Live Updates | Kyiv mayor reports 'explosions' in capital

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has said in an online posting that Kyiv was struck early Saturday in the Darnytskyi district in the eastern part of the capital, saying there were “explosions.”

KYIV, Ukraine — Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in an online posting that Kyiv was struck early Saturday in the Darnytskyi district in the eastern part of the capital, saying there were “explosions.”

He said rescuers and paramedics were on the scene and that victims’ details would be released later.

Klitschko urged residents to heed air raid sirens and warned those who have fled the capital not to return for now for their safety.

Thick smoke rising from the site on the eastern side of Kyiv could be seen from parts of downtown near the Dnipro River.

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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:

— Police: More than 900 civilian bodies found in Kyiv region

— ‘We pray for you’: Ukrainian Jews mark Passover, if they can

— Ukraine’s port of Mariupol holds out against all odds

— War Crimes Watch: The woman who would make Putin pay

— Ukrainian mom’s pain at watching daughter’s burial on phone

— Go to https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine for more coverage

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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces late Friday evening hit an airfield in Oleksandriya, a city in Ukraine's Kirovohrad region, with a missile strike, the mayor of the city, Serhiy Kuzmenko, said on Facebook on Saturday. He didn’t say whether the strike resulted in any casualties.

In the eastern Luhansk region, overnight shelling killed one person and wounded three more, according to the region’s Governor Serhiy Haidai. The shelling also damaged gas pipelines in the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

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WASHINGTON — Ukraine is sending top officials to Washington for next week’s spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where discussion will focus on the Russian invasion and its impact on the global economy.

Coming to the gathering are Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and central bank governor Kyrylo Shevchenko, according to a World Bank official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the visit had not been officially announced.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that existing sanctions on Russia are “painful” but not yet enough to stop the Russian military.

Zelenskyy called for “the democratic world” to ban Russian oil. While U.S. lawmakers and U.S. President Joe Biden have enacted such a ban, Europe relies more heavily on Russian energy supplies, and the U.S. has been working to keep India from stepping up its use of Russian energy.

“In general, the democratic world must accept that Russia’s money for energy resources is in fact money for the destruction of democracy,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to his nation.

He also said: “The sooner the democratic world recognizes that the oil embargo against Russia and the complete blockade of its banking sector are necessary steps towards peace, the sooner the war will end.”

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TIJUANA, Mexico — A Russian man and Ukrainian woman were married in the Mexican border city of Tijuana after they were unable to travel together to the U.S.

Daria Sakhniuk was allowed to enter the U.S. as a Ukrainian refugee but her partner, Semen Bobrovski, was unable to travel there following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They left Ukraine as the war began.

Bobrovski told El Sol de Tijuana that he believed the marriage Thursday would bolster his chances of entering the U.S. with his new wife. The U.S. allows only Russian nationals with family members in the U.S. to enter the country.

“Without it, we won’t be able to cross because, still to the official American government, we are strangers to each other," he said.

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KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he discussed the fate of the besieged port city of Mariupol in a meeting Friday with the country’s military leaders and the heads of its intelligence agencies.

“The details cannot be made public now, but we are doing everything we can to save our people,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation.

Elsewhere in southern Ukraine, he said Russian troops who occupy areas around Kherson and Zaporizhzhia were terrorizing civilians and looking for anyone who had served in the army or the government.

“The occupiers think this will make it easier for them to control this territory. But they are very wrong. They are fooling themselves,” Zelenskyy said.

He added: “The occupiers’ problem is not that they are not accepted by some activists, veterans or journalists. Russia’s problem is that it is not accepted — and never will be accepted -– by the entire Ukrainian people. Russia has lost Ukraine forever.”

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ATLANTA — CIA Director William Burns says no one “can take lightly” the threat that Russia could use tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons but he has seen no “practical evidence” suggesting it is imminent.

Speaking to an audience Thursday at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Burns said that “potential desperation” from Russian leaders to portray a victory in Ukraine increases the risk to the use of nuclear weapons.

“None of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low yield nuclear weapons,” Burns said. “We don’t.”

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ROME — The war in Ukraine loomed over the traditional Good Friday procession at the Colosseum in Rome because the Vatican’s choice of a Russian woman as one of the cross-bearers angered Ukrainians.

Participants in the solemn torchlit procession in the ancient arena Friday night took turns carrying a plain, tall and slim cross as part of the commemoration of Jesus’ suffering and death by crucifixion.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican and the archbishop of Kyiv earlier this week denounced the Vatican’s plan to have a Ukrainian woman and a Russian woman carry the cross together during the procession. They objected to projecting what they saw as the idea of reconciliation while Ukraine is ravaged by war unleashed by Russia.

The Vatican didn’t respond to the protests. Pope Francis has denounced the Feb. 24 invasion and attacks on Ukraine as a “sacrilege,″ but has refrained from naming Russia as the aggressor.

Other faithful applauded the decision to pair the two women. They work together in a palliative care section of a Rome hospital and are friends.