Russia claims it has seized port city of Kherson

Russia said it had seized its biggest city yet in Ukraine on Wednesday while stepping up its lethal bombardment of the main cities Kyiv and Kharkiv which its invasion force has so far failed to tame in the face of strong Ukrainian resistance With Moscow having failed in its aim to swiftly overthrow Ukrainersquos government after nearly a week Western countries are worried that it is switching to new far more violent tactics to blast its way into cities it had expected to easily takeMoscow said on Wednesday it had captured Kherson a port city and a provincial capital of around a quarter of a million people on the southern front There was no immediate word from Ukraine but the regional governor had said overnight that it was surrounded under fire and Russian troops were looting shops and pharmaciesIt would be the biggest city to fall so far with a strategic position astride the Dnieper River that divides Ukraine down the middle Russia was carrying out intensive air and artillery strikes especially on Kharkiv Kyiv Mariupol and the eastern city of Chernihiv Russia said it has surrounded port of Mariupol in a ring around the entire coast of the Sea of Azov Mariupol mayor said the city had been under intense shelling since late Tuesday and was unable to evacuate its woundedRefugees coming from Ukraine walk next to shelter tents at the UkrainianRomanian border in Siret on WednesdayBut on the other two main fronts in the east and north Russia so far has little to show for its advance with Ukrainersquos two biggest cities Kyiv and Kharkiv holding out in the face of increasingly intense bombardmentAirstrikes in Kyiv KharkivKharkiv in particular has come under intense shelling over the past two days with more pictures overnight showing devastation in the city centre The regional governor said at least 21 people had been killed by shelling in the past 24 hours Emergency services said four more people were killed on Wednesday morning In Kyiv the capital of 3 million people where residents have been sheltering at night in the underground metro Russia blasted the main television tower near a Holocaust memorial on Tuesday killing bystanderslsquoEnd bombings then we talkrsquoEarlier a tired and unshaven Volodymyr Zelenskiy wearing green battle fatigues in a heavily guarded government compound told Reuters and CNN in an interview that the bombing must stop for talks to end the war ldquoItrsquos necessary to at least stop bombing people just stop the bombing and then sit down at the negotiating tablerdquoA member of territorial defence wipes his face in the backyard of a house that was damaged by a Russian airstrike in Gorenka outside the capital city of Kyiv Ukraine on Wednesday PicAFPReferring to the Tuesday shelling in Kyiv next to Babyn Yarmdashthe site of a World War Two massacre of tens of thousands of Jews by German occupation troops and Ukrainian auxiliariesmdashZelenskiy said ldquoThis strike proves that for many people in Russia our Kyiv is absolutely foreign They donrsquot know a thing about Kyiv about our history But they all have orders to erase our history erase our country erase us allrdquoA Kremlin spokesperson said a Russian delegation would be ready on Wednesday evening to resume talks with Ukrainian officials There was no immediate word from Ukrainian authorities about their plansBidenrsquos message to RussiaUS President Joe Biden assailed Russian President Vladimir Putin barred Russian flights from American airspace and led Democratic and Republican lawmakers in a rare display of unity on Tuesday in a State of the Union speech dominated by Russiarsquos invasion of Ukraine In a deviation from his prepared remarks Biden said of Putin ldquoHe has no idea whatrsquos comingrdquoBiden vowed to make his Russian counterpart ldquopay a pricerdquo for the invasion ldquoThroughout our history wersquove learned this lesson mdash when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression they cause more chaosrdquo Biden said ldquoThey keep moving And the costs and threats to America and the world keep risingrdquoHe also warned the countryrsquos oligarchs that the Department of Justice was assembling a task force to investigate any crimes they committed ldquoWe are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts your luxury apartments your private jetsrdquo he said ldquoWe are coming for your illbegotten gainsrdquoMeanwhile Apple Exxon Boeing and other firms joined an exodus of companies around the world from the Russian market which has left Moscow financially and diplomatically isolated since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion last weekSanctionsThe UK has piled on further sanctions against Russia and also imposed a first wave of punitive measures against Belarus for its role in Ukraine invasion Russian ships have been banned from British ports in a fresh raft of UK sanctions against Moscow announced on Tuesday The ban includes any vessels owned or operated by anyone connected to RussiaTech diaspora unite to help besieged homelandUkrainians working at Western tech firms are banding together to help their besieged homeland aiming to knock down disinformation websites encourage Russians to turn against their government and speed delivery of medical supplies They are seeking through email campaigns and online petitions to persuade firms such as internet security company Cloudflare Inc Alphabet Incrsquos Google and Amazoncom Inc to do more to counter Russiarsquos invasion of Ukraine ldquoCompanies should try to isolate Russia as much as possible as soon as possiblerdquo said Olexiy Oryeshko a staff software engineer at Google and a Ukrainian American ldquoSanctions arenrsquot enoughrdquo He was one of nine tech activists interviewed by Reuters who are of Ukrainian heritage or are Ukrainian immigrants and are responding to a call by Kyiv to form a volunteer ldquoIT armyrdquo Theyrsquore appealing to cybersecurity firms in particular to drop Russian clients especially publishers of what they say is disinformation If that happens the publishers would be more vulnerable to online attacks874000No of Ukranians who fled the country in past one week25No of people killed in Kharkiv since late Tuesday