Russia-Ukraine war live updates: US rushing $200 million in weapons for Ukraine's defence

A mosque in the southeastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, where 80 civilians were taking shelter, has been shelled by Russian forces, Ukraine's foreign ministry said on Saturday."The mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and his wife Roxolana (Hurrem Sultan) in Mariupol was shelled by Russian invaders. More than 80 adults and children are hiding there from the shelling, including citizens of Turkey," the ministry wrote on its Twitter account.

Italian police have seized a superyacht from Russian billionaire Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko, the prime minister's office said on Saturday, a few days after the businessman was placed on an EU sanctions list following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.The 143-metre (470-foot) Sailing Yacht A, which has a price tag of 530 million euros ($578 million), has been sequestered at the northern port of Trieste, the government said.Designed by Philippe Starck and built by Nobiskrug in Germany, the vessel is the world's biggest sailing yacht, the government said.Melnichenko owns major fertiliser producer EuroChem Group and coal company SUEK.Last week Italian police seized villas and yachts worth 143 million euros ($156 million) from five high-profile Russians who have been placed on the sanctions list.

Russian troops have destroyed 3,491 Ukrainian military infrastructure facilities in Ukraine so far, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying on Saturday.Russian forces "continue the offensive in Ukraine on a broad front", Konashenkov said.

An independent United States government agency, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, sent a letter to the Biden administration calling for Russia's expulsion from the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) due to the country's invasion of Ukraine, CNN reported on Saturday.The letter was reportedly sent on Friday and was addressed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Attorney General Merrick Garland."We urge you to use the US position in Interpol (and in particular Interpol's Executive Committee and its Advisory Group on Financial Matters) to make it clear that any failure to act against Russia's abuse of Interpol will have grave consequences for the U.S. contribution to Interpol's budget and Interpol's legal immunities in the United States," the letter, directed to Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, read.

Russian natural gas company Gazprom said on Saturday it was continuing gas shipments via Ukraine at an unchanged volume of 109.5 million cubic metres a day.

Several humanitarian corridors out of Ukrainian towns and villages including from the besieged southern port of Mariupol will be open on Saturday so civilians can leave, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, adding she hoped Russia would observe a ceasefire to allow this to take place.She said Ukraine plans to evacuate residents of several towns and villages in the regions of Kyiv and Sumy and some other areas where there is ongoing combat."I hope that the day will go well, all the planned routes will be open and Russia will fulfill its obligations to guarantee the ceasefire regime," Vereshchuk said in a video address.Efforts to provide safe passage for residents of Mariupol have repeatedly failed this week.

Mariupol's death toll has passed 1,500 in 12 days of attack, the mayor's office said. Shelling forced crews to stop digging trenches for mass graves, so the ``dead aren't even being buried,`` the mayor said. Unceasing barrages into the city have thwarted repeated attempts to bring in food and water and evacuate trapped civilians.

Russian forces appeared to make progress from the northeast in their slow fight toward Ukraine's capital, while tanks and artillery pounded places already under siege with shelling. New commercial satellite images appeared to capture artillery firing on residential areas between the Russians and the capital. The images from Maxar Technologies showed muzzle flashes and smoke from the big guns, as well as impact craters and burning homes in the town of Moschun, outside Kyiv, the company said. Invading Russian forces have struggled far more than expected against determined Ukrainian fighters. But Russia's stronger military threatens to grind down Ukrainian forces, despite an ongoing flow of weapons and other assistance from the West for Ukraine's westward-looking, democratically elected government. Kremlin's forces appeared to be trying to regroup and regain momentum after encountering heavy losses and tough resistance over the past two weeks.

U.S. officials are examining the ownership of a $700 million superyacht in a dry dock in an Italian seacoast town and believe it could be associated with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, according to multiple people briefed on the information.U.S. intelligence agencies have made no final conclusions about the ownership of the superyacht — called the Scheherazade — but U.S. officials said they had found initial indications that it was linked to Putin. The information from the U.S. officials came after The New York Times reported Tuesday that Italian authorities were looking into the 459-foot-long vessel’s ownership and that a former crew member said it was for the use of Putin. U.S. officials said Putin keeps little of his wealth in his own name. Instead he uses homes and boats nominally owned by Russian oligarchs. Still, it is possible that through various shell companies, Putin could have more direct control of the Scheherazade.

Air raid sirens were heard across most Ukrainian cities early on Saturday morning urging people to seek shelters, local media reported.Sirens were heard in the capital city of Kyiv, the western city of Lviv in Odessa, and Kharkiv, Cherkasy, as well as in the Sumy region in northeast of the country, a number of local Ukrainian media reported.Russian forces appeared to be regrouping on Friday for a possible assault on Kyiv, with satellite images showing them firing artillery as they closed in on the capital.