Local authorities in the Ukrainian besieged city of Mariupol said thousands of residents there had been taken by force across the border to Russia.

Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported onto the Russian territory, the city council said in a statement on its Telegram channel late on Saturday.

Russian news agencies confirmed that buses have carried several hundred people Moscow calls refugees from the strategic port on the Sea of Azov to Russia in recent days.

Air raid sirens sounded across major Ukrainian cities early on Sunday but there were no immediate reports of fresh attacks.

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