Click Here for the BBC Live News Feed
Summary
- Some 4.8 million of Ukraine's 7.5 million children have been displaced since the start of the war, the UN says
- The coming period is "crucial" for Ukraine, Western officials say. President Zelensky says Russia is concentrating tens of thousands of soldiers for its next offensive in eastern Ukraine
- The US and Britain say they are looking into reports that chemical weapons have been used by Russian forces attacking Mariupol
- Mariupol's deputy mayor Serhiy Orlov says Ukrainian forces are holding out against Russia in the besieged city
- Austria's chancellor has become the first EU leader to meet Vladimir Putin since the start of the war
- Karl Nehammer describes the talks at Putin’s residence outside Moscow as "direct, open and tough"
- Indian PM Narendra Modi says he has repeatedly appealed to Putin and Zelensky to hold direct talks
Almost two-thirds of Ukrainian children have fled their homes: UN
Nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion, the UN's children's agency UNICEF said on Monday.
The UN has also verified the deaths of 142 youngsters, although they have warned the actual number is almost certainly much higher.
Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s emergency programs director who just returned from Ukraine, said having 4.8 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children displaced in such a short time is something he had not seen happen so quickly in 31 years of humanitarian work.
"Of the 3.2 million children estimated to have remained in their homes, nearly half may be at risk of not having enough food," Fontaine told the UN security council.
He warned the situation was probably worse in cities like Mariupol and Kherson, where there was no water and sanitation services and the supply of food and medicine had been disrupted.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s UN ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, claimed Russia has taken more than 121,000 children out of Ukraine and reportedly drafted a bill to simplify and accelerate adoption procedures.
Fontaine said there was so far "no evidence" of such accusations, but that UNICEF would investigate the matter.