TOP HEADLINES

• A Russian general said Moscow wants to seize all of southern and eastern Ukraine, indicating it has far wider military aims than it had acknowledged, as it presses on with a new offensive.

• "Russian armed forces have indiscriminately shelled and bombed populated areas, killing civilians and wrecking hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure, actions that may amount to war crimes," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the United Nations' Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

• Russia's defense ministry said on Friday that the Russian military had captured a large arms depot in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, the TASS news agency reported.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Moscow next week, Interfax quoted the Kremlin as saying.

• President Putin accuses Kyiv of refusing to allow Ukrainian troops to surrender in the besieged port city of Mariupol.

• The success of Russia's military operation in Ukraine depends on its ability to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol, the regional governor has told AFP. 

• Russia's defense ministry says it is ready for a humanitarian ceasefire at the Azovstal steel plant if Kyiv's soldiers surrender. 

• European Council president Charles Michel says he urged President Putin in a phone call to allow humanitarian access to Mariupol during Orthodox Easter.

• Russian chief negotiator confirmed a news report that "several long conversations" took place on Friday with the head of Ukraine's delegation at peace talks between the two sides.

• Talks between Moscow and Kyiv to put an end to nearly two months of Russia's military campaign in pro-Western Ukraine have stalled, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.

• President Putin told European Council President Charles Michel he would only hold direct talks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy if ongoing discussions between the two countries produced concrete results, the Kremlin said.

• A United Nations mission to Bucha has documented that 50 civilians had been killed there, including by summary execution, the UN said on Friday.

• Ukraine's Ministry of Defense accused Russia on Friday of planning to draft Ukrainian nationals to replace lost Russian troops, and to stage plebiscites that could see southern regions of Ukraine become part of Russia.

• Ukraine needs $7 billion USD per month to keep its economy afloat amid the "economic losses" inflicted by Russia, Zelenskyy said.

• The UK is considering sending tanks to Poland so that Warsaw can send its own to Ukrainian forces fighting against Russia, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday.

• France is sending several heavy artillery pieces to Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron said.

• Ukraine is working with lawyers on a mechanism to use frozen Russian funds to compensate it for its economic losses, its justice minister told Reuters news agency.

• International Monetary Fund's Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath said it is an "absolute possibility" that the Ukraine-Russia conflict becomes a "frozen conflict that stays for a long time". 

• World Bank President David Malpass said the food security crisis caused by the conflict was likely to last months and that Ukraine had suffered some $60 billion worth of physical damage.

• The conflict in Ukraine poses serious economic challenges to European countries and highlights the urgent need to improve energy security, according to the IMF.

• A total of 5,133,747 Ukrainians have fled the country since the conflict began on February 24, the UN refugee agency said on Friday. The figure marks an increase of 48,387 from Thursday's data, UNHCR said.

• Ukraine's national postal service Ukrposhta said it had been hit by a cyberattack on Friday after sales of a postage stamp depicting a Ukrainian soldier making a crude gesture to a Russian warship went online.

IN DETAIL

Russia's plans for a 'land corridor to Crimea'

Russia said on Friday it intended a full-bore assault to carve out a sizeable slice of Ukraine but risked intensified world outrage as the UN documented the killing of dozens of civilians in one town.

Ukraine's government, emboldened by a fresh influx of high-grade western weaponry, said its beleaguered forces were still holding out inside a sprawling, seaside steelworks in the razed city of Mariupol.

The Kremlin has claimed the "liberation" of Mariupol, whose control is pivotal to its war plans nearly two months after President Vladimir Putin ordered the offensive.

"Since the start of the second phase of the special operation... one of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over the Donbas and southern Ukraine," Major General Rustam Minnekaev said.

"This will provide a land corridor to Crimea," he added, according to Russian news agencies, referring to the peninsula Russia incorporated from Ukraine in 2014.

Minnekaev's comments were the most detailed description yet of Russia's goals in the "second phase" of its operation, which was forced on the Kremlin after Ukraine's dogged resistance around the capital Kyiv.

Russia's defense ministry said it was ready for a ceasefire at Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant, to allow out hundreds of trapped civilians but only if Ukraine's soldiers surrendered.

The defenders have refused to yield, and Russia stands accused of serial violations of other humanitarian offers.

"The enemy's offensive operation in the south hinges on Mariupol. The enemy is trying to focus all its efforts on it," Ukrainian regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told AFP news agency.

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, dismissed the Russian military plan outlined by Minnekaev.

"We have our own scenarios to defend Ukraine and I would point out that plenty of Kremlin plans have already been ruined by the work of our army and our people," he said on social media.

Negotiations to end the conflict 'extremely difficult'

Talks between Moscow and Kyiv to put an end to Russia's near two-month military campaign in Ukraine have stalled, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.

"They (negotiations) have stalled now," he said after talks with his Kazakh counterpart in Moscow, adding that Russia has still had not received an answer to a latest proposal sent around five days ago.

The Russian foreign minister also said he was under the impression Kyiv may not want to continue the talks.

"It is very strange for me to hear every day statements by various Ukrainian representatives, including the president and his advisors, that make one think that they do not need these negotiations at all, that they have resigned themselves to their fate," Lavrov added.

Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, who is Russia's chief negotiator with Kyiv authorities, said he had spoken to his Ukrainian counterpart on Friday. 

Talks have continued since early in the fighting but offered no concrete results.

Kyiv said last week that negotiations with Russia to end the conflict were "extremely difficult."

Putin, speaking to EU chief Charles Michel earlier Friday, accused Kyiv of lacking consistency in its demands at the talks and not being ready "to look for mutually acceptable solutions", the Kremlin said.

UK 'currently training Ukrainians in Poland'

Ukrainian soldiers have traveled to Britain to learn how to use UK-supplied armored vehicles to aid in their fight against Russia, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

"A couple of dozen" troops arrived last week to train on the 120 Mastiff, Wolfhound and Husky armored vehicles being supplied to Kyiv, an official confirmed.

"I can say that we're currently training Ukrainians in Poland in the use of the anti-aircraft defenses and actually in this country (the UK) in the use of the armored vehicles," he told UK media during a visit to India.

The vehicles are designed to be used in offensive operations alongside tanks and infantry vehicles.

Johnson's spokesman said more were expected to travel in the future.

"We are moving in conjunction with our allies providing new types of equipment that perhaps the Ukrainians wouldn't have had previous experience on," the spokesman said. 

"So it's only sensible that they get the requisite training to get the best use of it."

The UK has taken a leading role in arming and training Ukraine's forces, especially with anti-tank missiles.

Johnson earlier this month became the first G7 leader to visit Kyiv since Putin launched his offensive on February 24. 

The spokesman denied that training the Ukrainians in the UK would risk escalating the conflict.

"We're always conscious of anything that's perceived to be escalatory but clearly what's escalatory is the actions of Putin and his regime," he said.