Here are the latest developments in Ukraine.
Ukraine rejected a demand to surrender the city of Mariupol by 5 a.m. Monday, as Russian forces broadened their bombardment of the strategic port and forcibly deported thousands of residents, according to city officials and witnesses.
Iryna Vereschuk, a deputy prime minister of Ukraine, told Ukrainska Pravda that her country rejected the Russian demand for surrender. She called on Russia to open a humanitarian corridor in Mariupol so thousands of civilians trapped with little food or water can escape.
Military experts now describe the war as a bloody stalemate, with Russian troops appearing to lose ground around Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, while making some gains in the east.
Russia is increasingly turning to long-range missiles and targeting civilians as Ukraine stifles its ground campaign, despite Russia’s superior manpower and weaponry. Mariupol has become a grim symbol of Russian brutality and frustration.
The situation there deteriorated even more over the weekend, with reports of Russian forces successfully conquering three neighborhoods and Russian naval vessels shelling the city.
Among the latest targets in Mariupol was an art school, where about 400 residents were hiding, according to city officials who claimed it had been bombed by Russian forces targeting civilians. The number of casualties was not known.
The week ahead was shaping up to be a busy one for members of the reinvigorated NATO alliance, which is holding an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday. Poland said it would propose a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine at the meeting, an idea that is at odds with the alliance’s official stance and one the United States rejected on Sunday.
In other major developments:
President Biden, before leaving on a trip to Europe, plans to hold a call on Monday with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Britain. He will head to Brussels on Thursday and then to Warsaw to meet with Poland’s president on Friday.
Ukrainian officials said that an attack by a Russian tank on a home for seniors in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region had killed 56 people on March 11. The incident was belatedly reported, the authorities said, because fighting had made access impossible.
The deputy commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, Andrei Paliy, died in combat in Mariupol, according to the governor of Sevastopol, the Crimean city where the fleet is based. Paliy is one of several high-ranking Russian officers who have been killed in action in Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called for renewed peace talks with Russia, despite few signs of progress after four days of negotiations last week.