Kyiv mayor reports 'explosions' in capital

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in an online posting that Kyiv was struck early Saturday in the Darnytskyi district in the eastern part of the capital, saying there were "explosions".

He said rescuers and paramedics were on the scene and that victims' details would be released later.

Klitschko urged residents to heed air raid sirens and warned those who have fled the capital not to return for now for their safety.

Thick smoke rising from the site on the eastern side of Kyiv could be seen from parts of downtown near the Dnipro River.

___ Kyiv: Russian forces late Friday evening hit an airfield in Oleksandriya, a city in Ukraine's Kirovohrad region, with a missile strike, the mayor of the city, Serhiy Kuzmenko, said on Facebook on Saturday. He didn't say whether the strike resulted in any casualties.

In the eastern Luhansk region, overnight shelling killed one person and wounded three more, according to the region's Governor Serhiy Haidai. The shelling also damaged gas pipelines in the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

___ Washington: Ukraine is sending top officials to Washington for next week's spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where discussion will focus on the Russian invasion and its impact on the global economy.

Coming to the gathering are Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and central bank governor Kyrylo Shevchenko, according to a World Bank official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the visit had not been officially announced.

___ Kyiv: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that existing sanctions on Russia are "painful" but not yet enough to stop the Russian military.

Zelenskyy called for "the democratic world" to ban Russian oil. While US lawmakers and US President Joe Biden have enacted such a ban, Europe relies more heavily on Russian energy supplies, and the US has been working to keep India from stepping up its use of Russian energy.

"In general, the democratic world must accept that Russia's money for energy resources is in fact money for the destruction of democracy," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to his nation.

He also said: "The sooner the democratic world recognizes that the oil embargo against Russia and the complete blockade of its banking sector are necessary steps towards peace, the sooner the war will end." ___ Tijuana (Mexico): A Russian man and Ukrainian woman were married in the Mexican border city of Tijuana after they were unable to travel together to the US.

Daria Sakhniuk was allowed to enter the US as a Ukrainian refugee but her partner, Semen Bobrovski, was unable to travel there following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They left Ukraine as the war began.

Bobrovski told El Sol de Tijuana that he believed the marriage Thursday would bolster his chances of entering the US with his new wife. The US allows only Russian nationals with family members in the US to enter the country.

"Without it, we won't be able to cross because, still to the official American government, we are strangers to each other,'' he said.