INTERNATIONAL: President Zelenskyy says he has spoken with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda to seek defence assistance from Eastern European members of NATO and help in bringing Russia to the negotiating table.

Kyiv is an ally of NATO but not a full member of the United States-led transatlantic military alliance.

The situation in Kyiv right now is “horrific and horrendous.” There was a litany of air raids overnight and one success for the Ukrainian defence effort in that they shot down one of Russia’s aerial bombers, but that unfortunately has crashed down into a civilian area, causing an unknown number of casualties, and death.

There have also been a large number of air raids since dawn, on three occasions the air raid sirens have gone off and a civilian area was struck by one of those raids. The city’s hospitals were “struggling with the number of casualties right now”.