The separatist-controlled town of Volnovakha in the Donetsk region of Ukraine was particularly hard hit by Russian shelling on Saturday.

A local hospital was destroyed, forcing people to gather in the basement as pro-Russian troop service members in uniforms were seen standing guard nearby.

Russia’s central bank will continue to keep the Moscow stock market closed to trading next week with the Moscow Exchange to remain closed from March 14 to 18, the central bank announced on Saturday.

The foreign exchange market, money market and repo market will remain open on those days, the statement said. A decision on trading next week will be made in the coming days.

Online auction site eBay has said that it is blocking all transactions involving Russian addresses due to “service interruptions by payment vendors and major shipping carriers.”

A spokesperson told CNBC:

We stand with Ukraine and are taking a number of steps to support the Ukrainian people and our sellers in the region.

As a result of service interruptions by payment vendors and major shipping carriers, we have temporarily suspended all transactions involving Russian addresses and transactions involving Ukraine addresses may experience delays.”

The company is taking a number of steps to support Ukrainians and sellers in the region, including waiving seller fees, protecting sellers from late shipment penalties and negative feedback and matching employee donations to organisations helping Ukraine.

The e-commerce company has already removed all products related to Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing its policy against items that promote or glorify hatred or violence.

Here is what the UK Sunday papers are reporting about Ukraine, with the government’s offer of £350 a month for people to house Ukrainian refugees the most popular top line:

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy made another national address, claiming Russian forces have neither the strength nor the spirit to conquer Ukraine.

Posting a video to his social media accounts late Saturday evening, Zelenskiy pleaded for more aid while noting humanitarian corridors in Ukraine have been working with 12,729 people evacuated on Saturday.

The Russian invaders cannot conquer us. They do not have such strength. They do not have such spirit. They are holding only on violence. Only on terror. Only on weapons, which they have a lot.

But the invaders have no natural basis for normal life. So that people can feel happy and dream. They are organically incapable of making life normal! Wherever Russia has come to a foreign land, dreams are impossible.

I keep reiterating to our allies and friends abroad; they have to keep doing more for our country, for Ukrainians and Ukraine. Because it is not only for Ukraine, but it is for all of Europe.

The evil which purposefully targets peaceful cities and ambulance vans and explodes hospitals will not stop with just one country if they have the strength to keep going.

All of the humanitarian corridors, by the way, which were agreed to – they have worked,” he said, adding “and then there will be humanitarian aid to Mariupol [but] because of difficulties, they had to stop in Gdansk.”

The seven women and children who Ukraine said were killed when Russian forces attacked a convoy escaping a village in the Kyiv region on Saturday were not as previously stated in an agreed evacuation corridor, the defence ministry said in a statement about midnight.

Ukraine’s intelligence service initially said Russia fired at a convoy of civilian evacuees who had been in a “green corridor” agreed with Russia from the village of Peremoha.

A defence ministry statement later said people had in fact tried to escape by themselves, “so they began evacuating without the ‘green corridor’ agreed by the parties”.

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder met Russian President Vladimir Putin for several hours on Thursday evening in a bid to end the war in Ukraine, Germany’s Bild am Sonntag (BamS) reported, although it was unclear what was achieved.

Citing a person with detailed insight into Schroeder’s activities, the newspaper said Schroeder had also had a long talk with one of Putin’s closest advisers.

He left Moscow early on Saturday morning with his wife and flew to Istanbul, the paper said, without disclosing any further details of the conversations.

The former chancellor, who is a personal friend of Putin and has links to Russian companies, had met a group of Ukrainians with links to the country’s delegation for peace talks with Russia in Turkey on Monday evening, reported BamS.

The source told BamS that Schroeder was currently the only person to have had direct contact with both Putin and top Ukrainian officials.

Politico reported the meeting had not been agreed to with German government sources. Chancellor Olaf Scholz declined to comment on the meeting beyond saying that he would take note of any results and include them in other efforts he was involved in.

Schroeder, Social Democrat (SPD) chancellor from 1998 to 2005, is on the board of Russian oil giant Rosneft and is chairman of the shareholders’ committee of the company in charge of building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which has been shelved.

He has faced calls from some German government politicians to step down from his roles over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports.

The Maxar Technologies satellite photos of Mariupol, released today, shows just some of the devastation wrought by Russian forces since they surrounded the southern Ukraine port city 12 days ago.

More than 1,500 civilians have died. Humanitarian aid groups on the ground are reporting that the residents remaining have no access to running water or medications.

Across the US, protesters gathered at “Close the Sky” rallies to call for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, spoke to Naftali Bennett, the Israeli prime minister, about receiving assistance in securing the release of Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of Melitopol, who was taken captive by Russian forces on Friday.

At least 79 children have been killed and more than 100 injured in the Russian war on Ukraine:

In addition to death and injury, in the chaos of trying to escape the bloodshed, children are going missing at the Ukrainian border, with humanitarian aid groups reporting instances of human trafficking.

Read more here:

While Ukrainians continue to defend their homeland on the ground, elsewhere around the world, others are putting pressure on their governments to punish the Russian government through other means besides warfare.

In London, protesters took aim at Polina Kovaleva, the 26-year-old stepdaughter of Sergei Lavrov, the Russian minister of foreign affairs.

They are calling for Kovaleva and the rest of Lavrov’s family to be sanctioned and ejected from the United Kingdom, under an unexplained wealth order order – under British law, a “politically exposed person” must explain the origin of assets that “appear to be disproportionate to their known lawfully obtained income”.

While 2.5 million Ukrainians have now fled their homeland and become refugees, the state border guard service is reporting that hundreds of thousands are returning as well – many to fight for their country.

All around Europe today, demonstrators protested the Russian invasion of Ukraine and gathered in solidarity with Ukrainians.

The Russian defense ministry said that the humanitarian situation in Ukraine is continuing to decline rapidly, Reuters is reporting.

Amid accusations today that Russian troops shot civilian evacuees, including children, the Russian defense ministry is also saying that Ukraine is not opening up humanitarian corridors to Russia.

The Kyiv Independent is reporting that the Security Service of Ukraine has intercepted phone calls that prove that Russian troops near Kharkiv were ordered to shoot at civilians, including children.

The office of the UN high commissioner for human rights has documented, as of Tuesday, at least 170 people killed in the Kharkiv region – including five children.

Hey there, Vivian Ho here, taking over our rolling coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Please get in touch with any tips or suggestions: [email protected]. It is 8.30pm in Ukraine now.

The Associated Press is reporting that about 6,500 Russian tourists are stranded in Thailand’s beach resorts because of the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine.

With many of their assets frozen because of sanctions and their flights canceled by airlines that have stopped flying to Russia, many have no way of getting home. A select few, according to Yuthasak Supasorn, the governor of the tourism authority of Thailand, are also choosing to delay their return.

In addition to the 6,500 Russians stuck in Thailand, there are 1,000 Ukrainians who are unable to return to their homeland because it is under attack.