Thread by @fulelo

Ukraine news 🧵 on @bbcworldservice at 2300 on 20.03 - listen live bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/li…

Russia has urged Ukrainians defending the besieged port of Mariupol to surrender, promising them safe passage out of the city if they lay down their arms. The defence ministry in Moscow

admitted that a terrible humanitarian catastrophe was unfolding in Mariupol, which has endured weeks of Russian bombardment. It said it would open humanitarian corridors on Monday -- first for fighters, then for civilians. Russia says it wants a response from the Ukrainian

government by 0500 Moscow time. An advisor to the mayor of Mariupol, Pyotr Andryushenko, told the BBC Russia's humanitarian promises could not be trusted -- and said the defenders would fight on to the last soldier. Previous arrangements to evacuate civilians from Mariupol

have been blocked by Russian fire -- and the Ukrainians say thousands of civilians have been forced to go to Russia.

The United Nations' refugee agency says 10 million Ukrainians have now fled their homes because of the war -- almost a quarter of the population. It described the speed and scale of the displacement as unprecedented in recent decades. Nearly 3.5 million people have left

the country since Russia invaded last month. Almost twice that number have sought refuge in safer parts of Ukraine. A spokesman for the UNHCR compared the scale of the crisis to that seen in Syria -- while noting that the Syrian displacement happened over a longer period.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has told the Israeli parliament that Ukraine, like Israel, was facing the threat of utter destruction - and asked why it wasn't providing his country with air defence weapons that could protect it against Russia. He said the time had come

for Israel to make a choice. The country has so far tried to remain a neutral mediator, but the Ukrainian leader said while mediation could work between countries, there could be no mediation between good and evil.

More than 60 workers at the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine have finally been able to leave - after in effect being held there by Russian troops for more than three weeks. They had been stuck there with members of the Ukrainian National Guard since

24. Feb - when the war started and Russian troops seized the facility. The 64 workers have been replaced by 46 employees who volunteered to travel to take their place. Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986.

The deputy commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, Captain Andrei Paly, has been killed in Mariupol. His death was confirmed by the Governor of Sevastopol in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. He's the first high-ranking Russian Naval officer to be confirmed

dead in Ukraine, but other sources have reported the deaths of five Russian generals since the invasion in late February. Russia has only officially confirmed one of these - General Andrei Sukhovetsky.

Russia's ministry of defence says it's struck what it called a Ukrainian military training centre close to the border with Belarus. It said the missile strikes near the small city of Ovruch had killed a large number of soldiers and foreign fighters. It also said it launched

more hypersonic missiles, this time against a Ukrainian military fuel depot in the southern region of Mykolaiv. Neither claim has been independently verified. On Saturday, Russia said it used hypersonic missiles in an attack in western Ukraine --

the first time it had said it used such weapons in conflict. Weapons that can travel at least five times the speed of sound are designated 'hypersonic'.