March 16, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

At least 103 children have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message posted to Facebook on Wednesday. 

Speaking before addressing the US Congress, but released on Facebook afterward, Zelensky said in the video, “Last night, Russian troops continued shelling Ukrainian territory, our peaceful cities, our citizens. Kharkiv and the region ... They bombed the coast of the Odesa region. They fired missiles at Kyiv. Hit civilian infrastructure of Zaporizhzhia.”

Zelensky said Russian troops have caused “hundreds of times more damage” in Ukraine than on Donbas in eight years of war. The Ukrainian president went on to say a total of 400 educational institutions have been destroyed in Ukraine to date, with 119 being in the Donetsk region.

Zelensky also said he spoke with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and that the Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine and law enforcement agencies have already started working to “bring the invaders to justice.”

“The invaders will be responsible for all war crimes against Ukrainians,” he said.

Belarusian aircraft are prohibited from entering Canadian airspace in response to their support of Russia’s unprovoked aggression in Ukraine, according to a tweet from Canadian Transport Minister Omar Algahabra.

The restriction is part of a number of economic measures from Canada against direct supporters of Russia. 

“We have issued a revised #NOTAM (notice to airman) to inform air operators of the new restriction,” Transport Canada tweeted. “We will not hesitate to take immediate enforcement action should non-compliance with the restrictions be confirmed.”

Eleven thousand people left the southeastern city of Mariupol en route to Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday, according to a post on the Telegram channel of Mariupol city council, marking another increase in the number of residents able to escape the besieged city.

For people able to make it as far as Berdyansk in their own cars but unable to drive further, fifteen buses were supplied to complete the journey and Orthodox priests accompanied the buses, the council said.

By Wednesday evening, officials said more than 6,400 Mariupol residents had made the journey through Russian-occupied territory to Zaporizhzhia, which is still in Ukrainian hands. More than 2,000 children were among them.

The humanitarian convoy to bring aid into Mariupol, and empty buses to evacuate residents, remains blocked by Russian forces, officials said.

New satellite images from Maxar Technologies show that on Monday, the word "children" was spelled out outside the theater that the Mariupol City Council said was bombed on Wednesday.

The City Council said that on Wednesday that Russian forces had "purposefully and cynically destroyed the Drama Theater in the heart of Mariupol. The plane dropped a bomb on a building where hundreds of peaceful Mariupol residents were hiding."

Olha Stefanishyna, deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, told CNN on Wednesday that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to the US Congress didn’t mention NATO because that is “not as essential” as a no-fly zone and weapons – and political aspirations will have to go on hold for now.

CNN’s Sam Kiley spoke to Stefanishyna remotely from a secure hidden location in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Wednesday, following Zelensky’s address.

Stefanishyna said Putin is failing in the war because “the chain of command which disinforms him, and the senior management around, shows that they know nothing about our nation.”

“I'm absolutely sure that he's uncomfortable in every moment that he’s sitting in his bomb shelter,” she said, adding, “he fails in each of his assessments.”

She also responded to how she feels about her government being effectively driven underground, saying that “we feel ourselves as one with Ukrainian people and we suffer and cry the same with the death of every child and citizen of Ukraine.”

Stefanishyna told CNN she has faith in her country’s military — and the unity and fearlessness of the people — to overcome Russia’s aggression in this conflict, but she added that it's the “responsibility” of Western leaders to provide security guarantees, together with Russia.

“Security guarantees in a broader format are essential to us,” she said.

“What we want is to live peacefully on our land in a democratic way," Stefanishyna said, adding that Ukraine is already part of the European family. "We're already part of the political European family,” she said.

A theater where hundreds of people had taken shelter in Mariupol was bombed on Wednesday, according to local authorities, as hundreds of thousands of people remain trapped in the coastal Ukrainian city that has been encircled for weeks by Russian forces.

Mariupol City Council, who shared an image of the destroyed building, said Russian forces had "purposefully and cynically destroyed the Drama Theater in the heart of Mariupol."

CNN has geolocated the image and confirmed it is of the theater. Videos showed a fire raging in the theater's ruins. The number of casualties is unknown, authorities said.

Here's a catch up of key developments that have unfolded today:

Russian forces are still “generally stalled” near Kyiv, Ukraine, and have not “made any significant advances” towards the city from the north, northwest or east of the city, a senior US defense official told reporters Wednesday 

Russian forces to the east of Kyiv are still about 30 kilometers (about 18 miles) away from the city’s center, the official said.

Ukrainians are still in control of Brovary. Chernihiv remains isolated, but the US is seeing Ukrainians “trying to develop lines of communication to the south and with some success,” the official said. 

There has been no “apparent progress in or around Kharkiv” by Russian forces, the official said.

Mariupol also remains isolated by Russian forces, the official added.

In Mykolaiv, Ukrainians continue to defend the city. Russian forces are still outside of the city “mostly to the northeast,” about 10 to 15 kilometers (six to nine miles) away, the official said.

The United States welcomes “the sentiments expressed that there is hope, that there is optimism for diplomatic progress,” but believes Russia must de-escalate for any such progress to actually be achieved, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.

Asked about potential neutrality commitments or other guarantees that could lead to a cessation of the war, Price said it was “not a question for us regarding what might lead to a ceasefire, a diminution of violence between Ukraine and Russia.”

“This is ultimately a question for our Ukrainian partners to decide, to decide the terms of diplomacy, what they are willing to pursue, what they are not willing to pursue,” Price said.

He said such an issue was “really at the heart of this conflict." Adding, Russia is “waging this war precisely because they sought to deprive Ukraine of its sovereign rights, its sovereign right to determine its own foreign policy, its sovereign right to determine its own Western orientation, its sovereign right to choose its own partners and alliances.”

“So as part and parcel of that it is not for us to set the terms by which Ukraine and Russia may be in a position to reach an agreement that we all hope could diminish the violence. That is for Ukrainian to decide. We will be standing by our Ukrainian partners, assisting them with the diplomacy as we know a number of our allies and partners around the world are doing but these are questions for sovereign state of Ukraine,” Price said.

The building that houses the "Neptune" swimming pool in northern Mariupol has been hit by a military strike Wednesday, video posted to social media by a city government official shows.

CNN has geolocated and confirmed the authenticity of the video.

Maxim Kach, a Mariupol city government official, said that​ a bomb hit the building and that rescue workers were busy trying to get a pregnant woman out from under the rubble.

"Here there were only pregnant women & women with kids under three years old," Kach said in the video.

Kach ​also said there were no military ​personnel at, or near, the pool. 

The pool is roughly 2.5 miles, or just over four kilometers, north from where a military strike destroyed a theater being used as a shelter earlier on Wednesday.

CNN could not immediately verify Kach's claims that there was a woman buried under the rubble.