Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

The European Union was preparing sanctions on Russian oil sales after a major shift on Monday by Germany, Russia's biggest energy customer, that could deprive Moscow of a large revenue stream within days. * Russia's defence ministry said a missile strike on a military airfield near the port of Odesa destroyed a runway and a hangar with Western-supplied weapons and ammunition.

The European Union was preparing sanctions on Russian oil sales after a major shift on Monday by Germany, Russia's biggest energy customer, that could deprive Moscow of a large revenue stream within days. FIGHTING * A 14-year-old boy was killed and a 17-year-old girl was wounded in a missile strike on a dormitory in the southern port of Odesa, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. * Russia's defence ministry said a missile strike on a military airfield near the port of Odesa destroyed a runway and a hangar with Western-supplied weapons and ammunition. * A Ukrainian Bayraktar drone destroyed two Russian Raptor-class patrol ships in the Black Sea, Ukraine's military chief said. * The U.N. human rights office said the civilian death toll in Ukraine since Feb. 24 had exceeded 3,000 people.

Reuters could not immediately verify reports of battlefield developments. BUSINESS AND THE ECONOMY * Paying for Russian gas using Moscow's proposed scheme to convert payments into roubles would breach EU sanctions, the bloc's energy policy chief said. * Berlin will be ready to back an immediate EU ban on Russian oil imports, two German ministers said. * To keep the bloc united, the EU executive may offer Hungary and Slovakia exemptions or transition periods and phase in the ban by the year-end.

DIPLOMACY, CIVILIANS * More than 11,500 people, including 1,847 children, were transported from Ukraine into Russia on Monday without the participation of Kyiv's authorities, Russia's defence ministry said. * U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Monday he hoped the U.S. Senate would take up President Joe Biden's request for $33 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine as soon as next week. * Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, 39, a deputy commander of Ukraine's Azov Regiment, told Reuters from inside the Azovstal plant that fighters could hear voices of women, children and elderly people trapped below ground, and lacked the equipment to dig them out. * Ukrainian President Zelenskiy along with officials from Israel, Italy, Canada and Germany lambasted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for claiming that Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins. * Russia's Bolshoi Theatre cancelled, without giving a reason, a series of shows this week by directors who have spoken out against the war in Ukraine. QUOTES * "We were planning to tear up the bunkers, the entrance to which is blocked, but all night into Monday naval artillery and barrel artillery were firing. All day today aviation has been working, dropping bombs," Palamar on efforts to release civilians trapped below ground at the Azovstal plant.​ (Compiled by Cynthia Osterman and Lincoln Feast.)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)