Article was last updated at 22:30 PM IST

Save the Children says millions of Ukrainian children are in imminent danger, while a German MP calls for former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to be sanctioned over his Russian ties.

• Save the Children says the millions of children who remain in Ukraine must be protected
• CDU politician says former chancellor must be sanctioned over Russian links

Germany to provide core of EU rapid reaction force by 2025

German Defense Minister, Christine Lambrecht told reporters ahead of a meeting of EU defense and foreign ministers in Brussels that Germany will provide a rapid reaction force of 5,000 soldiers by 2025.

"Germany can provide the military core," Lambrecht said.

EU defense ministers signed off on the 27-nation bloc's new security strategy, known as "Strategic Compass," during the meeting. A summit of EU leaders is scheduled for later this week.

The rapid reaction force is an overhaul of the EU battlegroups that have existed theoretically since 2007 though have never been deployed.

Holocaust survivor killed by Russian bombs in Kharkiv

Boris Romantschenko, a 96-year-old Holocaust concentration camp survivor, was killed when a Russian bomb struck his apartment building in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv according to a statement released by the Buchenwald and Mittenwald-Dora Memorials Foundation on Monday.

"It is with dismay that we have to report the violent death of Boris Romantschenko in the war in Ukraine," read the statement. The foundation said Romantschenko was killed in his home on March 18.

In an English-language Tweet released Monday, the foundation said it was "stunned" at Romantschenko's death.

"This is what they call the 'operation of denazification'," said Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine's presidential office, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that Russian troops are on a "special military operation" to rid Ukraine and Europe of Nazis. "The whole world," said Yermak, "sees Russia's cruelty."

Although not Jewish, Romantschenko was deported by the Nazis at age 16 to work as a forced laborer. He survived a total of four concentration camps, among them Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen.

The foundation called Romantschenko, who served as vice president of the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee, a "close friend" who dedicated his life to educating others of the horrors of the Nazi era.

The Buchenwald and Mittenwald-Dora Memorials Foundation says it is currently partnering with 30 other memorial groups to assist Holocaust survivors still in Ukraine — official statistics put the number thereof at 42,000 — by setting up an aid network as well as helping those fleeing the country to find shelter in Germany.

Russia claims bombed Kyiv mall was used to store rockets

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov admitted that Russia had hit a shopping mall on the outskirts of Kyiv.

Konashenkov said Ukrainian forces were using it to store rockets to use against Russian troops.

"The areas near the shopping center were used as a large base for storing rocket munitions and for reloading multiple rocket launchers," Konashenkov told reporters.

"High-precision long-range weapons on the night of March 21 destroyed a battery of Ukrainian multiple rocket launchers and a store of ammunition in a non-functioning shopping center," he said.

His claims could not independently verified.

The bombing of the shopping center in the densely populated Podil district killed at least eight people, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukraine presses China to help end war

Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Monday called on China to step up and play an "important role" in helping resolve the conflict brought about by Russia's February 24 invasion.

"We share Beijing's position on the need to find a political solution to the war against Ukraine and call on China as a global power to play an important role in this effort," posted Kuleba on Twitter.

China, a Russian ally who shares Moscow's distaste for the US, has so far resisted calls to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion and the bombardment he has unleashed upon Ukraine since.

Kremlin summons US ambassador to complain about Biden

Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday summoned US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan to inform him that US President Joe Biden's recent remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin — Biden has called Putin a war criminal — were pushing relations between the two countries to the point of collapse.

Russian court bans Facebook, Instagram

A Moscow court ruled in favor of Russia's FSB intelligence services on Monday, agreeing to label the US internet giant Meta (formerly Facebook) an "extremist organization."

Meta platforms such as Instagram and Facebook were immediately blocked by Kremlin authorities after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 in an effort to control the narrative on its "special military operation." Monday's decision adds an official court order that moves beyond blocking access to an outright ban.

"The activities of the Meta organization are directed against Russia and its armed forces," FSB representative Igor Kovalevsky told judges at Moscow's Tverskoi district court. "We ask [the court] to ban Meta's activities and oblige it to implement this ruling immediately," said Kovalevsky.

Meta drew Russia's ire on March 10 by temporarily relaxing its language rules to allow users to post messages like "death to Russian invaders." Meta later reversed its policy, saying that, "Russophobia and calls for violence against Russian citizens are unacceptable."

Russia's Investigative Committee crimes outfit has said it will launch a probe of the company, "due to illegal calls for the murder of Russian nationals by employees of the American company Meta."

The company had said the language rule relaxations were only for Ukrainian users, and only for calls of violence against invading troops, not civilians.

The Kremlin has worked hard to limit information on the conflict, going so far as to pass laws prohibiting the use of the word "war" in relation to Ukraine and to jail anyone found guilty of spreading such "false information" to as many as 15 years in prison.

UK summons Russian defense attache

The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense says it has summoned Russia's defense attache to the country for the second time in recent weeks for consultations related to Moscow's unprovoked February 24 invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

Ukraine accuses Russia of shelling Odesa

The city of Odesa, situated on the western coast of the Black Sea, not far from the border with Moldova, has been largely spared from the destruction of the conflict.

But on Monday city authorities said that Russian forces had shelled the port city, but added that nobody had been killed.

"We will not leave Odessa and we will fight for our city," Mayor Hennady Trukhanov said while visiting a residential area that appeared to have been hit by shells.

Curfew announced in Kyiv

The Mayor of the Ukrainian capital Vitaliy Klitschko introduced a new curfew on Monday that is set to run from Monday evening to Wednesday morning.

The curfew "will begin at 8:00 p.m. (1800 GMT) and last until 7:00 a.m. (0500 GMT) on March 23," he wrote on Telegram.

The city introduced a curfew several days into the war as a means to identify Russian saboteurs that authorities said were roaming the city at the time.

Russian airstrikes hit military base in western Ukraine

A military base in the western Ukrainian region of Rivne was hit by missiles from Russian air force on Monday.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that "high-precision air-launched cruise missiles" hit a training center used by Ukrainian as well as foreign soldiers. The Ukrainian agency Ukrinform said that two strikes had hit a firing range.

The attack was confirmed by the mayor of Rivne, Alexandr Tretiak, over his Telegram account, EFE reported.

"Based on initial information, several people were injured. We will update with more details later," he said.

Berlin expects arrival of more Ukrainian refugees

Following a drop in arrivals in recent days, Berlin can expect to see the number of incoming Ukrainian refugees increase to 20,000 per day, the city's accommodation coordinator, Albrecht Broemme, told local radio broadcaster RBB on Monday.

"We had up to 10,000 a day, we can cope with that," Broemme said. "But we should be ready to take in 20,000 refugees a day," he added.

Numbers have fallen in recent days due to blockages in Ukraine, but once these have been dealt with, it is expected that even more people will cross into neighboring countries and on to Germany.

Broemme said that the capital was prepared for the new arrivals and praised the work done to turn the former Berlin-Tegel airport into a shelter for refugees.

"I'm amazed at everything that's been done in such a short time," he told RBB.

Cease-fire talks to restart after Mariupol surrender deadline passes

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are set to meet on Monday for a new round of cease-fire talks via video link, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak announced on Sunday.

The Ukrainian delegation had expressed cautious optimism during the last round of talks, saying that Russia had appeared more open to negotiation. However, Podolyak added that it could take weeks to reach a deal with Moscow that would end the war.

Russia has stuck to its demands of demilitarizing Ukraine, the recognition of Donbas and Crimea as Russian territory, as well as guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO.

Kyiv has also said it is unwilling to surrender. A deadline for the surrender of Mariupol to Russian forces passed on Monday morning after Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk on Sunday evening rejected the call for Ukrainian forces there to lay down their arms.

Overnight shelling in Kyiv leaves four dead

Emergency services in the Ukrainian capital said on Monday morning that at least four people had been killed after Russian shelling hit a shopping center in a residential area.

The force of the blast left a large crater and was still smoldering on Monday as rescue workers searched through the debris.

An AFP journalist reported hearing a loud explosion that shook the city. Security footage released by emergency services showed a cloud of smoke rising from the blast site, AFP reported.

Local residents told the news agency that they had seen a mobile rocket launcher near the shopping center over the previous days.

Ammonia leak at chemical plant in northeast Ukraine — reports

The regional governor of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine said there has been an ammonia leak at a chemical plant. The city is besieged by Russian forces who have been shelling the it regularly.

The governor did not elaborate on the cause of the leak but said there had been contamination of an area with a radius of more than 5 kilometers (3 miles).

City authorities have advised people living in the area to breathe through bandages that have been soaked in citric acid.

Millions of children are 'in grave danger'

Humanitarian organization Save the Children says upwards of 6 million children are in imminent danger as a growing number of hospitals and schools come under attacks.

“Up to six million children in Ukraine remain in grave danger as the war in Ukraine nears the one-month mark," the group's Ukraine director Pete Walsh said.

The organization said that 464 schools and 42 hospitals have been damaged as a resulted of repeated shelling.

According to UN figures, at least 59 children have been killed since the Russian invasion began on February 24.

"School should be a safe haven for children, not a place of fear, injury or death," Walsh said.

The bombardments have forced more than 1.5 million children to flee the country. However, Save the Children points out that nearly 6 million children remain behind.

“The rules of war are very clear: children are not a target, and neither are hospitals or schools. We must protect the children in Ukraine at all costs. How many more lives need to be lost until this war ends?" Walsh said.

German MP calls for former Chancellor Schröder to be sanctioned

German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) lawmaker Michael Brand is calling for sanctions against former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, owing to his strong links with Russia.

Brand told German publication Taggespiegel that Chancellor Olaf Scholz must ensure that "Schröder, who was placed in leading positions in the Russian energy sector by Putin himself and who collects hundreds of thousands of euros for representing Putin's interests, is finally also sanctioned."

Brand said that it was no longer reasonable for the German taxpayer and the German state "that a German citizen who is involved in financing the brutal war in Ukraine is not on the sanctions list only because he was once SPD leader and Chancellor."

Schröder, who is a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin,is chairman of energy firm Rosneft and and has been nominated for a director's position at Gazprom. His relationships have come under severe scrutiny in recent months.

Summary of Sunday's events in Ukraine-Russia crisis

Russia demanded that Ukrainian forces in the eastern port city of Mariupol lay down their arms.

But Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk refuted the notion of surrender in Mariupol, according to reports.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia's siege of Mariupol would "go down in history for war crimes."

Authorities in Mariupol said Russian forces bombed an art school in which 400 residents had taken shelter.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Russia and Ukraine were getting closer to an agreement on "critical" issues.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told CBS that Ukraine's resistance to Russia's invasion means Putin's ground forces "are essentially stalled."

Ukrainian authorities said that at least 260 civilians have been killed in the fighting around the country's second-biggest city, Kharkiv, since the start of the Russian invasion.

Russia's "devastating" war on Ukraine has driven 10 million people from their homes, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked why he can't get weapons from Israel and said the Iron Dome air-defense system would protect Ukrainians.