And with that, we wrap up today's coverage of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Thank you for joining us today, and do not forget to return tomorrow when CNBC-TV18 resumes live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. Good night.

Mar 30, 2022 10:59 PM

US to give Ukraine $500m in budget aid, Biden tells Zelenskyy

The United States will provide $500m in budgetary assistance to Ukraine, President Joe Biden told Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy on a call today.

The two leaders spoke over the phone for nearly an hour about the ongoing efforts by the US and its allies to provide military, economic and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, according to a White House readout.

A White House statement read: "...President Biden informed President Zelenskyy that the United States intends to provide the Ukrainian government with $500 million in direct budgetary aid. He also reviewed the additional sanctions and humanitarian assistance announced last week. President Zelenskyy updated President Biden on the status of Ukraine’s negotiations with Russia. "

Mar 30, 2022 10:39 PM

Zelenskyy speaks to BIden

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Twitter that he and US President Biden spoke for an hour about “the situation on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.” Zelenskyy, who has been in regular contact with Western leaders, said they also “talked about specific defensive support, a new package of enhanced sanctions, macro-financial and humanitarian aid.”

Mar 30, 2022 10:20 PM

Here's a recap of the day's developments

Russia has been accused of intensifying its bombardment of the besieged Ukrainian city of Chernihiv despite claims the Kremlin would drawback out of respect for ongoing peace talks. Vladyslav Atroshenko, Chernihiv’s mayor, said the Russians had lied and that they were continuing to heavily hit his city. “They’re saying reducing intensity, they actually have increased the intensity of strikes,” he told CNN. There was also continued barraging of Kyiv’s suburbs, Ukrainian officials said, said although a defence ministry spokesperson said there were some signs of troop movements away from the two cities. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces were regrouping near Kyiv and Chernihiv in order to focus on other key areas and complete the “liberation” of the breakaway Donbas region, Russian news agencies reported. The Ukrainian military said Russian troops were also intensifying their attacks around the eastern city of Izyum and the eastern Donetsk region, after redeploying some units from other areas. The regional Donetsk governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said Russian forces are shelling nearly all cities along the frontline separating Ukrainian government-controlled territory from the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk in the east. Russian forces struck a Red Cross facility in the besieged southern Ukraine port city of Mariupol, the Ukrainian ombudswoman, Lyudmyla Denisova, said. An International Red Cross (ICRC) spokesperson confirmed an image being circulated showed an ICRC warehouse in Mariupol, but that they could not provide any other information. Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that Russian shelling of Mariupol will end only when Ukrainian troops surrender, the Kremlin said. French officials said Putin had agreed to consider plans to evacuate citizens out of the southern Ukrainian city, but the Russian government said Putin had insisted to Macron that Ukrainian “nationalist militants” must surrender. An estimated 200-300 civilians were killed in the Ukrainian town of Irpin near Kyiv before the town was taken back from Russian forces this week, the local mayor, Oleksandr Markushyn, said. About 50 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed in Irpin, and some bodies were still trapped under rubble, he said, adding that there had been Russian shelling in the area all night. The Kremlin played down hopes of an early breakthrough a day after peace talks in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine. “We cannot state that there was anything too promising or any breakthroughs,” the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said. He said it was “positive” that Kyiv had outlined its demands but there was “a lot of work to be done”. More than 4 million people have fled Russia’s “utterly senseless” war on Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion on 24 February, the UN refugee agency said. The figure surpasses the UN’s initial estimate that the war would create up to 4 million refugees. More than 90% are women and children. Vladimir Putin’s advisers are “too afraid to tell him the truth” about how poorly the war in Ukraine is going and how damaging Westerns sanctions have been to Russia’s economy, according to a US official. Reuters quoted the official as saying the US believes Putin “is being misinformed” by his advisers. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, hailed China as part of a new “just, democratic world order” ahead of a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. In his first visit to China since Russia invaded Ukraine last month, Lavrov said the world was “living through a very serious stage in the history of international relations”. Wang said Beijing and Moscow are “more determined” to develop bilateral ties and boost cooperation and reaffirmed China’s support for continued peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Putin’s approval ratings surged in March to levels not seen in five years as the war in Ukraine enters its second month, according to an independent survey. According to the Levada Center, Putin’s job approval grew to 83% in March from 71% in February. The last time Putin reached similar approval ratings was in 2017. The UK has granted only 2,700 visas under its much-advertised Homes for Ukraine sponsorship scheme more than two weeks after its launch, according to Home Office figures. Meanwhile, Ukrainian refugees in Poland told the Guardian that they were baffled by the UK government’s asylum rules, which they say appear designed more to keep people out than offer shelter to those fleeing war.

Mar 30, 2022 10:01 PM

More than 1,000 civilians deaths recorded in Ukraine: UN human rights chief

Michelle Bachelet said her office had verified 1,189 civilian deaths in Ukraine, including 98 children, since the invasion began on 24 February. However, the true toll is likely to be far higher, she warned, explaining that it was difficult to confirm casualties in the areas most affected by the war, such as Mariupol. Bachelet said: "Civilians are enduring immeasurable suffering, and the humanitarian crisis is critical." There has been a "significant increase" in the mortality rate among civilians in besieged cities, she said. This could be attributed to disrupted medical care coupled with conflict-related deprivation and stress, she added.

Mar 30, 2022 9:41 PM

Russian troops gang-raped woman in Mariupol, says Ukraine's MoD

In an explosive tweet, Ukraine's ministry of defence accused Russia's troops of gang-raping a woman in front of her six-year-old son. The tweet claimed that the woman died of injuries.

Mar 30, 2022 9:20 PM

UK not looking to oust Putin: Boris Johnson

The UK’s goal is not to remove the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, from power, Boris Johnson told the Commons Liaison Committee this afternoon, reports the Guardian.

Johnson said he understood why the US president, Joe Biden, had said Putin “cannot remain in power” in a speech at the weekend, but that was “not the objective of the UK government”.

Johnson told MPs: "It’s not the objective of the UK government and it’s very, very important everybody gets this, we are simply setting out to help to protect the people of Ukraine and to protect them against absolutely barbaric and unreasonable violence."

Asked whether the French president, Emmanuel Macron, had been speaking to Putin for “too long”, the PM replied that “Putin is plainly not to be trusted”.

Mar 30, 2022 9:09 PM

Russia "regrouping" forces around Kyiv

The Russian Defence Ministry says it is “regrouping” its forces around Kyiv. In a statement, the ministry claimed those forces’ aim had been to tie up and weaken Ukrainian troops in that region, preventing them from joining the fighting in eastern Ukraine. “All these goals were achieved,” the ministry said, adding it would now focus on “the final stage of the operation to liberate” the Donbas area of eastern Ukraine, The New York Times reported.

Mar 30, 2022 9:05 PM

Russians plan melancholy version of Instagram after ban

An image of the app's planned user interface showed a woman in a fur coat standing in front of St Basil's Cathedral on Moscow's Red Square. The search bar tells users to search for sad compatriots.…

Mar 30, 2022 8:52 PM

Ukraine says Russia planting mines in Black Sea as shipping perils grow

Ukraine accused Russia on Wednesday of planting mines in the Black Sea and said some of those munitions had to be defused off Turkey and Romania as risks to vital merchant shipping in the region grow.

The Black Sea is a major shipping route for grain, oil and oil products. Its waters are shared by Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia and Turkey as well as Ukraine and Russia.

Russia's military took control of waterways when it invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, in what Moscow calls a "special operation".

In recent days Turkish and Romanian military diving teams have been involved in defusing stray mines around their waters.

Ukraine's foreign ministry said Russia was using naval mines as "uncontrolled drifting ammunition".

"It was these drifting mines that were found March 26-28, 2022 off the coasts of Turkey and Romania," it said in a statement.

The ministry said "the deliberate use by Russia of drifting sea mines turns them into a de facto weapon of indiscriminate action, which threatens, first of all, civil navigation and human life at sea in the whole waters not only of the Black and Azov Seas, but also of the Kerch and Black Sea Straits".

Russian officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mar 30, 2022 8:42 PM

Mariupol a strategic prize for Russia, symbol of resistance for Ukraine

As many as 290,000 people had fled by March 27 but at least 160,000 were still trapped without power and with little food or other supplies in Mariupol

Mar 30, 2022 8:04 PM

Ukraine says Russia is preparing renewed offensive operations

(Russian forces in Ukraine are regrouping and preparing for renewed offensive operations, Ukrainian Defence Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said on Wednesday. "(Russia's) main efforts are concentrated on surrounding Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine," Motuzyanyk said, adding that Russia was still trying to take the southern port city of Mariupol and the towns of Popasna and Rubizhne.

"It (Russia) is preparing to resume offensive operations," he said, adding that Ukraine's armed forces command had observed some movements of Russian forces away from the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions but did not consider this to be a mass withdrawal.

Mar 30, 2022 7:58 PM

Russia backs peace talks

Russia’s chief negotiator with Ukraine reaffirmed Russia’s interest in a peace deal along the lines of the one proposed at Tuesday’s talks in Istanbul. “Yesterday the Kyiv authorities, for the first time in all these past years, declared their readiness to reach an agreement with Russia,” the negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said in a televised statement. The Kremlin has sent mixed messages, with a spokesman saying earlier Wednesday that the Istanbul talks did not produce anything “very promising.”

Mar 30, 2022 7:31 PM

US astronaut, 2 Russian cosmonauts return home from ISS

A US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday after leaving the International Space Station aboard the same capsule despite heightened antagonism between Moscow and Washington over the conflict in Ukraine.

The flight -- carrying NASA's Mark Vande Hei and Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov back to Earth -- was being closely watched to determine whether escalating strife had spilled over into longtime cooperation in space between the two former Cold War adversaries.

Mar 30, 2022 6:54 PM

Europe must shut ports to Russian ships, Ukraine president tells Norwegian parliament

Norway and the rest of Europe should close their sea ports to Russian ships, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Norwegian parliament on Wednesday. "The European Union, and I do hope so Norway, need to introduce the ban on Russian vessels to use European ports for the time being while they are blocking our ports," Zelenskyy said via video link from Ukraine.

Mar 30, 2022 6:48 PM

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