• A group of around 100 civilians have been evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steel plant, the last stronghold of Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol. Moscow says some civilians were handed over to the Red Cross and the UN, who confirmed the operation. Ukrainian authorities started to evacuate more civilians from the city on Monday.

• U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has urged Ukraine not to back down in the face of "bullies" like Russia following a surprise weekend visit to Kyiv. "Do not be bullied by bullies. If they are making threats, you cannot back down. That's my view of it," she told journalists in Poland after talks with President Zelenskyy in the Ukrainian capital.

• The EU wants to phase out Russian oil imports as part of its fresh round of sanctions against Moscow for its actions in Ukraine, according to sources in the bloc. The European Commission is currently preparing the text, which could be put to the member states as soon as Wednesday, diplomats say, but Hungary and Slovakia may be exempt from the embargo.

• Daily requests for Russian gas deliveries through Ukraine into Europe via Slovakia have risen to their highest since the end of November, according to Slovakian data. Russia stopped gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria last week for their refusal to pay in rubles, although Poland is still getting Russian gas from Germany along the Yamal-Europe pipeline. 

• Eight civilians have died following Russian shelling in Donetsk and Kharkiv, according to the regions' governors, as Moscow's forces push deeper into eastern Ukraine. Lyman, a former railway hub known, is expected to be the next city to fall after Ukrainian forces withdrew.

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said Moscow only wants to guarantee the security of pro-Russian Ukrainians in the east and would not demand that Zelenskyy "give himself up." "We are demanding that he issue an order to release civilians and stop resistance. Our aim does not include regime change in Ukraine," Lavrov said.

• However, Israel on Monday denounced Lavrov for suggesting that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had Jewish roots, demanding an apology from Moscow. Speaking to Italy's Rete 4 channel, Lavrov was asked how Russia could say it needed to "denazify" Ukraine when the country's president was Jewish. He replied: "When they say 'What sort of nazification is this if we are Jews', well I think that Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it means nothing." Israel's foreign minister said it was "an unforgivable, scandalous statement, a terrible historical mistake, and we expect an apology."

• Denmark and Sweden are summoning Russia's ambassadors after a Russian plane allegedly violated the air space of both countries, their governments have said. Officials said the plane entered Danish airspace on Friday evening east of the Danish Baltic island of Bornholm before flying over Swedish territory.

• Finland will decide to apply for NATO membership on May 12, Finnish newspaper Iltalehti reported late on Sunday, citing anonymous government sources.

• Moscow has suggested it could seize the Russia-based assets from countries it considers hostile in retaliation for a U.S. proposal to sell off the assets of Russian oligarchs and give the proceeds to Ukraine.

• Denmark will reopen its embassy in Ukraine on Monday, the Danish foreign ministry said. "It's a very strong symbol of the Danish support for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people that today we are reopening the doors to the Danish embassy," he told Danish broadcaster DR.

• A fire broke out at a Russian defense ministry site in Belgorod, close to the Ukrainian border, the region's governor says. One person was injured. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said he "wanted to dispel apprehensions among inhabitants of the region that someone or something flew in from the territory of Ukraine".

• Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal has hit out at Wimbledon's decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players from playing in the Championships, saying it was "unfair" as the conflict is not their fault.

• More than 5.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the conflict started on February 24, the UN Refugee Agency reported on Monday.

Civilians evacuated from Mariupol 

Humanitarian organizations are working to evacuate more civilians from the devastated Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, with hundreds of people still believed to be trapped in the Azovstal steel works, the last stronghold of Ukrainian troops in the city. 

A group of around 100 civilians were evacuated from the factory complex on Sunday and were due to arrive in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia, 230 km northwest of Mariupol, on Monday morning.

"For the first time, we had two days of a ceasefire on this territory, and we managed to take out more than 100 civilians - women, children," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly video address.

People still stuck there were running out of water, food and medicine as Russian forces hemmed them into the industrial complex, whose network of bunkers and tunnels has provided shelter from weeks of Russian bombardment.

One evacuee accompanied by young children said survivors were fast running out of food.

"Children always wanted to eat. You know, adults can wait," she said.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said: "The situation has become a sign of a real humanitarian catastrophe." 

Footage from inside the steelworks showed members of the Azov regiment helping civilians through rubble and on to a bus, but hundreds of other civilians remain trapped inside.

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Russia last week said it had decided against storming the steel works and would instead blockade it. But sporadic bombardments have continued.

According to a city official, Russian forces allegedly resumed shelling the steel works as soon as the buses had departed the plant. 

"Yesterday, as soon as the buses left Azovstal with the evacuees, new shelling began immediately," Petro Andryushchenko told Ukrainian television.

However, more buses were set to transport civilians from Mariupol on Monday morning, but so far, the convoy has not taken people from the embattled steelworks.

EU tries to phase out Russian fuel imports 

On the international front, EU energy ministers are due to hold emergency talks over Moscow's demand that European buyers pay for Russian gas in rubles or face their supply being cut off.

While the EU has imposed heavy economic sanctions on Russia in response to its actions in Ukraine, the issue of Russian energy supplies remains a dilemma that threatens to split the bloc's united front.

Meeting In Brussels, EU energy ministers were set to find a way out of the dilemma posed by Russian energy supplies, which account for 40 percent of the bloc's gas and 26 percent of its oil imports.

Germany has led the calls to resist an immediate ban on Russian fuel imports for fear of economic damage, while Moscow is demanding that European buyers pay for Russian gas in rubles or face their supply being cut off.

Russia stopped gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland last week after they refused to meet this demand.

With many European companies facing gas payment deadlines later this month, EU states must decide whether companies can keep buying without breaching the EU's sanctions against Russia.

Payments in roubles would help to protect Russia's economy from the impact of sanctions, with European diplomats saying the EU was edging towards a ban on imports of Russian oil by the end of the year.

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Monday that some countries were not yet ready for an embargo of Russian oil. Germany did not want to trigger an economic catastrophe, he said.