RUSSIA-UKRAINE LIVE: Russians keep up attack despite local ceasefires, Sky journalist shot

RUSSIA-UKRAINE LIVE: Russians keep attacking Mariupol despite ‘ceasefire’, Boris Johnson praises Sky News’ Stuart Ramsay and Foreign Office tells Brits to quit Russia

Ukraine has dramatically cancelled a planned evacuation of more than 200,000 civilians from Mariupol after it accused Russian forces of derailing a promised ceasefire by shelling the strategic port city as Vladimir Putin’s terrifying war enters its 10th day. 

The Ukrainian Parliament said the evacuation west to Zaporizhzhia has been suspended ‘for security reasons’, while Mariupol’s city council blamed ‘the fact that the Russian side does not adhere to the regime of silence and continued shelling of both Mariupol itself’.

Local authorities have asked people to disperse and find places of shelter, adding that talks are underway to establish a ceasefire and ensure the humanitarian corridor originally agreed for five hours between 12pm and 5pm Moscow time.

Elsewhere, Boris Johnson has praised the bravery of British journalists reporting from the front line of Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine after a team of reporters were shot and injured by a suspected Russian ‘assassination squad’.

The Prime Minister took to Twitter to share his thoughts after terrifying footage showed Sky News’ chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay being hit by a bullet in the lower back while in a car carrying his crew towards Kyiv on Monday. 

Two rounds also hit camera operator Richie Mockler in his body armour during the ambush.

Mr Johnson lauded the ‘courage’ of British war correspondents reporting from the ground and said they were ‘risking their lives to ensure the truth is told’.

Meanwhile, in a defiant address on Saturday morning, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky urged Ukrainians to continue fighting Putin’s forces. 

The comic-turned-wartime president then thundered ‘what more is needed’ to convince Joe Biden to enforce a no-fly zone, an action which could widen the war, after he accused the West of cowardice in the face of Russian aggression. 

It comes as the extortionate costs of the war were revealed on Saturday, with Russia predicted to have lost around £3.8 billion in the first week alone due to the loss of tanks, planes and armoured vehicles.  

The Kremlin has also pledged to pay £49,000 in compensation to the families of each dead soldier, reported the Telegraph, adding an extra cost of between £24m and £377m, based on varying accounts of the current death toll.    

A former chief of defence of Estonia has estimated the invasion is costing $20 billion-a-day (£15.1 billion) – a figure based on Ukrainian intelligence, but which remains unverifiable. 

It comes as British nationals were today urged to consider leaving Russia.

‘If your presence in Russia is not essential, we strongly advise that you consider leaving by remaining commercial routes,’ the Foreign Office said in a statement on Saturday.

Travellers or citizens currently in Russia were advised any direct flights back to the UK would be complicated by the fact Moscow banned UK airlines from flying in or out of the country on Friday, February 25.

Meanwhile, Russian forces inch closer to the capital Kyiv from the north but encounter stiff resistance along the way, including in Kyiv’s western suburbs and the northern town of Chernihiv.

On Thursday, 47 people were killed in a Russian airstrike on a residential neighbourhood in Chernihiv, local authorities said.

A fire at Europe’s biggest nuclear power station at Zaporizhzhia has been put out, with Ukraine accusing Russia of ‘nuclear terror’ in shelling the plant.

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