Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday claimed the “liberation” of the flattened city of Mariupol after nearly two months of fighting, but signalled he would forgo a final bloody offensive against beleaguered Ukrainian defenders there.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered the Russian military to cancel plans to storm the Azovstal plant in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol and said he wanted it to continue to be hermetically blockaded instead.

After nearly two months under siege, the southern city of Mariupol could fall into Russian hands within “hours”, a Ukrainian official said, as the two sides yesterday agreed to a humanitarian corridor to allow civilians to flee the devastated port city.

A commander for the Ukrainian marines fighting in the last stronghold of Mariupol said his forces were “maybe facing our last days, if not hours” and appealed for extraction in a Facebook post published early yesterday.

Russia said on Wednesday it had conducted a first test launch of its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, a new addition to its nuclear arsenal which President Vladimir Putin said would give Moscow's enemies something to think about.

Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming has said the ongoing tragedy in Ukraine has broken hearts of many and that China stands for peace and opposes war.

The United States will send more artillery to Ukraine, US President Joe Biden told reporters on Tuesday, following his call earlier with allied leaders over Russia's invasion.

Moscow launched dozens of air strikes across eastern Ukraine overnight, its defence ministry said yesterday, with Russia’s top diplomat acknowledging “another phase” of the conflict was beginning as fighting raged in the Donbas region.

Russia launched its long-feared, full-scale ground offensive to take control of Ukraine’s east on Monday, attacking along a broad front over 300 miles (480 kilometers) long, Ukrainian officials said in what marked the opening of a new and potentially climactic phase of the war.

Russia said yesterday it had hit hundreds of military targets in Ukraine overnight, destroying command posts with air-launched missiles, while authorities in the western city of Lviv, which has escaped heavy bombardment, said a missile attack killed seven.

Ukraine should make concessions to Russian demands, said philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky in a recent interview, adding that the people must “pay attention to the reality of the world.”

Five "powerful" Russian missiles hit Lviv on Monday, a city in the west of the Ukraine that has so far been spared much of the fighting since Russia invaded its pro-Western neighbour nearly two months ago, the city's mayor said.

Ukraine yesterday vowed to ‘fight to the end’ as a Russian ultimatum for the last remaining Ukrainian forces in Mariupol to surrender expired yesterday.

Russia's defence ministry has told the Ukrainian forces still fighting in the besieged southern port of Mariupol to lay down their arms starting 6 am Moscow time (0300 GMT) on Sunday to save their lives.

Russian air raids and missile strikes hit Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and other major cities yesterday as Moscow launched more long-range attacks following the sinking of its Black Sea Fleet’s flagship.

Moscow on Saturday announced it was banning entry to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and several other top UK officials, after London imposed sanctions on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine.

Indignant over what it called Ukrainian strikes in Russian territory and following the stunning loss of its Black Sea flagship, Moscow threatened renewed missile attacks on Kyiv, where authorities said the bodies of more than 900 civilians were found outside the capital. Most had been shot dead, police said, and likely “simply executed.”

Russian strikes pounded a military factory near Kyiv that makes the missiles Ukraine claims it used to sink the Moskva naval flagship, with Moscow yesterday vowing renewed attacks on the capital.

The flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet has sunk after what Kyiv said was a Ukrainian missile strike, dealing one of the heaviest blows yet to Moscow's war effort and providing a stunning symbol of Kyiv's resistance against a better-armed foe.

On a day that saw Moscow suffer a stinging symbolic defeat with the loss of its Black Sea fleet flagship, Ukraine’s president hailed his people for their resolve since Russia invaded in February and for making “the most important decision of their life — to fight.”