Russia-Ukraine war updates: Putin says troops to be sent to Finnish border

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We will be closing this live page soon. Here’s a recap of some of the day’s key events:

• Russia warns that the war in Ukraine could spin out of control and expand geographically due to the actions of one or two NATO member states.
• Ukraine’s army chief says the situation on the battlefield is “difficult” and that Russian forces could strike deep into Ukrainian lines in the eastern Donetsk region.
• At least three people have been killed in a Russian overnight attack in Ukraine’s eastern Sumy and Donetsk regions.
• Anti-Putin paramilitaries supporting Ukraine urged Russians to flee Belgorod and Kursk, threatening large-scale attacks on military targets on the border cities.
• A senior Czech official has said that the first deliveries of artillery ammunition under a Czech-led plan should reach Ukraine by June at the latest.

We reported earlier that the Ukrainian Justice Minister Denys Maliuska said he had received “quite optimistic” messages from legislators in the US House of Representatives about passing a military aid package.

Maliuska added he and Deputy Justice Minister Iryna Mudra met many US lawmakers during their visit to Washington but not House Speaker Mike Johnson.

He said they were reassured that the legislators understood the stakes involved in Ukraine’s battle against Russian forces and warned that failure to secure the funds would result in “a disaster on the battlefield”.

He said he expected US assistance to be provided in the short term and that it was essentially a matter of resolving specific technical issues.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says Moscow has no intention of participating in a Ukraine peace conference in Switzerland, even if it gets an official invitation, according to the state news agency RIA.

In February, the Kremlin said the idea of holding peace talks without Russia was ridiculous after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he hoped to have a spring summit to discuss his peace vision with allied countries.

Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia’s southern Rostov region resumed operations after a drone attack, two sources told the Reuters news agency.

Regional governor Vasily Golubev said on Telegram that the refinery’s operations were stopped after downed drones fell on the site earlier today.

He said there were no casualties and the damage was being assessed.

The first deliveries of artillery ammunition under a Czech-led plan to boost supplies by buying shells outside Europe should reach Ukraine by June at the latest, a senior Czech official has said.

“At the moment, we are supplying large-calibre ammunition secured under previous orders. First deliveries from the so-called ‘Czech ammunition initiative’ can be expected in Ukraine in June at the latest,” National Security Adviser Tomas Pojar told the Reuters news agency.

Russia congratulated Pope Francis on 11 years in office, hailing his support for “humanism and peace” after the pontiff caused outrage by urging Ukraine to “raise the white flag”.

“Pope Francis is a true and sincere advocate of humanism, peace and traditional values,” the Russian embassy to the Holy See posted on X, formerly Twitter, in English.

It offered the embassy’s “best wishes” to the 87-year-old and described him as “one of the few political leaders with a truly strategic viewpoint on world problems”.

In an interview conducted last month and broadcast Saturday, the Argentine urged Kyiv, which has been fighting invading Russian forces for two years, to “raise the white flag and negotiate“.

The Ukrainian government reacted with fury, even while the Vatican insisted that the words “white flag” were intended to mean a cessation of hostilities, not a surrender.

Let’s bring you up to speed with some of the latest developments.

• Anti-Putin paramilitaries supporting Ukraine have urged civilians to flee Belgorod and Kursk, threatening large-scale attacks on military targets in the Russian border cities.
• Ukraine’s army chief says the situation on the battlefield is “difficult” and that Russian forces could strike deep into Ukrainian lines in the eastern Donetsk region.
• The mayor of the Polish capital will spend 117 million zlotys ($30m) in the next two to three years on bomb shelters as the war in Ukraine enters its third year.
• Putin says Russia is technically ready for nuclear war and that if the US sends troops to Ukraine, it would be considered a significant escalation of the conflict.

Russia warns that the war in Ukraine could spin out of control and expand geographically due to the actions of one or two NATO member states.

In response to a question posed by the Reuters news agency, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Moscow believed the West was walking “on the edge of the abyss” and pushing the world to the edge, too, with its actions over Ukraine.

Zakharova also advised the West to give up on the idea of strategically defeating Russia.

At an earlier briefing, the spokesperson said, “The Ukrainian crisis can absolutely easily go beyond its geographical boundaries, acquire a completely different scale and develop uncontrollably.”

President Vladimir Putin says Russia was technically ready for nuclear war and that if the US sent troops to Ukraine, it would be considered a significant escalation of the conflict.

Putin, speaking ahead of a March 15-17 election, which is certain to give him another six years in power, added that the nuclear war scenario was not “rushing” up, and he saw no need for the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

“From a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready,” Putin told Rossiya 1 television and news agency RIA when asked whether Russia was really ready for a nuclear war.

Putin said the US understood that if it deployed American troops on Russian territory – or to Ukraine – Russia would treat the move as an intervention. Moscow claims to have annexed four regions of Ukraine and says they are now fully part of Russia.

Ukraine’s army chief says the situation on the battlefield is “difficult” and that Russian forces could strike deep into Ukrainian lines in the eastern Donetsk region.

Kyiv’s forces are on the defensive across the front lines in the east and south after Moscow captured Avdiivka last month.

Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii said on Telegram that he visited two brigades “where the situation is gradually becoming more complicated and there is a threat of enemy units advancing deep into our battle formations.”

“In general, the operational situation on the eastern front remains difficult. The enemy continues to conduct offensive actions,” Syrskii said.

“At the same time, probably due to the high level of losses, the activity of the enemy in other areas of the front decreased significantly,” he added without elaborating.

Al Jazeera has four maps charting the latest developments of the war.

Putin says Finland and Sweden‘s entry into NATO is “a meaningless step” and that Russia will deploy troops and systems of destruction to the Finnish border following Finland’s accession to the alliance last April.

“This is an absolutely meaningless step [for Finland and Sweden] from the point of view of ensuring their own national interests,” Putin told Russia’s RIA state news agency and Rossiya-1 state television in a wide-ranging interview.

“We didn’t have troops there [at the Finland border], now they will be there. There were no systems of destruction there, now they will appear.”

A South Korean missionary who Russia arrested on charges of spying was sent to do humanitarian and missionary work, the head of his Christian aid group said.

Baek Kwang-soon, 53, is listed on the Global Love Rice Sharing Foundation’s website as the head of its mission in the Russian city of Vladivostok.

“He was a conscientious and deeply religious person appointed by the group to help migrant labourers, the poor, and people in hardship,” Rev Lee Sun-gu, the mission’s leader, told the Reuters news agency.

“Fifty percent of our work is aiding the needy, and 50 percent of our work is mission. That’s it.”

Lee denied a report by South Korean news agency Yonhap, quoting an unnamed acquaintance, that said Baek, or the aid group, helped North Korean labourers in Russia to defect.

Ties between Russia and South Korea have been increasingly strained by Moscow’s growing relationship with North Korea.

The mayor of the Polish capital will spend 117 million zlotys ($30m) in the next two to three years on bomb shelters and other security measures as the war in neighbouring Ukraine enters its third year.

“On our own initiative, we undertook an inventory of places for sheltering,” Rafal Trzaskowski told a news conference.

He said underground car parks and metro stations were among the possible spaces in Warsaw that could be used as shelters.

“One-hundred and seventeen million (zlotys) to improve safety – this is money for the next two to three years, and we are ready to allocate more money for this purpose,” Trzaskowski added.

He also said hospitals would be prepared for threats, and members of the public would be educated on how to act in an emergency.

Pope Francis has said talks should begin to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

However, while his suggestion was rejected by Kyiv, Moscow welcomed the idea.

Al Jazeera’s Inside Story speaks to experts about whether Ukraine should talk or fight.

Watch the discussion below:

Members of the Russian National Guard killed 30 people who tried to invade the Belgorod region on Tuesday, the force’s press service has told the state news agency TASS.

“In the early morning hours of March 12, over 300 enemy fighters backed by armoured vehicles tried to break through the state border into the Belgorod Region … As a result of the Russian National Guard’s actions, 30 fighters and two mortar crews were destroyed,” the statement said.

As we previously reported, pro-Ukrainian militias on Tuesday claimed multiple attacks on Russian border regions but Russian authorities insisted they beat back the raids.

The protesters blocking the Dorohusk checkpoint on Poland’s border with Ukraine have aid they will allow trucks to cross into Ukraine but will still prevent cargo from entering Poland.

For more than a month, farmers have been blocking checkpoints on the border to protest against an influx of Ukrainian produce, which they complain is hurting their livelihoods and reducing their profits.

But the protest’s organisers said today they would “open the border” temporarily.

“This is our gesture towards Ukrainian drivers so that they can return to their families, to their country,” Wojciech Los, the protest leader at the Dorohusk crossing, told the Polish state news agency, PAP.

Los said despite the opening the farmers were neither suspending nor ending the protest and would continue to prevent trucks from entering Poland from the war-torn neighbouring country.

“We are now waiting for a reaction from the prime minister, the agriculture minister and Ukraine,” Los added.