INTERNATIONAL: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday 26th April that Russia and Ukraine were continuing negotiations online.

At a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Moscow, Putin also said he hoped that talks would yield a positive result.

But the Russian president warned that security agreements would not be signed off until "territorial issues" were resolved relating to the Crimea Peninsula - which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 - and the Donbas "people's republics", whose independence Moscow recognized days before its "special military operation" began in eastern Ukraine on February 24 this year.

President Putin also agreed "in principle" to U.N. and International Committee for the Red Cross involvement in the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal plant in Ukraine's Mariupol, the UN said.

Mariupol the situation there is difficult and tragic. But - but - it's simple. I talked to (Turkey's) President Erdogan today. He said there was fighting there. There is no fighting there. It's over. There is no fighting in Mariupol. It has stopped."

"We do hear from the Ukrainian authorities that there are civilians there. Then the Ukrainian army should let the civilians leave. Otherwise they are acting like terrorists do in many countries of the world, like ISIS in Syria, hiding behind the civilian population. The simplest thing would be to let these people go. It's as simple as that."