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Russia and Ukraine agreed on Thursday to create humanitarian corridors for civilians fleeing fighting as Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow's advance was "going to plan" and to schedule.
The agreement was the only real progress from a second round of talks between Moscow and Kyiv, an adviser to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, and it was not immediately clear how they would work.
A Russian negotiator, nationalist politician Leonid Slutsky, said the corridors would be introduced soon.
The two sides met after the fall of the first major Ukrainian city to Russian forces, with Mr Putin apparently unwilling to heed a global demand for hostilities to end as the war entered its second week.
He again said Russia was rooting out "neo-Nazis", adding during the televised opening of a national security council meeting that he "will never give up on (his) conviction that Russians and Ukrainians are one people".
Mr Putin earlier told French President Emmanuel Macron that Moscow "intends to continue the uncompromising fight against militants of nationalist armed groups", said a Kremlin account of their call.
Mr Zelenskyy has called on the West to increase its military assistance, after Nato members ruled out enforcing a no-fly zone for fear of igniting a direct war with nuclear-armed Russia.
"If you do not have the power to close the skies, then give me planes," Mr Zelenskyy said.
"If we are no more then, God forbid, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia will be next."
He said that direct talks with Mr Putin were "the only way to stop this war".
The EU has already offered fighter jets, and a source in Berlin said the German government was planning to deliver another 2,700 anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine.
The 27-nation bloc agreed to approve temporary protection for all refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. The UN says more than one million people have already fled the country.
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Damage after the shelling of buildings in central Kharkiv, Ukraine. EPA -
Workers from a local construction company weld anti-tank obstacles to be placed on roads around Kyiv as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues. Reuters -
Anti-war protesters attach sunflowers to barriers in front of the Russian embassy. Reuters -
Ukrainian volunteers prepare food for displaced people outside Lviv railway station in western Ukraine. AP -
A Ukrainian soldier holds an anti-tank launcher north-east of Kyiv. AFP -
Ukrainian refugees rest at Warsaw East train station in Poland. EPA -
Children look out from a carriage window as a train prepares to depart from a station in Lviv to the town of Uzhhorod near the border with Slovakia. AFP -
A girl who fled Ukraine is reunited with her father in Medyka, south-eastern Poland. AP Photo -
Tears outside a house damaged by a Russian airstrike in Gorenka, on the outskirts of Kyiv. AP Photo -
A civil defence member is poised to shoot as a vehicle approaches a checkpoint in Gorenka. AP Photo -
A Ukrainian civil defence member in the garden of a house damaged by a Russian airstrike. AP Photo -
Members of the US Army 3rd Infantry Division board a plane bound for Germany in Savannah, Georgia. EPA -
Prayers for peace in Ukraine at the Vatican's Saint Peter's Square. AFP -
A woman (right) hugs an arriving passenger from a train carrying refugees at Berlin's central station. EPA -
Firefighters battle a blaze in a Kharkiv police building hit by shelling. AFP -
A Ukrainian woman makes a phone call after crossing the Slovakian border. AFP -
A doctor takes shelter in the basement of a Kyiv perinatal centre. Reuters -
Debris which locals say was caused by shelling in separatist-controlled Horlivka, Donetsk. Reuters -
MPs in London give a standing ovation to Ukraine ambassador Vadym Prystaiko, who was in the public gallery. AP -
Distraught women and children fleeing Ukraine wait to enter Poland at the Korczowa crossing. Getty -
Newborn Ivan lies next to his mother as they shelter in the basement of a Kyiv perinatal centre. Reuters -
Firefighters hand water to people in a Ukrainian train full of refugees in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters -
Ukrainian refugees queue to file for residency permits at Prague's police headquarters. AFP -
Firefighters work to contain a blaze in buildings housing the Kharkiv regional police department. AFP -
A woman and her children sit in a tent in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter. AP -
Firefighters work to extinguish a blaze at the Kharkiv National University building, which city officials said was damaged by Russian shelling. Reuters -
An elderly woman comforts a child as they take shelter inside an underground station in Kyiv. Reuters -
People queue at a pharmacy in central Kyiv. Reuters -
A woman is consoled by a volunteer after fleeing from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at the border crossing in Siret, Romania. Reuters -
A Ukrainian civilian in the city of Zhytomyr practises throwing petrol bombs. Reuters -
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy poses after an interview with Reuters in Kyiv. Reuters -
A blast is seen at Kyiv's TV tower. Reuters -
A girl in Siret, Romania, covers herself with a blanket after fleeing from Ukraine. Reuters -
Ukraine's ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, acknowledges applause from US first lady Jill Biden as they attend President Joe Biden's first State of the Union address in Washington. AFP -
A man walks past the remains of Russian military vehicles in Bucha, close to Kyiv. AFP -
Civilians cross a river on a blown-up bridge on Kyiv's northern front. Defending the capital is a 'key priority', Ukraine's president has said. AFP -
Russian aircraft on the ground at Luninets Airbase, Belarus, about 50 kilometres north of the Ukrainian border. AFP -
People look at the gutted remains of Russian military vehicles on a road in the town of Bucha. AP -
A woman with a child who fled from the war in Ukraine reunite with their family after crossing the border in Medyka, Poland. AP -
Animal keeper Kirilo Trantin comforts an elephant at Kyiv Zoo. AP -
An armed man stands by the remains of a Russian military vehicle in Bucha. AP -
Ukrainian families say goodbye as they prepare to board a bus to Poland at Lviv, western Ukraine. AP -
Paramedics move a man who was wounded by shelling in a residential area of Mariupol, south-eastern Ukraine. AP -
Rescuers work at the site of a Russian strike in Zhytomyr. Reuters -
US actor and director Sean Penn attends a press briefing at the Presidential Office in Kyiv. Reuters -
Demonstrators participate in a protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at Lafayette Square in Washington. AFP -
Ukrainian soldiers rest while others eat near the front line with Russian troops in northern Kyiv. AP -
A barricade made of trams, buses and sand bags is seen through the window of car in the northern part of Kyiv. AP -
Members of the European Parliament applaud after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's speech at a special session to debate its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Reuters -
Ambassadors and diplomats walk out as Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (on screen) speaks during a recorded message at the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. EPA
At the talks on the Belarus-Poland border, both sides shook hands across a table at the outset, with the Ukrainian delegates in military attire and the Russians in more formal suits.
A first round of talks on Monday also yielded no breakthrough, and Kyiv says it will not accept any Russian "ultimatums".
The invasion, now in its eighth day, has turned Russia into a global pariah in the worlds of finance, diplomacy, sports and culture.
The UN has opened a probe into alleged war crimes, as the Russian military bombards cities in Ukraine with shells and missiles, forcing civilians to cower in basements.
Addressing the Mr Putin regime in a video, Mr Zelenskyy said: "You will reimburse us for everything you did against our state, against every Ukrainian, in full.
Thirty-three people died Thursday when Russian forces hit residential areas, including schools and a high-rise apartment block, in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, authorities said.
Mr Zelenskyy claims thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed since Mr Putin shocked the world by moving in to Ukraine, purportedly to demilitarise a western-leaning threat on his borders.
Moscow on Wednesday said that it has lost 498 troops, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr Putin praised their sacrifice.
The Kremlin has been condemned for likening the government of Mr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, to that of Germany in the Second World War.
While a long military column appears stalled north of Ukraine's capital Kyiv, Russian troops seized Kherson, a Black Sea city of 290,000 people, after a three-day siege that left it short of food and medicine.
Russian armoured columns from Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014, pushed deep into the region around Kherson in fighting that killed at least 13 civilians.
Nine Ukrainian soldiers were also killed, the Kherson regional administration said.
Russian troops are also besieging the port city of Mariupol, east of Kherson, which is without water or electricity in the depths of winter.
"They are trying to create a blockade here, just like in Leningrad," Mariupol mayor Vadym Boichenko said, referring to the brutal Nazi siege of Russia's second city, now called St Petersburg.
Ukrainian authorities said residential and other areas in the eastern city of Kharkiv had been "pounded all night" by indiscriminate shelling, which UN prosecutors are investigating as a possible war crime.
Oleg Rubak's wife Katia, 29, was crushed in the rubble of their family home in Zhytomyr, west of Kyiv, by a Russian missile strike.
"One minute I saw her going into the bedroom. A minute later there was nothing," Mr Rubak, 32, said in tears, amid the ruins in the bitter winter chill.
"I hope she's in heaven and all is perfect for her. I want the whole world to hear my story."
UN emergency relief co-ordinator Martin Griffiths urged Russia to allow relief workers to help Ukraine's people.
"Protect civilians, for God's sake, in Ukraine. Let us do our job", Mr Griffiths said.
The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency urged Russia to "cease all actions" at Ukraine's nuclear facilities, including the site of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
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People desperate to leave Ukraine try to board a train at the railway station in Lviv. All photos: Oliver Marsden for The National -
Ukrainian men returning from Poland to fight for their country help pass over donations of clothes at the border crossing from Poland into Ukraine. -
A train driver tells people on the platform that he cannot pick anyone up at the station in Lviv. -
An elderly woman sits alone waiting to cross the border from Ukraine into Poland as fighting continues. -
Days-long waits to cross borders have been reported. -
Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 have been stopped from leaving Ukraine amid a conscription drive to defend against Russia. -
A couple carry their child out of the ticket hall at Lviv railway station. -
A family attempts to walk the last 25 kilometres of the journey to the Polish border. -
A mother tries to keep her daughter warm on the platform of Lviv railway station. -
Elise from Kiev sits waiting for a train to take her out of Ukraine after hearing that Poland has closed its borders.
Mr Putin now finds himself an international outcast, and his country the subject of sanctions that sent the rouble into further free-fall Thursday.
Russia's central bank, whose foreign reserves have been frozen in the West, imposed a 30 per cent tax on all sales of hard currency, after a run on lenders by ordinary Russians.
The unfolding financial costs were underlined as ratings agencies Fitch and Moody's slashed Russia's sovereign debt to "junk" status.
Turmoil deepened on markets more broadly. European stocks slid and oil prices approached $120 a barrel.
Russia's sporting isolation worsened as it lost the right to host Formula One races.
The International Paralympic Committee, in a decision reversal, banned Russians and Belarusians from the Beijing Winter Games.
Many Ukrainians have now fled into nearby countries, the UN refugee agency's rapidly rising tally shows.
"We left everything there as they came and ruined our lives," migrant Svitlana Mostepanenko said in Prague.
Nathalia Lypka, a professor of German from the eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, arrived in Berlin with her daughter, 21, and was to board a train to Stuttgart where friends were waiting.
"My husband and son stayed," Ms Lypka said. "My husband already served in the army and he had to return to duty."
Russian authorities have imposed a media blackout on what the Kremlin calls a "special military operation" that western analysts say has become bogged down.
Two liberal media groups, Ekho Moskvy radio and TV network Dozhd, said they were halting operations in another blow to independent reporting in Russia.
But Russians have still turned out for large anti-war protests across the country, braving mass arrests in a direct challenge to the president's 20-year rule.
Nearly 7,000 Russian scientists, mathematicians and academics had as of Thursday signed an open letter "strongly" protesting against Mr Putin's war in Ukraine.
Russian oil giant Lukoil on Thursday called for an immediate halt to fighting in Ukraine. It was one of the first major domestic companies to speak out against the incursion.
