Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

* A total of 2,824 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Sunday, including 213 residents of the besieged southern port of Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in an online post FOREIGN LEADERS * Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said he would meet with Putin on Monday in Moscow for the Russian leader's first face-to-face meeting with a European Union counterpart since Russia's invasion began on Feb. 24.

Ukraine said it was seeking another round of European Union sanctions against Moscow and more military aid from its allies as it braces for a major Russian offensive in the east of the country.

FIGHTING

* Russian forces fired rockets into Ukraine's Luhansk and Dnipro regions, Ukrainian officials said, completely destroying an airport and wounding at least five people.

* Two people were killed and several injured in the Ukrainian town of Derhachy in the northeastern Kharkiv region, regional governor Oleh Synyehubov said.

* British military intelligence said Russia was seeking to strengthen troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service since 2012, as losses mount from the invasion.

* A series of powerful explosions were heard in Ukraine's northeastern city of Kharkiv and in Mykolaiv, a city near the Black Sea in the southern part of the country, Ukrainian media reported on Sunday.

CIVILIANS

* Residents of the besieged region of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine will have nine trains to use on Sunday for evacuation, Luhansk regional Governor Serhiy Gaidai wrote on Telegram.

* Donors including Canada and the European Commission pledged a on Saturday combined 9.1 billion euros in donations, loans and grants to support refugees fleeing the war.

* A total of 2,824 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Sunday, including 213 residents of the besieged southern port of Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in an online post

FOREIGN LEADERS

* Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said he would meet with Putin on Monday in Moscow for the Russian leader's first face-to-face meeting with a European Union counterpart since Russia's invasion began on Feb. 24. * Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had held spoken on the phone with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the possibility of additional sanctions on Russia.

PRAYERS AND PROTESTS

* Pope Francis on Sunday called for an Easter truce in Ukraine, and in an apparent reference to Russia, questioned the value of planting a victory flag "on a heap of rubble".

* The head of Russia's Orthodox Church called on people on Sunday to rally around the authorities as Moscow pursues its military intervention in Ukraine.

* Around 600 pro-Russian protesters in a 350-car motorcade set off on a demonstration in Hanover in the north of Germany, where there was also a counter-demonstration of around 700 people supporting Ukraine in the city centre, local police said.

ECONOMY AND BUSINESS

* Ukraine's economic output will likely contract by a staggering 45.1% this year as Russia's invasion has shuttered businesses, slashed exports and destroyed productive capacity, the World Bank said on Sunday in a new assessment of the war's economic impacts. * Ukraine has banned all imports from Russia, one of its key trading partners before the war with annual imports valued at about $6 billion, and called on other countries to follow and impose harsher economic sanctions.

* Russian bank VTB can no longer exercise any control over its European subsidiary in the wake of new sanctions, German regulator BaFin said.