Russia-Ukraine war highlights: Ukraine claims shooting down 124th Russian plane

Seven European Union countries on Monday urged their citizens to refrain from joining the Ukrainian military resistance against Russia's invading troops. The appeal was issued by the justice ministers of France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg and Belgium, reported AFP.

President Joe Biden he wasn’t announcing a US policy change when he said Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” but was expressing his own anger about the invasion of Ukraine. Read more

Ukrainian forces claimed to have retaken a Kyiv suburb and an eastern town from the Russians in what is becoming a back-and-forth stalemate on the ground, while negotiators began assembling for another round of talks Tuesday aimed at stopping the fighting, reports AP.

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, reports news agency AP.

Government officials in Kyiv say they are investigating whether a cyberattack is to blame.

Russia's top independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose chief editor last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, on Monday suspended publication until the end of Moscow's military action in Ukraine. "For us and, I know, for you, this is a terrible and difficult decision," said chief editor Dmitry Muratov. "But we need to save us for each other," he said in a statement, indicating that it was necessary to avoid a complete shutdown of the newspaper. Full story

Russian foreign ministry tweets picture of a van claiming it is carrying out humanitarian work in Mariupol. 

Ukrainian military claims to have shot down Russian plane, drone in Kharkiv Oblast, The Kyiv Independent reports.  This is the 124th Russian plane shot down in Ukraine since the beginning of the war.

The Ukrainian army says it has taken over a village in Kharkiv, saying the troops have finished clearing Russian troops from the warzone, AFP reported. There are Russian corpses all over the place," a Ukrainian soldier said, adding that more than two dozen soldiers dispatched to Ukraine by Moscow had been killed in the fight for the hamlet.

Sanctioned Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian peace negotiators suffered symptoms of suspected poisoning earlier this month after a meeting in Kyiv, Reuters quoted The Wall Street Journal.

A senior Ukrainian official says at least 5,000 people have been buried in the besieged southern city of Mariupol since the invasion began, but that bodies have gone uncollected for the past 10 days amid continuing Russian shelling, AFP reported. The foreign ministry describes the humanitarian situation in the city as "catastrophic"

UN is seeking 'humanitarian ceasefire' in Ukraine, says chief Antonio Guterres.

Ukraine has alleged that a local journalist is missing and might have been captured by the Russian forces, The Kyiv Independent reports. According to the Ukrainian authorities, news reporter Dmytro Khyliuk is believed to be in custody of Russian forces in Kyiv Oblast since early March.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to Azerbaijan president, informs him over alleged Russian strikes on civilian population.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday it was not a coincidence that sanctions against Russia were so harsh and that Germany and its partners had more options they could implement if necessary, Reuters reported

Ukraine on Monday claimed to have taken full control of Irpin near the capital Kyiv on the 33rd day of the war, news agency Reuters reported. "We have good news today - Irpin has been liberated," the mayor Oleksandr Markushyn said in a video post on Telegram. "We understand that there will be more attacks on our town and we will defend it courageously, he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin does not appear ready to make compromises to end the war in Ukraine, a senior US official said on Monday as Ukraine and Russia were preparing for their first face-to-face peace talks in more than two weeks, Reuters reported. 

Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne has quoted the mayor of Mariupol as saying that around 160,000 people remain in the besieged port city, and that a “humanitarian catastrophe” would ensue if more evacuations are not possible, reported PTI. 

The Group of Seven most industrialised nations on Monday dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin's demand to pay for gas in rubles, with German Economy Minister Robert Habeck saying the bid showed Putin had his "back against the wall", reported AFP.

The Kremlin said that peace talks between Russia and Ukraine may get underway in Turkey on Tuesday and it was important that they would take place face-to-face, after what it described as a lack of major progress in negotiations so far, reported Reuters.

Ukraine could declare neutrality and offer security guarantees to Russia to secure peace "without delay,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of another expected round of talks between the two sides — though he said only a face-to-face meeting with Russia's leader could end the war, reported AP.

Ukrainian and Russian negotiators will begin peace talks in Istanbul later on Monday, a senior Turkish official said, without elaborating.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed in a telephone call on Sunday for Istanbul to host the talks, which Ankara hopes will lead to a ceasefire, Reuters reported.

With its aspirations for a quick victory dashed by a stiff Ukrainian resistance, Russia has increasingly focused on grinding down Ukraine's military in the east in the hope of forcing Kyiv into surrendering part of the country's territory to possibly end the war, news agency AP reported.

The bulk of the Ukrainian army is concentrated in eastern Ukraine, where it has been locked up in fighting with Moscow-backed separatists in a nearly eight-year conflict. If Russia succeeds in encircling and destroying the Ukrainian forces in the country's industrial heartland called Donbas, it could try to dictate its terms to Kyiv and, possibly, attempt to split the country in two.

"All entries and exits from the city of Mariupol are blocked," Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said. "The port is mined. A humanitarian catastrophe inside the city is unequivocal, because it is impossible to go there with food, medicine and water," he said.

"I don't even know who the Russian army has ever treated like this," he said, adding that, compared to Russian wars in Chechnya, the volume of destruction "cannot be compared".

Russia has denied targeting civilians in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine have traded blame for a failure to open humanitarian corridors.

The hacking group linked to the group Anonymous, said on March 27 that it has retrieved over 870 gigabytes of information from Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting companies and will eventually release it. Hacking group Network Battalion 65' shared the news in a series of tweets.