Russia-Ukraine live updates: Ukraine rejects Kremlin’s call to surrender Mariupol amid intense street fighting

Russian military forces bombed a mall in central Kyiv on Sunday night, burying several people in rubble, according to Ukrainian authorities and video of rescue efforts.

About 10:45 p.m., multiple shells hit the Podilskyi district, which sits on the Dnieper River, according to officials from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. The shelling engulfed vehicles and three to four floors of a shopping center in flames.

Kyiv city officials reported that several houses had also been hit.

Dozens of firefighters and paramedics put out fires and treated victims, according to Ukrainian officials. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said there was at least one victim, although he didn’t specify whether the person had been killed or injured.

Klitschko and State Emergency Service officials said they were trying to get updated information about casualties.

In a video shared by Ukrainian officials, a man stretches his arms out from the rubble as firefighters surround him. Rescuers eventually pull him from the wreckage before carrying him away on a backboard.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded that Switzerland clamp down on Russian oligarchs, saying their use of Swiss bank accounts is helping Russia continue its attacks on Ukraine from the safety of “beautiful Swiss towns.”

“Your banks are where the money of the people who unleashed this war lies,” Zelensky said as he addressed the country on Saturday, calling for it to review its ties to Russia and freeze the accounts of the mega rich.

More than $210 billion of Russian money is held in Swiss bank accounts, the country’s financial industry association told Reuters.

While Zelensky thanked the president and people of neutral Switzerland for backing sanctions against Russia and helping Ukraine in its quest for “life and liberty,” he urged Swiss banks and companies to take additional steps to ensure “not a singer dollar, franc or euro” would assist Russia in killing Ukrainians.

Companies such as Nestlé, which has its headquarters in Switzerland, continue to operate in Russia, as a growing list of businesses have severed ties there since the invasion of Ukraine.

Swiss politician Mattea Meyer has also called for the country to “turn off the money taps” to stop Russian oligarchs from stashing large amounts of cash there.

After weeks of relentlessly bombarding Mariupol, Russia on Sunday called for Ukrainian forces to surrender and flee the city or risk further attacks and a “military tribunal.”

The ultimatum, issued through Russian state media, came after Russian forces had entered every neighborhood in Mariupol, a strategically valuable city on Ukraine’s southeastern coast. The assault — which has reduced large swaths of the city to rubble, left civilians dead on the streets and spawned a humanitarian catastrophe — has descended into house-to-house guerrilla warfare, officials said Sunday.

Moscow said Mariupol’s leaders faced a “historic choice”: either concede to Russian troops or be considered “with the bandits” and face trial in a Russian military court, according to the state media reports, which disseminate Kremlin communications. Russia requested an official response from Ukrainian authorities by 5 a.m. Moscow time on Monday, which is 10 p.m. Eastern time Sunday.

Late Sunday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told the news outlet Ukrayinska Pravda that Ukraine would not surrender, and she reiterated calls for open and unconditional evacuation routes from the city.

DNIPRO, Ukraine — Intense fighting spread Sunday into all neighborhoods in the southern port city of Mariupol, officials said, thrusting Russian and Ukrainian forces into pitched battles as Russia tries to claim its first strategic victory since invading even as its advance remains stalled in most of the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his position that he is willing to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Without negotiations, it will not be possible to end the war, Zelensky said during an interview on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”

There are reasons to believe that the Russians and Ukrainians are still far apart on a number of major issues. Zelensky said that Ukraine would need “security guarantees, sovereignty, restoration of territorial integrity, real guarantees for our country” to end the fighting.

Ukrainians are otherwise willing to defend themselves, he said.