Russia orders its troops to attack Ukraine from all sides

After Ukraine refused to hold talks in Belarus, Russia said it has given orders to its army to broaden its offensive against its neighbour from all directions. In a statement, Russian defence ministry said, after the Ukrainian side rejected the negotiation process, all units were given orders to advance from all directions. Russian forces pounded Ukrainian cities with artillery and cruise missiles on Saturday but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said capital Kyiv remained in Ukrainian hands. As ties with the West plunge to a new low, Russia has closed its airspace to planes from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Slovenia. The measure, Russia’s state aviation agency, Rosaviatsiya said, was taken in retaliation for the four nations closing their airspace for Russian planes.

Around 3,500 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured so far, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. "We are striking the enemy around Kyiv. The enemy is not moving for now," said Oleksiy Arestovych. Poland has said 100,000 refugees have crossed its border from Ukraine since Russia invaded, with the UN estimating that a similar number are internally displaced. Some 50,000 have entered Hungary and Romania with thousands more crossing into Moldova. 

A Ukrainian company in charge of building and maintaining roads said it was removing all road signs that could be used by invading Russian forces to find their way around the country. "The enemy has poor communications, they cannot navigate the terrain," the company Ukravtodor said in a Facebook update  "Let us help them get straight to hell."  In another big punitive measure against Moscow, the US, the EU and the UK blocked Russian banks from the SWIFT global financial messaging system. "Restrictive measures" are a part of the latest step on the Russian central bank. Deputy head of Russia's security council Dmitry Medvedev has said Moscow will respond to the international seizure of money of its citizens and companies by seizing funds of foreigners and foreign companies in Russia. Moscow does not rule out nationalizing the assets of companies registered in the United States, European Union and other “unfriendly jurisdictions”, Medvedev was quoted as saying.