For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.
The latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. All times EDT:
9:35 p.m.: While Russian President Vladimir Putin has said sanctions against Russia risked causing energy price rises.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Saturday that sanctions were working, and echoed calls for more deliveries of high-precision Western weapons.
"Russians desperately try to lift those sanctions, which proves that they do hurt them. Therefore, sanctions must be stepped up until Putin drops his aggressive plans," Kuleba told a forum in Dubrovnik, Croatia, by video link.
8:20 p.m.: Included in the U.S. aid package announced Friday are four more High Mobility Rocket System and 1,000 rounds of precision capable artillery. There are eight HIMARS already in Ukraine.
7:50 p.m.: The mayor of Mykolaiv begged citizens not to leave shelters, as he said explosions were heard throughout the night, Agence France-Presse reported.
Russia's defense ministry said Saturday it had inflicted heavy losses in the Mykolaiv and Dnepropetrovsk regions, in southern and central Ukraine respectively.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk was quoted by Ukrainian media as urging civilians in occupied areas to evacuate by any means possible.
7:05 p.m.: Canada will return to Germany repaired Russian turbines needed for maintenance on the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, Canada's minister of natural resources said in a statement on Saturday.
The Canadian government, which is issuing a permit to exempt the return of the turbines from its Russian sanctions, said the move would support "Europe’s ability to access reliable and affordable energy as they continue to transition away from Russian oil and gas."
Canada also announced it would expand sanctions against Russia's energy sector to include industrial manufacturing, Reuters reported.
Canada's new sanctions "will apply to land and pipeline transport and the manufacturing of metals and of transport, computer, electronic and electrical equipment, as well as of machinery."
6 p.m.: Last week Russian missiles struck Ukraine from Belarus and there are concerns that Belarus could try to invade.
4:55 p.m.: Ukraine’s national police force said it was opening a criminal investigation into the Russian military’s alleged destruction of crops in the southern Kherson region, The Associated Press reported.
In a Telegram post, the national police accused Russian troops of not allowing residents to put out fires in fields and otherwise sabotaging the harvest.
“Because of the constant shelling, it is extremely difficult to extinguish (field) fires in the de-occupied territories, and in the occupied lands, the Russians deliberately do not allow the extinguishing of fires,” the police force said.
4:01 p.m.: How the Kyiv Independent newspaper was born. Editor Olga Rudenko shares the story.
3 p.m.: The British Defense Ministry said Russian forces in Ukraine were now being armed with “obsolete or inappropriate equipment,” including MT-LB armored vehicles taken out of long-term storage. The MT-LB entered service in the Soviet military in the 1950s and does not provide the same protection as modern armored vehicles. The Russians also have brought Cold War-era tanks out of storage.
“While MT-LBS have previously been in service in support roles on both sides, Russia long considered them unsuitable for most frontline infantry transport roles,” the British ministry said on Twitter.
2:10p.m: Ukraine reports heavy Russian missile and rocket strikes in east and south. Four civilians died in a strike on Siversk, a town in Donetsk region, local governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
Civilian areas of Druzhkivka, in the same region, were also hit, BBC reports. Ukrainian forces are fiercely defending Mykolaiv, a strategic river port on a key route to Odesa, which is Ukraine's main export hub. The Russian navy is still preventing Ukraine from shipping grain out of Odesa.
Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has urged residents to leave Russian-occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south. The warning appeared to herald further Ukrainian counterattacks.
12:40p.m.: Russia is unlikely to withdraw from a swathe of land across Ukraine’s southern coast and will defeat Ukrainian forces in the whole of the eastern Donbas region, Russia's ambassador to London told Reuters.
When asked how the conflict might end, Russian Ambassador Andrei Kelin said it was difficult to see Russian and Russian-backed forces withdrawing from the south of Ukraine, and that Ukraine’s soldiers would be pushed back from all of Donbas.
"We are going to liberate all of the Donbas," Kelin told Reuters in an interview in his London residence where Winston Churchill used to discuss World War Two strategy with Josef Stalin's ambassador.
"Of course, it is difficult to predict the withdrawal of our forces from the southern part pf Ukraine because we have already experience that after withdrawal, provocations start and all the people are being shot and all that."
The ambassador's comments mark one of the most explicit public descriptions of Russia's potential endgame in Ukraine essentially a forced partition that would leave Ukraine shorn of more than one fifth of its post-Soviet territory.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Ukraine will never accept Russian occupation of its territory and will fight on until the last Russian soldier is pushed out of Ukraine. The Ukrainian government did not immediately comment on the Russian ambassador's remarks.
12:15p.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed Kyiv's ambassador to Germany on Saturday as well as several other top foreign envoys, the presidential website said.
In a decree that gave no reason for the move, Zelenskiy announced the sacking of Ukraine’s ambassadors to Germany, India, Czech Republic, Norway and Hungary.
It was not immediately clear if the envoys would be handed new jobs, Reuters reports.
12:10p.m.: A missile strike on the northeastern city of Kharkiv wounded three civilians, its governor said, though Russia's main attacks appeared focused southeast of there in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Those two provinces, parts of which were held by pro-Russian separatists before the conflict began in February, comprise the eastern industrial region of the Donbas.
According to Reuters, Ukrainian officials reported strikes in both on Saturday, while Britain's Ministry of Defence said Moscow was assembling reserve forces from across Russia near Ukraine.
Donetsk regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on the Telegram messaging service that a Russian missile had struck Druzhkivka, a town behind the front line, and reported shelling of other population centers.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Telegram that Russian forces were "firing along the entire front line," though a subsequent Ukrainian counter-attack that hit weapons and ammunition stores had forced Moscow to halt its offensive.
Russia, which claimed control over all of Luhansk province last weekend, denies targeting civilians.
10:50a.m.: At the G20 summit, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urged the international community to join forces to condemn Russian aggression. He told journalists he had raised concerns with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi over Beijing's alignment with Moscow.
G20 foreign ministers called on Friday for an end to the war and grain blockade in Ukraine, as Russia's top diplomat walked out of a meeting and denounced the West for "frenzied criticism" and squandering a chance to tackle global economic problems, Reuters reports.
President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that continued sanctions against Russia could lead to "catastrophic" energy price rises for European consumers.
10:55a.m.: The Group of 20 summit ended Friday without a traditional communique, or even a group photo, in a sign of the deep divisions among the world’s largest economies caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Western diplomats condemned Moscow’s blockade of millions of tons of grain held in Ukrainian ports, the catalyst for rising global food prices, the Washington Post reports.
9:10a.m.: Ukrainian defenders battled on Saturday to contain Russian forces along several fronts, officials said, as the United States urged China to align itself with the West in opposing the invasion following an ill-tempered G20 meeting, Reuters reports.
A missile strike on the northeastern city of Kharkiv wounded three civilians, its governor said, though Russia's main attacks appeared focused southeast of there in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Those two provinces, swathes of which were held by pro-Russian separatists before the conflict began in February, comprise the eastern industrial region of the Donbas.
8:40a.m.: A dispute between Germany and Finland over the cost of rescuing gas importer Uniper UN01.DE flared on Saturday as its Finnish main shareholder rejected a call from a senior German minister for further help in bailing out the ailing company.
According to Reuters, Uniper, Germany's biggest importer and storer of gas, this week asked for a German government bailout, warning losses due to reduced supplies from Russia and soaring gas prices could reach 10 billion euros ($10 billion) this year.
After prospering from years of dependable flows of cheap Russian gas, Germany is scrambling to contain the impact of those supplies being constrained. While Russia blames technical problems, Western governments say these are pretexts and that Moscow is responding to crippling sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine.
8:30a.m.: A regional official in eastern Ukraine says Russian forces are raising “true hell” in the country's industrial heartland despite reports of them taking an operational pause, The Associated Press reports. Deadly shelling was reported in Ukraine’s east and south, and the war’s death toll continued to rise. The Ukrainian government urged people in Russian-held areas in the south to evacuate “by all possible means” so the occupying forces can't use them as human shields during a Ukrainian offensive.
5:40 a.m.: A United Nations report says Ukraine's armed forces are partially to blame for an attack on a nursing home, The Associated Press reported.
The March 11 attack in the eastern region of Luhansk left dozens of patients trapped inside without water or electricity, the AP reported. A fire spread through the facility, killing people who couldn't move.
Ukrainian authorities said more than 50 civilians died, and officials blamed the Russians.
The U.N. report, however, said Ukraine shared the blame because a few days before the attack, Ukrainian soldiers took up positions inside the nursing home, effectively making it a target.
4:18 a.m.: Ukraine's first lady, Alena Zelenska, joins Twitter to focus on Russia war crimes in Ukraine.
3:18 a.m.: The latest intelligence update from the U.K. defense ministry said Russia is moving reserve forces from across the country and assembling them near Ukraine for future offensive operations. The update noted that the latest moves involve "obsolete or inappropriate equipment."
2:36 a.m.: U.S. think tank The Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment that Russian forces are attacking north of Slovyansk, toward Siversk from Lysychansk and Dementiivka. Russian officials are also moving toward the annexation of Donbas and southern Ukraine.
1:03 a.m.: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson may have been shown the door in Britain, but he remains a political juggernaut in Ukraine — widely admired for his uncompromising support for the country's effort to defeat the Russian invasion.
There's good reason for Johnson's popularity.
As he struggled to fight off police investigations, scandals and political attacks, Johnson deflected criticism at home by positioning himself as the leader of the international effort to help Ukraine combat Russian aggression.
Since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, Johnson has pledged $2.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including armored vehicles and anti-tank missiles. He's also dispatched economic support, guaranteeing millions in World Bank loans for the country.
Ukrainians have also seen Johnson in person twice.
Johnson showed grit by visiting in early April, walking beside President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the still-empty streets of the capital, Kyiv, which had only recently been under attack.
12:02 a.m.: A senior Ukrainian official has responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin's assertion that the offensive in Ukraine was only just beginning, CNN reported.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, said on Twitter: "37,000 dead Russian soldiers. Total sanitary losses [injured] of 98-117 thousand people. 10 generals were eliminated. 1605 tanks, 405 planes/helicopters were turned into scrap."
"Has Russia not started fighting yet? Is [the] Kremlin considering war only by Stalin's mathematics - 20 million losses?"
CNN was unable to verify Ukrainian claims of Russian losses.
Podolyak was responding to remarks by Putin to parliamentary leaders in Moscow on Thursday.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
