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

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday Ukraine had reached a strategic turning point in its war with Russia, but cautioned that it was not possible to say how long fighting would continue.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that there were some "positive shifts" in talks between Russian and Ukraine, two weeks into Moscow's military campaign in the country.

Russian strikes hit fresh civilian targets in central and eastern Ukraine on Friday, including a care home for disabled people, as Moscow's troops edged closer to the capital Kyiv. Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain trapped and under fire in Ukrainian cities, including besieged Mariupol, following Russia's invasion on February 24. The first high-level talks between the two sides ended Thursday without any progress in halting a conflict that the UN says has caused 2.5 million people to flee in the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday shared the details of the losses that the Russian Armed Forces have incurred noting that more than 12,000 Russian troops have been killed with 353 Russian tanks being destroyed since the Ukraine war began.According to the MFA data, 1165 armored vehicles of different types, 57 aircraft, 83 helicopters, 125 artillery pieces, and 58 MLRs were hit during the combat.Furthermore, the destroyed facilities also include 60 cisterns, 558 vehicles, 3 vessels, 7 UAVs, and 31 Russian anti-aircraft warfare systems.

Establishing humanitarian corridors in Ukraine for evacuations and aid is the "bare minimum" to be done now, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday, adding it was important for the top Russian and Ukrainian diplomats to have met.Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of a forum in Turkey, he called the nuclear rhetoric from Russian President Vladimir Putin "dangerous" and "reckless" and repeated the alliance would not send troops or jets into Ukraine.

Russia widened its military offensive in Ukraine on Friday, striking near airports in the west of the country for the first time, as observers and satellite photos indicated that its troops, long stalled in a convoy outside the capital Kyiv, were trying to maneuver to encircle the city.With the invasion now in its third week, the U.S. and its allies prepared to step up their efforts to isolate and sanction Russia by revoking its most favored trading status. The move comes amid mounting outrage after a deadly airstrike hit a maternity hospital in the key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, under an increasingly constricting 10-day-old siege.

The EU said Friday that the talks it is chairing on the revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear accord must be paused, days after fresh demands from Russia complicated negotiations."A pause in #ViennaTalks is needed, due to external factors," the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell tweeted, adding that "a final text is essentially ready and on the table".

US Vice President Kamala Harris and Romania's president will meet on Friday to discuss growing concerns about the influx of displaced people fleeing Ukraine for Romania and elsewhere in eastern Europe due to Russia's invasion. It's a problem that Biden administration officials and European leaders warn will likely get more complicated in the days and weeks ahead. Read full story

Two and a half million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded and another two million have been internally displaced by the war, the United Nations said on Friday. The UN refugee agency's chief Filippo Grandi blamed the mass displacement on what he called a "senseless war" that began on February 24. Read full story