Russia-Ukraine live updates: Mariupol stops evacuations, says Russia still shelling despite cease-fire

The exact number of casualties caused by more than a week of fighting in Ukraine has been impossible to verify. The United Nations’ human rights office said Friday that at least 331 civilians have been killed so far, while Ukraine’s emergency services put the number much higher, at more than 2,000.

A U.N. statement said most of the casualties were caused “by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.”

Russia has acknowledged the deaths of about 500 of its troops — although British military intelligence believes the true number is far higher.

The U.N. refugee agency in a separate statement this week estimated that 1 million people have been forced to flee Ukraine since fighting began. It said countless others are displaced within the country.

“I have worked in refugee emergencies for almost 40 years, and rarely have I seen an exodus as rapid as this one,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Thursday, denouncing a “senseless war.”

More than half of Ukraine’s refugees have fled to Poland, and others to neighboring countries such as Hungary, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia, according to U.N. data.

“International solidarity has been heartwarming,” Grandi added. “But nothing — nothing — can replace the need for the guns to be silenced; for dialogue and diplomacy to succeed.”

LONDON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Ukraine could win the war against Russia.

Asked in a BBC interview that aired Friday whether he thought Ukraine could defeat Russian invasion forces, he said, “Over time, absolutely.”

“If it’s the intention of Moscow to try somehow to topple the government and install its own puppet regime, 45 million Ukrainians are going to reject that one way or the other,” he said.

Blinken said he “can’t tell you how long it will take” for the Ukrainians to prevail, but he rejected “the idea that Russia can subjugate to its will 45 million people who are ardently fighting for their future and their freedom.”

Blinken praised the “extraordinary resilience” of Ukrainians and said Moscow is using “increasingly brutal” tactics against Ukraine.

“We’re seeing Russia go after critical infrastructure that’s denying Ukrainians water, denying them electricity, denying them heat,” he said. “Those methods are, unfortunately, tragically, part of the Russian playbook under President [Vladimir] Putin. And I think we’re likely to see more of that.”

Blinken will highlight Western unity in confronting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during a tour of Europe this week, as the Biden administration seeks to deter Putin from widening his military assault. Blinken met with NATO and European Union officials in Brussels and will visit Moldova, Poland, and the Baltic states, bringing a message of U.S. support to countries within closest reach of Russia’s military.

Unlike Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) — who this week was sharply criticized by fellow lawmakers after suggesting that the “only way” to end the crisis in Ukraine is for Russians to assassinate Putin — Blinken said the United States is not seeking regime change in Moscow.

“It’s absolutely not up to us,” he said, adding that the “unprovoked” war is harming everyday Russians. “It’s doing nothing for them. On the contrary, tragically for the Russian people, they are bearing the burden of so much of this, because the world has come together to put these massive sanctions on Putin and on Russia.”

For a small tribe of veteran atomic experts who helped secure the Soviet Union’s nuclear energy and missiles as it started to fall apart in the late 1980s, the grainy images of the fighting around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Europe’s largest, were like something out of a frightening alternative reality.

That smoke. Those tracers. That fire. They, more than most others, knew the precise mechanics of how an accident could quickly turn into disaster.

Although the damage appears to have been contained — and Europe spared a nuclear disaster on the level of Fukushima — nuclear experts said they were still fearful as Russia’s military battles its way across Ukraine. The country has four active nuclear power plants and a failed one, Chernobyl, the radiation from which still requires constant upkeep.

Samsung Electronics will donate $6 million to support humanitarian efforts in and around Ukraine, including aid for refugees, a spokesman said on Friday.

The contributions will include $1 million worth of consumer electronics. Samsung will also forward donations from individual employees, according to company spokesman Jeff Castaneda.

“Our priority is to ensure the safety of all our employees and their families,” he said. Samsung will also suspend shipments to Russia “due to the current geopolitical developments.”

More than 1.2 million refugees have fled Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.

Samsung is the latest tech company to announce plans to assist Ukrainian refugees or curb operations in Russia. On Thursday, Microsoft president Brad Smith said his company would suspend all new sales in Russia. On Tuesday, Apple said it had stopped selling products in Russia, TechCrunch reported. Airbnb’s chief also announced that rentals would be suspended in Russia and Belarus.

Samsung’s announcement comes after Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov on Wednesday sent a letter to a senior Samsung executive requesting that the South Korean company “temporarily stop supplying Samsung services and products to the Russian Federation,” according to the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper in South Korea.

Fedorov also recently persuaded Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur, to provide the besieged country access to Starlink, a satellite system that provides Internet access.

MUKACHEVO, Ukraine — Officials in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol said evacuations would start Saturday morning, urging drivers to “fill the vehicles as much as possible,” after a Russian siege and barrage battered the city, cutting off water, power and food supplies.

Russia’s defense ministry announced earlier that it would enact a cease-fire limited to the southern cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha, while an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office said evacuation corridors for civilians were being prepared for both cities. Officials in Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, had called for safe passage and a cease-fire to carry out the wounded and the dead, as well as to repair critical infrastructure.

A cease-fire starting Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. will allow people to exit through a route stretching northwest from the coastal city, the council said in a Telegram post. Residents can leave in buses or private transport but cannot deviate from the agreed route, and the evacuation will take place in stages over days “so that everyone can leave,” the message said. “Take people with you, fill the vehicles as much as possible,” it told drivers.

The mayor, Vadym Boychenko, told residents that “under ruthless fire,” this was the only way to get them out safely. “This is not an easy decision, but, as I have always said, Mariupol is not streets and houses. Mariupol is its inhabitants, it is you and me,” he wrote. “And our main task has always been and remains to protect people.”

Francis reported from London.

World landmarks continued to be lit up in blue and yellow, the colors of Ukraine’s flag, as the country faced its 10th day of fighting since the start of the Russian invasion.

Landmarks from the Sydney Opera House in Australia to the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Empire State Building in New York were lit up this week in a show of solidarity with the Eastern European country.

So far, 1 million people have been forced to flee Ukraine since the conflict began, with thousands of others displaced internally, according to the United Nations.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), when announcing a dozen landmarks there would be lit up in support of Ukraine, said her state stands ready to welcome refugees fleeing that country.

“New York is the proud home of the largest Ukrainian population in the United States and we condemn the unjust and unconscionable violence being perpetrated against the people of Ukraine,” Hochul said.

Ivan Kolpakov, editor in chief of Meduza, one of Russia’s most popular independent media outlets, had been expecting the government to block the public’s access to his website every day since the war with Ukraine began.

On Friday morning it finally happened. But then Russia’s parliament went further, passing a law banning what it considers “fake” news about the military, including any rhetoric that calls the invasion of Ukraine an “invasion” — the preferred language is “special military operation” — with a potential 15-year prison sentence. Putin signed it into law hours later.

“Our sources say they are likely to use this against journalists,” said Kolpakov, speaking from a location he would not disclose. “They can use it against journalists and why wouldn’t they? They decided to destroy the industry entirely.”

Kolpakov, whose website is based in Latvia, began what he called “an urgent evacuation” of his Russian staff.

Similar scenarios are currently playing out at countless independent media outlets across Russia, a nation that has never had a fully welcoming attitude toward a free press.

Ukraine’s embassy in Senegal has stopped recruiting local volunteers for the fight against Russia’s invasion force after Senegalese officials condemned the effort this week.

In a Thursday statement on Facebook, the embassy in Dakar said it was grateful to the Senegalese nationals who had already volunteered. But, it said, because of the Senegalese government’s opposition, the embassy would now stop registering volunteers.

Officials in Senegal, a French-speaking West African country of 17 million people, summoned Ukrainian ambassador Yurii Pyvovarov to inquire about the embassy’s efforts to recruit their citizens to fight in Ukraine against Russia. In a statement on Thursday, Senegal’s f