These are the key events so far on Wednesday, March 23. Get the latest updates here.

Fighting

• Relentless Russian bombardment is turning Mariupol into the “ashes of a dead land”, said the council of the besieged port city in southeast Ukraine, after it refused to surrender.
• Ukraine’s government urged Russia to allow the evacuation of at least 100,000 civilians who want to leave Mariupol, while the military warned Ukrainians nationwide of more indiscriminate Russian shelling.
• A United States defence official has told reporters that Russia’s combat power has declined below 90 percent of its pre-invasion levels for the first time since its assault on Ukraine began.

Sanctions

• Russian companies have been having problems paying their debt holders due to existing sanctions.
• The US and its Western allies are assessing whether Russia should remain within the Group of Twenty (G20) major economies.
• A second superyacht linked to Roman Abramovich docked in a Turkish resort and sources said he and other wealthy Russians were looking to invest in Turkey, given sanctions elsewhere.

Weapons

• Russia, the US and the United Kingdom traded accusations over the possibility of a chemical weapons attack in Ukraine, but none produced evidence to back their concerns.
• The Kremlin said it would only use nuclear weapons in the case of an “existential threat” to Russia.

Information war

• A Russian newspaper accused hackers of planting fake news on its website after a report briefly appeared there saying nearly 10,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in Ukraine.