Russia-Ukraine live updates: Explosions in Odessa as Russia regroups for attacks in east

Efforts to evacuate the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, where as many as 100,000 people remain trapped, were set to continue Sunday morning, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which aims to enable the safe evacuation of civilians from Mariupol as a neutral third party, said its attempts to reach the city failed on Friday “after arrangements and conditions made it impossible to proceed.” It called on those involved to “respect agreements and provide the necessary security guarantees.”

A spokesperson for the ICRC told The Washington Post via email on Sunday that its team “remains en route to Mariupol” but that the “situation on the ground is volatile and subject to rapid changes.”

Vereshchuk said in her daily briefing on Sunday that 17 evacuation buses were waiting near Berdyansk, some 50 miles west of Mariupol, and that seven of the buses would try to get closer to Mariupol, accompanied by the ICRC, with the ultimate goal of reaching Zaporizhzhia. There was no official confirmation yet that a temporary cease-fire agreed to by Moscow would hold.

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said people trapped in Mariupol could also attempt to reach Zaporizhzhia in their own vehicles. About 765 Mariupol residents made it to safer territory on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said. Efforts to evacuate civilians from five places in the eastern region of Luhansk were also planned for Sunday, if conditions appeared safe enough, Vereshchuk said.

ODESSA, Ukraine — Heavy smoke rose into the air and residents were asked to remain inside and keep their windows closed after explosions rocked Odessa Sunday morning local time.

Russia said its missiles struck an oil refinery and fuel storage facilities, marking the first major strikes on the Black Sea city’s downtown

Ukrainian officials said assistance would be sent to damaged homes within the area.

Russia’s chief negotiator on Sunday shut down the idea of a possible meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, a day after his Ukrainian counterpart said peace talks had advanced to the point where a sit-down between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders was possible.

“The draft agreement is not ready for submission to a meeting at the top,” Russian chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said on Telegram, according to a Reuters translation. “I repeat again and again: Russia’s position on Crimea and Donbas remains UNCHANGED.”

Medinsky added that the Ukrainian side had “become more realistic” in some of its stances.

David Arakhamia, the head of Ukraine’s peace talks delegation, struck a different tune on Saturday, telling Ukrainian television that “documents have been developed enough to hold a direct consultation between the two leaders.”

Arakhamia said his Russian counterparts had reached agreements on everything except the status of Crimea, an area of southern Ukraine that Russia annexed in 2014.

Moscow and Kyiv have held a number of negotiations, most recently in Istanbul, since Russia invaded Ukraine 39 days ago. Talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations are expected to resume Monday by video.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said early Sunday that Russia’s navy is maintaining a strategic blockade of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, preventing Ukraine from using the water to support its armed forces on land.

Its latest intelligence update also warned that Russian forces could invade Ukrainian shores from the water, but that such an amphibious landing “is likely to be increasingly high risk due to the time Ukrainian forces have had to prepare.”

As Russian forces appear to shift their objectives in Ukraine from seizing the capital to making gains in the country’s south and east, cities on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea are coming into renewed focus. In Odessa, a port city on the Black Sea in southern Ukraine, several explosions were seen and heard Sunday morning by those on the ground.

The Black Sea is an important conduit for global maritime trade, and Britain warned that ships face “serious” risks there from reported explosive mines floating around untethered in open waters. Several countries that border the Black Sea have reported sightings of such mines in past weeks, and at least two countries — Turkey and Romania — have launched operations to neutralize mines off their shores. It is not clear where the mines come from. Ukraine has accused Russia of planting them, and Russia has alleged that Ukrainian forces laid the mines near its coast, while bad weather separated some from the cables anchoring them in place, allowing them to drift southward.

“Though the origin of such mines remains unclear and disputed, their presence is almost certainly due to Russian naval activity in the area, and demonstrates how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is affecting neutral and civilian interests,” the British intelligence assessment said.

ODESSA, Ukraine — A series of explosions were heard throughout Odessa on Sunday morning as Russia said its missiles struck an oil refinery and fuel storage facilities, marking the first major strikes on the Black Sea city’s downtown.

Dark plumes of smoke could be seen on the skyline near one of Odessa’s major ports.

Odessa has long been considered a target for the Russian military because it is an economically vital port, but with Moscow’s ground forces unable to advance past Mykolaiv, about 70 miles east, Odessa has largely been spared from attacks. Local businesses and even the zoo have reopened in the past week.

In a statement posted on Telegram early Sunday, the Odessa City Council said that the city was attacked from the air and that “some missiles were shot down by air defense.” Fires were reported in some areas, and residents were advised to close their windows and stay away while emergency responders carried out their work.

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that high-precision sea and air missiles had destroyed an oil refinery and three fuel storage facilities.

“Fortunately, no one was injured, houses were damaged, glass was broken, roofs were destroyed,” Odessa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov told public broadcaster Suspilne. “Communal services are already at the site. We will provide all necessary assistance to those whose homes are damaged. The situation is under control.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky had made an emotional plea hours earlier for Western nations to send more missile defense systems and planes to guard against Moscow’s bombardments from the air: “Every single Russia missile that has hit our cities, and every bomb that has been thrown onto our people, our children, will be a black mark on the history of those who made that decision — the decision on whether or not to assist Ukraine with modern weaponry.”

Although military analysts think the next phase of the 39-day-old war will primarily be a battle for southeastern Ukraine, that doesn’t rule out attacks on other areas, especially from the air.

If the southern port city of Mariupol — where Moscow has already wreaked massive destruction and deprivation — falls, “it could free up Russian logistics and manpower along the southern axis of advance,” wrote Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Va.

Pannett reported from Sydney.

The Ukrainian Embassy in London said it had ordered 30 armored ambulances, purchased with donation money, and would start sending them to Ukraine early next week.

The ambulances were “not just any regular” vehicles, but armored ambulances to “protect our brave medics,” the embassy wrote on Twitter. It said it was able to purchase the vehicles with funds raised from withukraine.org, a website operated by the embassy to coordinate donations.

The purchase is a tangible effect of the donations that have poured in from around the world to support Ukraine. The Disasters Emergency Committee, a separate organization of British charities, said last week that it had received more than 260 million pounds, about $341 million, in donations to support Ukrainians.

Shelling and intense fighting continue in the east and south of the country, and efforts to rescue civilians in besieged Ukrainian cities have been slowed by the extremely dangerous conditions on the ground.

Five weeks after Russian troops hurtled into the country in the hope of swiftly seizing the capital, installing a friendly government and subjugating Ukraine, the Russian military appears to be shrinking its goals to prioritize the east, redeploying forces that had been destined for the Kyiv region and attempting to organize reinforcements to compensate for the thousands of troops that have been killed.

The move represents a new and substantially different phase of the war as Russia withdraws its troops from battered northern and western areas to focus eastward, where it has already wreaked massive destruction and deprivation, most notably in the city of Mariupol, where as many as 100,000 people remained trapped in grim conditions.

The shift reflects a recognition in Moscow that Russia can no longer accomplish its original goals, analysts say. After making initial gains, its forces have stalled on most of the fronts they advanced on, and they have meanwhile suffered huge losses in terms of equipment and soldiers.

“It was a foggy morning, March 25. I could see a line of soldiers in long coats. And then they came and said, ‘Get ready to go …”

“And the teacher came and said, ‘Please don’t take the children.’ In 25 minutes, it was all done. And we were taken in 11 trucks …”

Thus spoke two survivors of Operation Priboi, the code name for the forced deportation by the Soviet authorities of more than 40,000 Latvian men, women and children on March 25, 1949.

Those nightmarish memories might also have issued from the tens of thousands of Estonians and Lithuanians who were likewise swept up that day by flying squadrons of Soviet troops and dispatched to Siberia. A total of half-a-million residents of the three Baltic states were deported between 1941 and 1952.