War in Ukraine enters its 30th day after the invasion was launched by Moscow on Feb. 24. The fighting has forced more than ten million Ukrainians to flee their homes, with thousands of people killed or wounded and widespread damage in the wake of shelling and aerial bombardments. Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk demanded from ICRC to acquire a list of Mariupol residents who are thought to have been taken to Russia. The Ukrainian government claims at least 15,000 citizens of the besieged city were forcibly deported by the Russian troops. US President Joe Biden is in Warsaw, where he met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov — the first encounter with senior Kiev officials since the beginning of the Russian invasion. Shelling and missile strikes continued overnight mostly in eastern Ukraine, with reports of explosions in Vinnytsya, Zhytomyr and Sievierodonetsk, where the Russian troops are accused of shelling food storage facilities. The German state of Lower Saxony outlawed the public display of the letter Z in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with those breaking the law facing criminal charges. Bavaria had made a similar decision on Friday. Meanwhile French President Emmanuel Macron said France, Turkey and Greece will carry out "a humanitarian operation" to evacuate people from the besieged city of Mariupol "in the next few days". The local authority said on Friday that people are starving. Russia's army chief has said its main war effort will now focus on the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, having 'mostly accomplished' first phase objectives. Some see it as a sign that Moscow recognizes its early strategy has failed. Meanwhile, the governor of the Kiev region sais that Russian forces have entered the city of Slavutych and seized a hospital there. Governor Oleksandr Pavlyuk said on Saturday that the Russians also kidnapped the city's mayor, but some media reported later in the day that the mayor was released swiftly. Neither claim could be verified independently. The governor said that residents of Slavutych took to the streets with Ukrainian flags to protest the Russian invasion. "The Russians opened fire into the air. They threw flash-bang grenades into the crowd. But the residents did not disperse, on the contrary, more of them showed up," Pavlyuk said. Slavutych is located north of Kyiv and west of Chernihiv, outside the exclusion zone that was established around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the 1986 disaster. It is home to workers at the Chernobyl site. Also, Turkey's Defense Ministry said a "mine-like" object has been "neutralized" at the northern entrance to the Bosporus Strait. The sighting on Saturday of a possible naval mine followed warnings that explosive devices laid at the entrances to Ukrainian ports could break free in bad weather and cross the Black Sea. Broadcaster NTV showed images of an object bobbing in the waves off Istanbul's Sariyer district, on the Bosporus' European coast. A Coast Guard vessel was stationed nearby. A Defense Ministry statement said divers were dispatched to deal with the object. According to Demiroren News Agency, it was noticed by fishermen. On March 18, Turkey advised ships to keep a "sharp lookout" and report any possible mines that had drifted from Ukrainian ports. A new curfew will be introduced in Kiev from Saturday night to Monday morning, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital, Vitali Klitschko, announced on Saturday. "The military command has decided to strengthen the curfew. It will last from 8 p.m. on Saturday to 7 a.m. on Monday," the mayor said on Telegram. Making a surprise video appearance at Qatar's Doha Forum, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized Russia for what he described as threatening the world with its nuclear weapons. "Russia is deliberating bragging they can destroy with nuclear weapons, not only a certain country but the entire planet," Zelenskyy said in a video message to political and business leaders, which was translated into Arabic. A daily update by Britain's Defense Ministry said Russian forces are proving unwilling to engage in large scale urban infantry operations, instead preferring to rely on the indiscriminate use of air and artillery bombardments in an attempt to demoralize defending forces. Russia continues to besiege several major Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol. The assessment said it is likely that Russia will continue to use its heavy firepower on urban areas as it looks to limit its already considerable losses at the cost of further civilian casualties. And Ukrainian President Zelenskyy's chief of staff is calling on the West to create a new "lend-lease" program for Ukraine, referring to the World War II effort that sent US supplies to the Soviet Union to help it fight Nazi Germany. "Today Ukraine is the holy grail of Europe, and without exaggeration, Ukraine is reviving those principles that gave life to current Western civilization," Andriy Yermak said in an address late Friday. He said what Ukraine needs most are real-time intelligence and heavy weapons. Yermak also repeated the Ukrainian president's calls for help in closing the skies over Ukraine to stop Russian bombing and missile attacks. The West has refused to impose a no-fly zone for fear of widening the war. He said options include supplying Ukraine with air defense systems or fighter jets or creating an "air police force to protect civilian infrastructure". — Euronews
