Russia-Ukraine live updates: Kyiv, other cities under fierce bombardment as Moscow ramps up ‘indiscriminate’ assault

Bombardments continued Friday in Mariupol in southern Ukraine, while Russian forces remained stalled outside Kyiv in the north and failed to advance in Sumy to the east.

Despite a cease-fire agreement between Kyiv and Moscow, Russian troops have continued to attack and impede evacuation efforts, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

Vereshchuk said Russian troops did not adhere to a cease-fire when evacuation efforts were underway from Izyum, near Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. Evacuation efforts were slated to be routed through six other cities, she said.

“We failed to send buses,” she said in a video address Friday. “They were forced to turn around and go back to the city of Lozova, because Russian troops did not adhere to the [cease-fire agreement], and sadly at the moment it is impossible to evacuate local residents and deliver humanitarian cargo.”

Russian troops at a roadblock near Bilohorodka ordered 12 buses to turn around Friday, according to Vereshchuk, because the troops said they did not have an order to allow evacuation convoys to pass. That assertion, Vereshchuk said, was false.

“The Red Cross prepared a response, which showed that the Russians confirmed their readiness to open humanitarian corridors in this direction,” she said. “The [cease-fire agreed to by] the Russian armed forces on this route was violated.”

Ukrainian authorities have said for days that Russian forces have prevented civilians from evacuating despite the cease-fire agreement.

Russian forces on Friday also let fires burn, including in the city of Mariupol, where Vereshchuk said there will be efforts to try to evacuate residents Saturday.

She encouraged politicians and the news media to watch evacuations Saturday to see how they are taking place.

“Everything is impossible to do at once,” she said. “Russia, which systematically violates its commitments, is also the most important factor that does not allow to do what I and our team and the president and the prime minister and all of us very much want.”

Plans for civilian evacuations in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region will continue on Saturday, governor Dmytro Zhivitsky said on his Telegram channel, as defense forces there stall a Russian advance.

Humanitarian corridors will route residents from six cities to Poltava, about 100 miles south of Sumy. From there, people will have the option of traveling west or leaving the country.

Despite some Russian shelling near the exit routes, Ukrainian officials say tens of thousands of people have been able to leave Sumy since Tuesday, either by bus or in personal vehicles.

Those attempting to flee other parts of Ukraine have seen routes shut down by fierce shelling, as in Mariupol in the south, where evacuation corridors collapsed as Russian forces bombarded the area.

The United States and the European Union announced bans on luxury exports to Russia on Friday, as part of a growing effort to levy economic penalties on Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders for invading Ukraine.

President Biden signed an executive order ending all U.S. exports of high-end watches, cars, apparel, alcohol, jewelry, “and other goods frequently purchased by Russian elites,” according to a White House fact sheet. The U.S. exports about $550 million worth of luxury items per year, it states. The Russian elite shouldn’t be allowed to “squander the resources of the Russian people,” the fact sheet said.

Biden also ordered an end to American imports of Russian seafood, vodka and nonindustrial diamonds, in a bid to cut Russia off from about $1 billion in export revenue, the White House added in the same statement.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced similar measures in a statement Friday. “Those who sustain Putin’s war machine should no longer be able to enjoy their lavish lifestyle while bombs fall on innocent people in Ukraine,” she said.

The announcements come as the United States and its allies have been tightening sanctions on Moscow since Russian forces started attacking Ukrainian targets last month. Russia now faces more than 6,300 sanctions, according to figures compiled by Castellum.AI, a sanctions data tracker, more than Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Myanmar and Cuba.

Newly released satellite photos of the Kyiv region show Russia’s increasing barrage of residential areas and the maneuvering of Moscow’s troops closer to the Ukrainian capital as a long line of civilians attempts to flee the city.

The images, collected by the American firm Maxar Technologies on Friday morning, offer a rare and dramatic bird’s-eye view of the Kremlin’s assault. They show a Russian artillery battalion, stationed northwest of Kyiv, firing southeast, a bright red flash visible around the muzzle of one gun and smoke pluming around five others, indicating they have been fired recently.

The targets of the battalion were not clear, and Maxar captured another set of images around the same time that shows homes and buildings ablaze in the town of Moschun, about four miles from the Russian forces in the direction of their artillery fire. Broad swaths of the town appeared to be leveled and pockmarked with impact craters.

Fires also continued to burn at the nearby Antonov Airport, the photos show. The facility, northwest of Kyiv, has been the site of frequent clashes between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

During this escalating chaos, Kyiv residents continue to attempt an escape from the capital. Another Maxar image shows hundreds of cars lining the highway out of the city.