Russia-Ukraine war LIVE Updates: Overnight shelling by Russia in Ukraine’s Kharkiv kills 8 including kids, says report-World News , Firstpost

French teacher Pjotr Vyerko, 81, holds a rifle standing behind the broken window of a bedroom in his house which was damaged by the shock waves of a Russian airstrike in Gorenka, outside the capital Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda

Russia Ukraine war LATEST Updates: Eight people were killed, including two children, after overnight shelling by Russia in the Izyum area of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv.

US President Joe Biden will hold a virtual summit Thursday with the leaders of the other members of the Quad grouping Japan, Australia and India, New Delhi said.

India on Thursday denied Russia’s claims that Indian students stranded in Ukraine were being held hostage by Ukrainian forces and used as “human shields.”

Independent monitoring group OVD-Info says over 7,000 people in total in Russia have been detained at protests over the invasion of Ukraine

Federation Internationale Feline (FIFe), an international cat fancier society, has imposed restrictions on cats bred in Russia in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

The NGO, FIFe Executive Board, in a statement, said that it is “shocked and horrified” that the army of the “Russian Federation invaded the Republic of Ukraine and started a war.”

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe says one of its members died during shelling in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, reports AP. Maryna Fenina was killed while getting supplies for her family, the group said in a news release Wednesday. Fenina worked with the organization’s monitoring mission in Ukraine

Russian army personnel have forced their way into the council building in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, Mayor Igor Kolykhayev says, according to Reuters.

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said an active probe into possible war crimes in Ukraine “will immediately proceed” after his office received the backing of 39 countries.

The number of people sent fleeing Ukraine by Russia’s invasion topped 1 million on Wednesday, the swiftest refugee exodus this century, the United Nations said, as Russian forces kept up their bombardment of the country’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv, and laid siege to two strategic seaports.

Russian forces have taken the Ukrainian city of Kherson, local officials confirmed, the first major urban centre to fall since Moscow invaded one week ago.

Ukraine’s state emergency service has said that more than 2,000 civilians have been killed since Russia’s attack on Ukraine started on 24 February. Fighting continued for the sixth day as Russia intensified its attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv.

According to the city’s regional administration, 21 people were killed in Russian shelling in the last 24 hours.

The number of people sent fleeing Ukraine by Russia’s invasion topped 1 million on Wednesday, the swiftest refugee exodus this century, the United Nations said, as Russian forces kept up their bombardment of the country’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv, and laid siege to two strategic seaports.

The tally from the UN refugee agency released to The Associated Press amounts to more than 2 percent of Ukraine’s population being forced out of the country in less than a week. The mass evacuation could be seen in Kharkiv, where residents desperate to get away from falling shells and bombs crowded the city’s train station and tried to press onto trains, not always knowing where they were headed.

In a videotaped address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Ukrainians to keep up the resistance. He vowed that the invaders would have “not one quiet moment” and described Russian soldiers as “confused children who have been used.”

Moscow’s isolation deepened, meanwhile, when most of the world lined up against it at the United Nations to demand it withdraw from Ukraine. And the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into possible war crimes.

With fighting going on on multiple fronts across the country, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Mariupol, a large city on the Azov Sea, was encircled by Russian forces, while the status of another vital port, Kherson, a Black Sea shipbuilding city of 280,000, remained unclear.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces claimed to have taken complete control of Kherson, which would make it the biggest city to fall yet in the invasion. But a senior U.S. defense official disputed that.

“Our view is that Kherson is very much a contested city,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Zelenskyy’s office told The Associated Press that it could not comment on the situation in Kherson while the fighting was still going on.

But the mayor of Kherson, Igor Kolykhaev, said Russian soldiers were in the city and came to the city administration building. He said he asked them not to shoot civilians and to allow crews to gather up the bodies from the streets.

“I simply asked them not to shoot at people,” he said in a statement. “We don’t have any Ukrainian forces in the city, only civilians and people here who want to LIVE.”

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said the attacks there had been relentless.

“We cannot even take the wounded from the streets, from houses and apartments today, since the shelling does not stop,” he was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

Russia reported its military casualties for the first time since the invasion began last week, saying nearly 500 of its troops have been killed and almost 1,600 wounded. Ukraine did not disclose its own military losses but said more than 2,000 civilians have died, a claim that could not be independently verified.