LAST UPDATE | 9 Mar 2022

IT’S DAY 14 of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Russia and Ukraine have agreed a day-long ceasefire around a series of evacuation corridors to allow civilians to escape the fighting, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said.

Vereshchuk said Moscow has vowed to respect the truce from 9am to 9pm around six areas that have been heavily hit by fighting, including regions near Kyiv, in Zaporizhzhia in the south, and some parts of Ukraine’s northeast.

The news comes as the US banned imports of Russian oil, firing one of its biggest economic weapons against Moscow over the war in Ukraine. 

Here are the main points you need to know today:

• An air strike hit a maternity hospital in Mariupol, injuring 17 people as the mayor of the city says that over 1,200 civilians have died during the nine-day siege of the city.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the air strike a “war crime” as the attack stirred worldwide condemnation.
• A humanitarian day-long ceasefire in a number of areas in Ukraine was announced to allow civilians to flee.
• Attempts to evacuate through safe corridors have been continuing – a convoy of buses has transported 5,000 people out of the city of Sumy, which was hours beforehand targeted by strikes.’
• Power was cut to the Chernobyl power plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, Ukraine said today, but the UN’s atomic watchdog said there was “no critical impact on safety”.
• 146 members of Russia’s parliament and 14 Kremlin-linked oligarchs will be added to a list of EU sanctions.
• Over 2,000 people who have fled Ukraine have arrived in Ireland so far, with about 640 of them staying in hotels. 
• Racheal Diyaolu, an Irish student who was studying in Ukraine when the war broke out, has made it to an EU border after fleeing from the city of Sumy.
• Russia has said negotiations with Kyiv to resolve the Ukraine conflict were making headway and underscored that Moscow’s troops were not working to topple the Ukrainian government.
• The US conclusively rejected a Polish plan to transfer fighter jets from Poland to Ukraine, saying that the “high-risk” move could be viewed as an escalation.

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As it happened: Day-long ceasefire around safe corridors in Ukraine as children's hospital hit by Russian air strike