People line up to get water at a well on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, March 9, 2022 (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP)

See also “Hope Dies Last”: Life Under Siege in Ukraine’s Mariupol

Thursday’s Coverage: Russia Bombs Children’s Hospital as 1,170 Killed in Mariupol

UPDATE 1512 GMT:

Ukraine’s state nuclear power agency says the power supply to the Chernobyl nuclear plant has not been restored.

Russian officials and Belarus President Alexander Lukachenko had proclaimed that Belarusian specialists reconnected the plant to the grid.

Ukraine’s regulators said, “Attempts to restore the external power supply to the site are in progress.”

UPDATE 1508 GMT:

The Ukraine Air Force says Russian warplanes fired on a Belarusian village from Ukrainian air space, hoping to bring Belarus into Vladimir Putin’s war.

The air force said Russian aircraft took off from an airfield in Belarus about 2:30 p.m., crossed into Ukrainian air space, and then fired at the village of Kopani in Belarus and target two other settlements.

Ukraine’s Air Force Command said, “This is a PROVOCATION! The goal is to involve the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus in the war with Ukraine!…We officially declare: the Ukrainian military has not planned and does not plan to take any aggressive action against the Republic of Belarus.”

UPDATE 1505 GMT:

Ukraine Interior Minister advisor Vadym Denysenko says the situation for residents of besieged Mariupol is critical.

Denysenko said he did not know if eight trucks with aid would make it to the southern city today.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Ankara said there are 86 Turkish citizens, including 34 children, are sheltering in a mosque in the city.

The Embassy said the mosque is among civilian sites shelled by the Russians.

UPDATE 1255 GMT:

The UK has imposed asset freezes and travel bans on 386 members of the Russian Duma who recognized the “independence” of two Russia proxy areas in eastern Ukraine, the pretext for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the country.

UPDATE 1245 GMT:

Galina Padalko, a former member of Lutsk’s city council, speaks with The Guardian about this morning’s Russian airstrikes on the city in western Ukraine:

We live 2 kms away. The rockets woke us up. We had been living in Kharkiv and left the city last week. The Russians bombard Kharkiv 100 times a day. Compared to that, this wasn’t as bad.

Padalko says, “People here are now scared. A lot of my friends decided to leave Lutsk and to go to villages outside. Others are leaving the country.”

But she again thinks of Kharkiv: “Conditions there are far worse. It was -18C (OF) last night, the bombing is continuous.”

Local officials say four soldiers were killed in Russian strikes on the Lutsk airfield.

UPDATE 1115 GMT:

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says Russians who criticize Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine are “not real Russians”.

The spokesman claimed, “A real Russian is never ashamed to be Russian. If someone says such things, then they are just not Russian.”

UPDATE 1033 GMT:

At a leaders’ summit in Versailles, France, the European Union has agreed to double spending on military support for Ukraine to €1 billion ($1.1 billion).

UPDATE 1031 GMT:

Footage of the aftermath of Russia’s airstrikes on Dnipro, the first attacks on the city in east-central Ukraine during the invasion (see Original Entry):

UPDATE 1028 GMT:

The UN’s International Organisation for Migration says the number of Ukrainian refugees is now more than 2.5 million, with about 1.5 million in Poland.

The number of refugees from Ukraine — tragically — has reached today 2.5 million.

We also estimate that about two million people are displaced inside Ukraine.

Millions forced to leave their homes by this senseless war.

— Filippo Grandi (@FilippoGrandi) March 11, 2022

UPDATE 1020 GMT:

Amid rumors of Russia moving Syrian fighters to Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has approved transfer of thousands of fighters from the Middle East.

At a meeting of Russia’s Security Council, Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu claimed there were 16,000 “volunteers” ready to fight in Russia’s proxy areas in eastern Ukraine.

In an interview broadcast later today by Austria’s Radio FM4, I explain that there is no confirmation of Russia using troops of Syria’s Assad regime, which Moscow has propped up during the 11-year Syrian uprising.

However, Russia may bring in Chechens or Wagner Group mercenaries who have been involved in the suppression of Syria’s opposition.

UPDATE 1010 GMT:

Russia has bombed a psychiatric hospital in Izyum in eastern Ukraine, according to regional governor Oleh Synegubov.

Synegubov said 330 people were in the hospital at the time. Some were in wheelchairs or unable to move.

There were no casualties as all patients and staff were in a basement shelter.

Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of nearby Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said, “As of today, 48 schools have been destroyed.”

Synegubov said Russia shelled residential areas 89 times in 24 hours.

UPDATE 0955 GMT:

Journalist Oz Katerji posts a Twitter thread from Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, where eight civilians were killed by Russian shelling last weekend before an evacuation of some residents from the town:

Yesterday I traveled to Irpin again, but this time I managed to get in to the embattled town alongside some volunteers on a mission to supply humanitarian aid. The devastation on some buildings en route was shocking. pic.twitter.com/hZOZKQFNQw

— Oz Katerji (@OzKaterji) March 11, 2022

Katerji writes:

It is still full of vulnerable civilians, particularly elderly citizens from poorer backgrounds. They are living in an area largely spared from fighting, but are completely cut off….

The soldiers and territorial defence volunteers we met here also have no intention of abandoning the town.

UPDATE 0824 GMT:

For the second time in less than a week, Russia has struck the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, which has a nuclear facility for scientific research and the production of medical isotopes.

The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.

The institute in Ukraine’s second-largest city was damaged by a missile strike last week.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeated its concern over the situation at the Russian-occupied defunct Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, after Ukraine lost all contact with the facility.

Belarus claimed on Thursday that it has restored power after the facility was disconnected from the grid because of damage to power lines.

But Director-General Rafael Grossi “expressed alarm about the deteriorating and exhausting conditions for staff…who have not been able to rotate since the day before Russian forces took control on 24 February”.

UPDATE 0745 GMT:

A family of 11 is among evacuees from Kyiv who were killed by Russian attacks on the village of Marhalivka this morning, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

📍Marhalivka.

This man and his family left Kyiv to be safe. The rocket hit his house, there were 12 people: children (two grandchildren and two nieces), wife, daughter, sister…

Only he and his cat survived.#closeUAskyNOW pic.twitter.com/02cNsfSN4W

— MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) March 11, 2022

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has denounced Russia’s “terrorist state” besieging 430,000 residents of Mariupol in the south of the country.

Zelenskiy spoke in a video address to the nation on Thursday night, after Russian forces prevented the delivery of food, water and medicine to the city on the Sea of Azov.

He said of the Russian attack on an aid convoy:

The world needs to know this. I have to admit it – we are all dealing with a terrorist state.

They did it deliberately, they knew what they were blowing up, they have an order to keep the city a hostage, abuse it and bomb it constantly, and shell it.

Mariupol is at the eastern end of a 250-km (155-mile) corridor along the Black Sea and Sea of Azov which the Russians are trying to seize. The offensive has taken the cities of Melitopol and Kherson and surround Mariupol last week.

The Russians have blocked efforts to evacuate more than 200,000 civilians, breaking ceasefires on three occasions to shell evacuees. There were no departures on Thursday.

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said Russia was targeting residential areas “every 30 minutes”. Deputy Mayor of Mariupol, Serhiy Orlov, said at least 1,207 people have been killed by Russian attacks but the real figure is likely to be higher, as these were “just bodies that we collected on the street”.

The deputy head of the Red Cross summarized the situation with no water, electricity, or heat and food running out: “Many people report having no food for children. People started to attack each other for food. People started to ruin someone’s car to take the gasoline out.”

Three people, including a child, were killed and at least 14 were wounded on Wednesday when Russian strikes severely damaged a children’s hospital and maternity ward in the city.

A meeting on Thursday between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, brokered by Turkey, ended with no progress on a ceasefire or humanitarian corridor. According to Kuleba, Lavrov said he had no authority to make any commitments.

Dealing with Russian Disinformation

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov lied on Thursday that there were no patients or nurses in the attacked Mariupol hospital and that it was a base for far-right Ukranian fighters. Twitter removed the tweets of Russian embassies claiming that those wounded in the attack were “crisis actors”.

Further trying to divert from its killing of civilians across Ukraine, Russian officials and their allies are pressing the disinformation that the US has “bioweapons labs” in the country. Russia has called a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday to push the falsehood, reminiscent of tactics in its 2008 war in Georgia and its military intervention in Syria since 2015.

US officials and analysts have explained that the labs are, in fact, biomedical research facilities. A Pentagon document circulated by pro-Russian activists as proof of the bioweapons program is actually safety and security guidance for biodefense, preventing a hostile actor from taking biological agents.

Echoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Zelenskiy said on Thursday night that Moscow might be pressing the disinformation to cover up its own plans for chemical attacks: “This makes me really worried because we’ve been repeatedly convinced: if you want to know Russia’s plans, look at what Russia accuses others of.”

Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba added, “The manic obsession with which various Russian officials fantasise about non-existent biological or chemical weapons or hazards in Ukraine is deeply troubling and may actually point at Russia preparing another horrific false flag operation.”

A Russian “Reset” To Attack Kyiv?

Intelligence officials are also wary that Russia, stalled in its offensive outside the corridor in southern Ukraine, is resetting for another assault on the capital Kyiv.

Satellite images on Thursday appeared to show that a 60-km (37-mile) convoy northwest of Kyiv, making little movement for days, had dispersed and redeployed throughout towns and forests in the area. Artillery pieces moved into potential firing positions.