Russia's foreign minister said Moscow's campaign in Ukraine was entering a new stage Tuesday.
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Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Indian television broadcast that "the operation is continuing, and another phase of this operation is starting now."
Lavrov's statement follows Ukrainian statements that Russia on Monday launched an offensive in the country's eastern industrial heartland, Donbas. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years in the mostly Russian-speaking region and have declared two independent republics that have been recognized by Moscow.
Lavrov emphasized that the Russian operation is aimed at the "full liberation of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics."
A regional governor in eastern Ukraine says five civilians have been killed by Russian shelling.
Kharkiv region Governor Oleh Synyehubov said Tuesday that five civilians have been killed by Russian shelling and another 17 residents wounded in the Russian rocket barrage on the center of Kharkiv and its outskirts.
Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, has faced Russian attacks since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24.
Meanwhile, the Russian military has made a new demand to the Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol to lay down their arms.
Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev gave Ukrainian troops holed up at the giant Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol until midday Tuesday to surrender.
He said that those who surrender will "keep their lives."
Ukrainian troops who have defended the city for seven weeks have ignored such previous offers. The Azovstal plant, which covers the territory of about 11 square kilometers (over 4 square miles) is the last major Ukrainian pocket of resistance in Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov.
Earlier Tuesday, Eduard Basurin, a spokesman for the Russia-backed separatists in the Donbas region, said that assault groups had moved into Azovstal in a bid to uproot the Ukrainian troops following bombing and artillery barrage.
Meanwhile, Greek authorities say they have seized a Russian tanker in the Aegean Sea as part of European Union sanctions imposed against Russia.
The Greek coast guard said the Russian-flagged Pegas, an oil tanker with 19 Russian crew members on board, was seized April 15 and is currently anchored in the bay of Karystos, on the southern coast of the island of Evia. The coast guard said the seizure order concerned the ship itself, and not its cargo.
The European Union, of which Greece is a member, has adopted a wide range of sanctions against Russia over the latter's invasion of Ukraine, designed to pressure the Russian economy and the government of President Vladimir Putin.
The sanctions include import and export bans for a wide variety of goods, and a ban on access to EU ports by Russian-flagged ships.
Japan, meanwhile, will send gas masks, hazmat suits, and drones to Ukraine to help defend the country against Russia's invasion amid growing concern of chemical weapons use by the Russian military.
Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said Tuesday that Japan is sending the anti-chemical-warfare equipment at the request of the Ukrainian government.
Japan last month provided bulletproof vests, helmets and other nonlethal arms equipment to Ukraine as an exception to Tokyo's ban on arms exports to countries in conflict, saying Ukraine is being invaded. The shipment has raised controversy in Japan, whose pacifist Constitution renounces war.
"Banding together with the international community and firmly taking action against Russia's invasion, which violates international law, is extremely important from the viewpoint of our own national security as well," Kishi said.
The government has revised its operational guideline of arms transfer to allow provisions of nonlethal equipment to Ukraine and says the new rule covers gas masks and protective gear. Japan is also sending commercially available drones that are not considered arms equipment.
Japan has been quick in joining the United States and European Union in imposing sanctions against Russia and supporting Ukraine and its people because Tokyo fears the impact its invasion could have on East Asia, where China has been increasingly pushing its own territorial claims.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday conferred the honorary title of "Guards" to a military unit accused of carrying out a massacre in Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian reports, Russia's 64th Motorized Infantry Brigade was the main unit involved in the massacre in Bucha, north of Kyiv, last month.
Over 500 civilians were murdered and buried in mass graves across the city. According to eyewitness accounts, Russian soldiers kidnapped civilians deemed supporters of the Ukrainian government and shot them and their families. Dozens of rapes were reported in Bucha. In one reported instance, the victims were murdered after the fact and their bodies burned.
In a statement, Putin said: "This is a high honor and recognition of your special merits, mass heroism and courage shown in defending the Fatherland, upholding the sovereignty and national interests of Russia.
"I wish the command and personnel of the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade good health and success," the Russian leader said.
Images broadcast by Ukrainian media outlets last month showed dozens of bodies, some with their hands tied in a clear sign they were executed by retreating troops, scattered across the city's streets. The naked bodies of women who had apparently been raped before they were killed were also discovered on pile of tires and wooden boards on road situated to the north of the city. The invaders appear to have planned to set the bodies on fire to conceal evidence.
Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova told state TV 410 bodies were found in cities and villages to the north of the country's capital, 140 of which had already undergone autopsies. She did not say whether the bodies had belonged to civilians or soldiers.
Russian forces have launched their long-anticipated offensive in eastern Ukraine, attempting to push through defenses along almost the entire front line early on Monday in what Ukrainian officials described as the second phase of the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had begun the "Battle of Donbas" in the east on Monday, and a "very large part of the entire Russian army is now focused on this offensive."
"No matter how many Russian troops they send there, we will fight. We will defend ourselves," he said in a video address.
Zelenskyy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, assured Ukrainians their forces could hold off the offensive in "the second phase of the war."
"Believe in our army, it is very strong," he said. Ukrainian media reported a series of explosions, some powerful, along the front line in the Donetsk region, with shelling taking place in Marinka, Slavyansk, and Kramatorsk.
Ukrainian officials and media also said explosions were heard in Kharkiv in the northeast of Ukraine, Mykolaiv in the south, and Zaporizhzhia in the southeast.
Air raid sirens were also going off in main centers near the front line.
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the reports.
Ukraine's top security official, Oleksiy Danilov, said Russian forces attempted to break through Ukrainian defenses "along almost the entire front line of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv regions."
Driven back by Ukrainian forces in the north, Russia has refocused its ground offensive in the two eastern provinces known as the Donbas, while launching long-distance strikes at other targets including the capital, Kyiv.
Donbas has been the focal point of Russia's campaign to destabilize Ukraine, starting in 2014 when the Kremlin used proxies to set up two separatist "people's republics" in the ex-Soviet state. It is also home to much of Ukraine's industrial wealth, including coal and steel.
Russia's defense ministry said it had hit hundreds of military targets in Ukraine overnight.
Western countries and Ukraine accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of unprovoked aggression, and the White House said US President Joe Biden would hold a call with allies on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, including on how to coordinate on holding Russia accountable.
French President Emmanuel Macron said his dialogue with Putin had stalled after mass killings were discovered in Ukraine.
The United Nations said on Monday the war's civilian death toll had surpassed 2,000, reaching 2,072 as of midnight on April 17 from the beginning of the invasion on Feb. 24.
About 4 million Ukrainians have fled the country.
Russia denies targeting civilians in what it calls a special operation to demilitarize Ukraine and eradicate dangerous nationalists. It rejects what Ukraine says is evidence of atrocities, saying Ukraine has staged them to undermine peace talks.
Russia has been trying to take full control of the southeastern port city of Mariupol, which has been besieged for weeks and which would be a big strategic prize, linking territory held by pro-Russian separatists in the east with the Crimea region that Moscow annexed in 2014 and freeing up the besieging troops.
Video footage showed block after residential block in charred ruins. Shell-shocked residents in the Primorskyi district cooked on open fires outside their damaged homes.
"To be honest, we are not well," one resident named Olga told Reuters. "I have mental problems after air strikes, that's for sure. I'm really scared. When I hear a plane, I just run."
The city council said at least 1,000 civilians were still hiding in underground shelters beneath the vast Azovstal steel plant, which contain myriad buildings, blast furnaces and rail tracks.
Maj. Serhiy Volyna, commander of Ukraine's 36th marine brigade, which is still fighting in Mariupol, appealed for help in a letter to Pope Francis.
"This is what hell looks like on earth ... It's time [for] help not just by prayers. Save our lives from satanic hands," he said in the letter, according to excerpts posted by Ukraine's Vatican ambassador to Twitter.
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