Updates: Zelenskyy says next few days of war are crucial

What's happening in Ukraine on Sunday and how are countries around the world responding? Read live updates on Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

LVIV, Ukraine – Ukraine's president warned his nation Sunday night that the coming week would be as crucial as any in the war.

"Russian troops will move to even larger operations in the east of our state," Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.

He accused Russia of trying to evade responsibility for war crimes. "The day will come when they will have to admit everything. Accept the truth," he said.

"When people lack the courage to admit their mistakes, apologize, adapt to reality and learn, they turn into monsters. And when the world ignores it, the monsters decide that it is the world that has to adapt to them. Ukraine will stop all this," Zelenskyy said.

"The day will come when they will have to admit everything. Accept the truth," he said.

He again called on Western countries, including Germany, to provide more assistance to Ukraine. During talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Zelenskyy said he discussed "how to strengthen sanctions against Russia and how to force Russia to seek peace."

"I am glad to note that the German position has recently changed in favor of Ukraine. I consider it absolutely logical," Zelenskyy said.

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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

The president of the European Commission said the questionnaire she handed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during her visit to Kyiv represents a very important step forward.

Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that Ukraine's response will enable her to decide whether to recommend the nation as a candidate to join the European Union.

The process normally takes years, but she has said Ukraine's application could take just weeks to consider. She said Ukrainians "belong to our European family, without any question."

"Yesterday, somebody told me: "You know, when our soldiers are dying, I want them to know that their children will be free be and be part of the European Union," von der Leyen said. "They are in an extraordinary situation, where we have to take unusual steps."

"One thing is clear for me: After this war, when Ukraine will be rebuilt, when we support Ukraine in reconstructing this country, this will be accompanied by reforms. So, it is an extraordinary way to shape the country and to go down the path towards the European Union."

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government is providing investigative support to efforts to document war crimes in Ukraine, and he said Russian President Vladimir Putin is responsible.

It is clear that Putin is systematically targeting civilians, whether it's hospitals or train stations or maternity wards. This is one of the reasons why Canada was one of the first countries to call on the International Criminal Court to look into Putin's war crimes," Trudeau said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

Canadian investigators, Trudeau said, "are building up the case for people to recognize that not only was this a terrible mistake to violate the sovereignty of another country and create massive global instability that's impacting energy and food prices around the world, but it is also a series of war crimes that Putin is deliberately committing that he needs to be held to account for."

Asked if the crimes amount to genocide, Trudeau said it remains to be determined.

"The stories of what Russian soldiers are doing, not just the murder of civilians, but the systematic use of sexual violence and rape, to destabilize and have the greatest negative impact on Ukrainian people as possible is absolutely unforgivable and unacceptable," Trudeau said. "And that's why the global community is going to and is responding so strongly."

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It's almost Easter in Ukraine, where faith, hope and charity are on display at a trio of churches on the far edges of the capital.

Sunday services were held in Bucha even as bodies were being removed from a mass grave in the churchyard. In Makarov, the faithful were moved to tears at the sight of crosses scattered in broken glass. And in Borodyanka, a church was untouched near where Russian attacks ripped open a high-rise. That's where donations are bringing help to elderly people who stayed while others fled Russian occupation.

Ukrainian authorities said weeks ago that at least 59 spiritual sites were damaged. On the day when Pope Francis called for an Easter truce in Ukraine to make way for a negotiated peace, church visitors invoked God in recalling their survival.

"Each person who was leaving, from any place, Makarov, Bucha, Hostomel or from Andriivka, the neighboring village which was destroyed to the ground; each one, even those who did not know the Lord's Prayer, he was speaking to God with his own words," said Alona Parkhomenko in Makarov, where the church exterior was speckled with bullet holes and the priest warned of falling glass.

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WASHINGTON -- Russia's newly appointed battlefield commander in Ukraine made his reputation crushing resistance to Syrian President Bashar Assad during that country's devastating civil war.

Russian forces led by Gen. Alexander Dvornikov destroyed whole cities while dropping barrel bombs that targeted civilians. With Moscow supporting Assad, the war in Syria has killed more than 350,000 people.

Lt.-Col. Fares al-Bayoush, a Syrian army defector, said Sunday he expects a similar "scorched-earth" strategy under the commander in Ukraine. Speaking by telephone from Turkey, al-Bayoush said he believes the aim of naming Dvornikov as Ukraine war commander is to cause widespread destruction in many places at once.

"He has very good experience in this policy," al-Bayoush said. "This commander is a war criminal."

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KYIV, Ukraine -- The mayor of Kyiv and his brother said the visit of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to their capital shows who Ukraine's real friends are at this critical time. But they understand if security concerns keep U.S. President Joe Biden from visiting for now.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko and his brother Wladimir have been professional boxers and now outspoken defenders of Ukraine. Interviewed Sunday on ABC News "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," they said they expect Russia's military to return and target Kyiv again. And when they do, they said they can't defend Ukraine with their fists -- they need weapons.

Wladimir Klitschko also pleaded for the world to isolate Russia economically, saying "every cent that Russia is getting, they're using for weapons to kill us."

Vitali Klitschko said everyone was shocked when the Russians who pushed on Kyiv retreated after killing hundreds of civilians during their occupation. He called it genocide to kill women, children, old people and teenagers for no reason.

To defend Ukraine now, the mayor said, is to defend democracy and peace in Europe.

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WILMINGTON, Del. -- The White House said U.S. President Joe Biden will press Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take a hard line against Russia's Ukraine invasion. Press Secretary Jen Psaki says the leaders plan a virtual meeting on Monday.

India's neutral stance in the war has raised concerns in Washington and earned praise from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who lauded India this month for judging "the situation in its entirety, not just in a one-sided way."

India abstained when the UN General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Russia from its seat on the 47-member Human Rights Council over allegations of war crimes. India continues to purchase Russian energy despite Western pressure to avoid buying Russian oil and gas. And the U.S. has considered sanctions on India for its recent purchase of advanced Russian air defense systems.

Psaki's statement says Biden will discuss how Russia's war against Ukraine is destabilizing the global food supply and commodity markets, and the need to strengthen the global economy while "upholding a free, open, rules-based international order to bolster security, democracy, and prosperity."

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BERLIN -- Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday.

The Austria Press Agency reported that Nehammer told reporters in Vienna on Sunday that he plans to make the journey. It follows a trip on Saturday to Kyiv, where he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

APA reported that Nehammer aims to encourage dialogue between Ukraine and Russia and also address "war crimes" in his meeting with Putin.

Austria is a member of the European Union and has backed the 27-nation bloc's sanctions against Russia, though it so far has opposed cutting off deliveries of Russian gas. The country is militarily neutral and is not a member of NATO.

Nehammer said he was taking the trip on his own initiative, and that he had consulted with the European Union's top officials. He said that he also informed Zelenskyy and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

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BERLIN -- The UN nuclear watchdog said Ukraine said the staff at the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant has been rotated for the first time in three weeks after Russian troops left the area.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency has expressed concern about the well-being of the workers since the Russian military took control of the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster at the beginning of the war.

The agency said Ukraine informed it on Sunday that it has now rotated the staff, but the situation remains far from normal. They had to be transported to and from the site by water, with the Pripyat River being the only way for people living in the city of Slavutych to currently reach the plant.

The IAEA said Ukraine has informed it that analytical laboratories for radiation monitoring at the site were destroyed, with analytical instruments "stolen, broken or otherwise disabled." The automated transmission of radiation monitoring data has been disabled.

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KYIV, Ukraine -- The governor of the region that includes Ukraine's fourth-largest city, Dnipro, says the airport was hit twice by missile attacks on Sunday. The Ukrainian military command said Russian forces also keep shelling Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, and have kept up their siege of Mariupol, the key southern port city that has been under attack for nearly six weeks.

The Russian Defence Ministry says it's air-launched missiles hit Ukraine's S-300 air defence missile systems in two locations, while sea-launched cruise missiles destroyed a Ukrainian unit's headquarters in the Dnipro region. Neither side's military claims could be independently verified.

The Pentagon said Russia has a clear advantage in armoured forces for its next phase in its war on Ukraine. Press secretary John Kirby said Friday that the Russians spread themselves too thin to take the capital, but now they're more focused on a smaller region, and still have the vast majority of their combat power. A major effort by Ukrainian defenses and more Western assistance will be needed to push them back.

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WASHINGTON -- A senior U.S. official said Russia has appointed a new commander to oversee its war on Ukraine.

The official speaking on condition of anonymity said Russia has turned to one of its most experienced military officers, Gen. Alexander Dvornikov. U.S. officials say the 60-year-old general has a record of brutality against civilians in Syria and other theatres of war.

The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told CNN on Sunday that "this general will just be another author of crimes and brutality against Ukrainian civilians." And he said "no appointment of any general can erase the fact that Russia has already faced a strategic failure in Ukraine."

The new battlefield leadership comes as Russia gears up for what is expected to be a large and more focused push to expand Russian control in the Donbas after failing to conquer the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Sullivan reiterated support for the Ukrainian government, saying the United States is determined to do all it can to help Ukrainians resist this general and the forces he commands.

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KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's border guard agency says that about 2,200 Ukrainian men of fighting age have been detained so far while trying to leave the country in violation of martial law.

The agency said Sunday that some of them have used forged documents and others tried to bribe border guards to get out of the country.

It said some have been found dead while trying to cross the Carpathian mountains in adverse weather, without specifying the number.

Under martial law, Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 are barred from leaving the country so that they can be called up to fight.

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WARSAW, Poland -- Sirens have sounded in some Polish cities to mark the anniversary of a 2010 plane crash that killed the country's president, despite protests that their sound would be unnecessarily traumatic for refugees from the war in Ukraine.

The sirens early Sunday were intended to add to the significance and the plaintive character of observances honouring the late president Lech Kaczynski, the first lady and 94 other prominent Poles killed 12 years ago in the crash of the presidential plane in Russia. Kaczynski was the twin of Jaroslaw Kaczynski -- the leader of the main governing Law and Justice party.

Provincial governors ignored calls not to use the sirens out of concern for refugees from neighbouring Ukraine, traumatized by air raid alarms. Authorities sent text messages to refugees' phones that the sirens would mean no danger.

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KYIV, Ukraine -- The Ukrainian military says Russia has been beefing up its forces and trying to probe Ukrainian defences.

The Ukrainian military command said Sunday that the Russian troops have continued attempts to break Ukrainian defences near Izyum, southeast of Kharkiv. It reported that Russia was sending reinforcements to Izyum while continuing the shelling of Kharkiv.

The military added that the Russians also continued their attempts to take control of Mariupol, the Sea of Azov port that has been besieged by Russian forces for nearly 1.5 months.

After Russia's attempt to capture Kyiv and other big cities in northeastern Ukraine quickly failed, Ukrainian and western officials expect Moscow to launch a new offensive in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces for eight years.

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KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he focused on the need to track down perpetrators of war crimes in a phone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Zelenskyy said on Twitter that in Sunday's call "we emphasized that all perpetrators of war crimes must be identified and punished."

Ukraine has accused Russia of atrocities against civilians in Bucha and other places near Kyiv, where hundreds of slaughtered civilians, many with their hands bound and signs of torture, were found after Russian troops retreated.

Zelenskyy also said he and Scholz "discussed anti-Russian sanctions, defence and financial support for Ukraine."

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VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis has opened Holy Week with a call for an Easter truce in Ukraine to make room for a negotiated peace, highlighting the need for leaders to "make some sacrifices for the good of the people."

Celebrating Palm Sunday Mass before crowds in St. Peter's Square for the first time since the pandemic, Pope Francis called for "weapons to be laid down to begin an Easter truce, not to reload weapons and resume fighting, no! A truce to reach peace through real negotiations."

Francis did not refer directly to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but the reference was clear. He has repeatedly denounced the war and the suffering brought to innocent civilians.

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HELSINKI -- Finland says that a shipment of art works from Russian museums has been returned to Russia after it was seized under European Union sanctions against Moscow.

Finland's customs service said late Saturday that the Foreign Ministry granted a special permit to return the consignment with a total insured value of around 42 million euros (US$46 million). It said that trucks carrying the art works from the Hermitage Museum and the Pavlovsk State Museum in St. Petersburg, among others, left Finnish territory on Saturday afternoon.

The shipment was seized at the Vaalimaa border crossing at the beginning of April. The works were en route to Russia after loan to museums in Europe and Japan. Experts say that art works loaned from Russia typically travel overland via Finland.

Russia has demanded the return of all works on loan to "unfriendly" nations that imposed sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine.

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MOSCOW -- The Russian military says it has struck Ukrainian air defence batteries in the country's south and east.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Sunday that the military used air-launched missiles to hit Ukraine's S-300 air defence missile systems in Starobohdanivka in the southern Mykolaiv region and at an air base in Chuhuiv in the eastern Kharkiv region.

Konashenkov also said that sea-launched cruise missiles destroyed the headquarters of a Ukrainian military unit near Zvonetske in the Dnipro region.

The Russian military claims couldn't be independently verified.

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KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk says more civilians are expected to leave Mariupol Sunday in their personal vehicles.

Evacuations are also planned from Berdyansk, Tokmak and Enerhodar in the south and Sieverierodonetsk, Lysychansk, Popasna and Rubizhne in the east.

Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of Azov, has been besieged by Russian forces for nearly 1.5 months, cut from food, water and power supplies and pummeled by relentless bombardment that has killed at least 5,000, according to local officials.

Ukrainian authorities have urged civilians in the east to evacuate in the face of an imminent Russian offensive. They accused Russia of killing 52 people on Friday at the train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk as they were preparing to evacuate.

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GENEVA -- The UN refugee agency says the number of people who have left Ukraine since the beginning of the war has reached 4.5 million.

A regular update Sunday of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' online portal on numbers of refugees fleeing Ukraine since Feb. 24 brought the total to some 4.5 million.

About 2.6 million of those fled at least initially to Poland and more than 686,000 to Romania. However, UNHCR notes that there are very few border controls within the European Union and it believes "a large number of people" have moved on from the first country they arrived in.

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LONDON -- Britain's Ministry of Defence says that Russia's armed forces are seeking to respond to mounting losses by boosting troop numbers with personnel who had been discharged from military service since 2012.

In an intelligence update on Twitter, the ministry also said Sunday that the Russian military's efforts to "generate more fighting power" also include trying to recruit from Trans-Dniester, a breakaway region in Moldova that borders Ukraine.

Russia maintains some 1,500 troops in the region, which is not internationally recognized.

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BORODIANKA, Ukraine -- Firefighters continued searching Saturday for survivors or the dead in the debris of destroyed buildings in a northern Ukrainian town that was occupied for weeks by Russian forces.

Residents of Borodianka expect to find dozens of victims under the rubble of the several buildings destroyed during fighting between Russian forces and Ukrainian troops. The town is about 75 kilometres (47 miles) northwest of the capital of Kyiv and had more than 12,000 residents.

Russian troops occupied Borodianka while advancing towards Kyiv in an attempt to encircle it. They retreated during the last days of March following fierce fighting. The town is without electricity, natural gas or other services.

A 77-year-old resident, Maria Vaselenko, said her daughter and son-in-law's bodies have been under rubble for 36 days because Russian soldiers would not allow residents to search for loved ones or their bodies. She said her two teenage grandchildren escaped to Poland but are now orphans.

"The Russians were shooting. And some people wanted to come and help, but they were shooting them," she told The Associated Press. "They were putting explosives under dead people."

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MARIUPOL, Ukraine -- Shelling by Russian forces of Ukraine's key port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov has collapsed several humanitarian corridors and made conditions seldom right for people to leave.

It was not clear Saturday how many people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000. Ukrainian officials have put the number at about 100,000, but earlier this week, British defence officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city.

Ukrainian troops have refused to surrender the city, though much of it has been razed.

Resident Sergey Petrov said Saturday that recently two shells struck around him in quick succession, but neither exploded upon landing. He was in his garage at the time and said his mother later told him, "I was born again."

"A shell flew in and broke up into two parts but it did not explode, looks like it did not land on the detonator but on its side," he said.

He added that when another shell flew in and hit the garage, "I am in shock. I don't understand what is happening. I have a hole in my garage billowing smoke. I run away and leave everything. I come back in several hours and find another shell lying there, also unexploded."

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