Russia-Ukraine war highlights: On eve of talks, Russian forces close in on Kyiv

Russian forces on Wednesday closed in on Ukraine's capital city Kyiv as both countries prepared for their first high-level talks since the invasion last month. 

A Russian attack severely damaged a maternity hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol, Ukraine said Wednesday, and citizens trying to escape shelling on the outskirts of Kyiv streamed toward the capital amid warnings from the West that Moscow’s invasion is about to take a more brutal and indiscriminate turn.

United Nations investigators on Wednesday urged world leaders to do everything they could to avoid Ukraine becoming another Syria, a country "destroyed" by 11 years of conflict. Read more

Britain said Wednesday it was preparing to send more portable missile systems to help Ukrainian forces destroy Russian tanks and aircraft, but denied it was escalating the conflict. Read more

A planned evacuation of civilians from the Ukrainian town of Izyum in the eastern Kharkiv region was held up by Russian shelling on Wednesday, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said an online post. "Buses are still waiting at the entrance to Izyum," he said, adding that negotiations with the Russians were under way with the support of the Red Cross.

As the Chernobyl nuclear power plant entirely went off the grid on Wednesday amid the Russia-Ukraine fight triggering fresh concerns for the world as Ukraine said the power outage could put systems for cooling nuclear material at risk. Read more

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Wednesday Russia must urgently observe a temporary ceasefire to allow repairs on a power line to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, saying radiation could be leaked if an electricity outage continues, reports news agency Reuters.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting with members of his government on Thursday and the main topic will be measures to minimise the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy, the Kremlin said in a statement, reported news agency Reuters.

Russia says negotiations with officials from Kyiv to resolve the conflict in Ukraine were making headway and underscored that Moscow's troops were not working to topple the Ukrainian government, reports news agency AFP.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian president, has warned that threat is at ‘maximum level’, Reuters reports.

On the 14th day of the Ukaine war, Russia foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, “Some progress has been made”. The official was referring to three rounds of talks, news agency AFP reported. She said the Russian military had not been tasked to "overthrow the current government."

The new law, which was rushed through in a single day, targets those in Russia associated with the invasion, including oligarchs. It will allow New Zealand to freeze assets and stop superyachts or planes from arrivin, news agency Reuters reported. 

"Russia's reaction will be swift, thoughtful and sensitive for those it addresses," Dmitry Birichevsky, the director of the foreign ministry's department for economic cooperation,  was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency by Reuters. The response came on a spate of sanctions amid the Ukraine war. 

More than 2.1 million people have fled the Ukraine war in two weeks, the United Nations has said. 

Ukraine is trying to evacuate civilians through six "humanitarian corridors", including from the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has been quoted as saying by news agency Reuters. The Ukrainian armed forces had agreed to stop firing in those areas from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. (0700-1900 GMT), she said,, urging the Russian forces to fulfil their commitment to local ceasefires.

“The special military operation of the Russian armed forces, carried out since Feb. 24, preempted and thwarted a large-scale offensive by strike groups of Ukrainian troops on the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, which are not controlled by Kyiv, in March of this year.” Russian defence ministry spokesperson Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov  was quoted as saying by news agency AP. 

“We hope that it will work better today; in any case, we are talking to the parties and, above all, the parties are talking to each other — that is the most important thing at the moment,” Peter Maurer, chief of the International Committee of the Red Cross, was quoted as saying by news agency AP 

10 people have died in shooting in eastern Ukraine's Severodonestk, news agency AFP reports, citing a local official

At least 22 people were killed overnight in war-hit Sumy after Russian air strikes, Ukraine-based The Kyiv Independent reported. 

In a statement early Wednesday, the Ukraine army said that forces around Kyiv are resisting the Russian offensive with unspecified strikes and “holding the line, news agency AP reported. The army is building up its defences in north, south and east. The Sumy-Poltava route is the only one successfully used so far for humanitarian evacuations

The foeign ministers of Russia and Ukraine are set to meet in Turkey amid the war, reports said. Russia's Sergei Lavrov will travel to Turkey on Wednesday for talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, Reuters reported, citing Tass news agency of Russia. 

A bipartisan $13.6 billion deal to help Ukraine and European allies came nearer to closure as US Congressional leaders held discussions after Joe Biden's big move to block Russian oil imports. “We’re going to support them against tyranny, oppression, violent acts of subjugation," Biden said at the White House.

In Kyiv and other major cities, residents were asked to go to bomb shelters as air raid alerts were sounded, local media reported.