NEWS: UKRAINE IN WAR
More than 2,000 Ukrainian civilians killed in one week.

Russ­ian troops have com­plete­ly sur­round­ed the south­ern Ukrain­ian cities of Kher­son and Mar­i­upol, while the coun­try’s sec­ond largest city, Kharkiv, con­tin­ued to come under intense shelling.

The east­ern city — which lies just 25 miles from the Russ­ian bor­der — has already seen some of the blood­i­est fight­ing of the war as Moscow renewed its offen­sive last night with a bar­rage of strikes.

Mean­while, Putin’s troops con­tin­ue to close in on the cap­i­tal Kiev, even as Vladimir Putin’s hopes for a quick takeover of the coun­try have been dashed.

Kiev’s may­or, for­mer world heavy­weight box­ing cham­pi­on Vitali Klitschko, said Rus­sia was gath­er­ing its forces “clos­er and clos­er” to the city after a 40-mile-long con­voy of mil­i­tary vehi­cles was held up Wednes­day about 20 miles north­west of the capital.

In a state­ment, Ukraine’s emer­gency ser­vices said more than 2,000 Ukraini­ans were killed in the Russ­ian inva­sion that began last Wednes­day, although inde­pen­dent con­fir­ma­tion of those num­bers is so far impossible.

The coun­try’s ombudswoman said 21 chil­dren had been killed and 55 injured since the inva­sion began, Reuters reported.

The strike hit Kiev’s main tele­vi­sion tow­er as well as a Holo­caust memo­r­i­al for Babyn Yar, where more than 30,000 Jews were killed in the space of two days in 1941.