocktail figurine decorated with the Ukrainian flag went for $20.

Trupia says the funds from Citizen Brick's sales will go to Direct Relief, a charity that claims to have sent over 30 tons of medical aid to Ukraine.

Turkey and Israel are acting as a mediator in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. As the conflict continues to escalate, more and more countries are trying to offer diplomatic solutions. But the question remains the same, can mediation help solve the Ukraine crisis? 

Watch this report: 

Russia says used hypersonic weapons in western Ukraine

Russia's defence ministry said that they have used its newest Kinzhal hypersonic missiles for the first time in Ukraine on Friday (March 17) to destroy a weapons storage site in the country's west. 

The Russian defence ministry said Saturday, "The Kinzhal aviation missile system with hypersonic aeroballistic missiles destroyed a large underground warehouse containing missiles and aviation ammunition" in the village of Deliatyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region."  

State news agency RIA Novosti said it was the first use of the Kinzhal hypersonic weapons during what Moscow calls a "special military operation" in pro-Western Ukraine. 

In pro-invasion rally, Russian President Vladimir Putin dons costly Loro Piana jacket

At a time when Russian citizens are facing numerous issues triggered by sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin, while giving a speech at a huge pro-invasion rally, donned a Loro Piana jacket.  

The clothing is worth nearly 1.5 million Russian roubles, which is equivalent to around $13,181 or £10,200. It is also worth around 25 times the average monthly salary of Russians.  

What's the 'Price of War'?

Amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, scores of empty strollers were lined up in the cobbled central square of the city of Lviv on Friday to commemorate the children killed in the country since Russia's invasion. Click Here to see photo gallery