LVIV, Ukraine — Evacuations of civilians from frontline towns in Ukraine's Kyiv region were proceeding on Saturday and are planned to continue on Sunday, regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba told local media.

"We will try to get people out every day, as long as it's possible to observe a ceasefire," he said.

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have started a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine, the French presidency said on Saturday.

Macron had said at a European Union summit on Friday that he and Scholz would hold a fresh call with Putin in the coming hours after a previous three-way exchange on Thursday. 

A Ukrainian Air Force base was targeted in an early morning attack Saturday in Vasylkiv.

Russia launched eight missiles in the ambush, destroying the airfield. Vasylkiv Mayor Natalia Balasynovych said an ammunition depot and oil depot were struck, according to BuzzFeed News.

Vasylkiv's oil depot was engulfed in the flames.

The 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade is stationed at the Vasylkiv base, located in central Ukraine. Vasylkiv was the site where Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian Il-76 heavy transport plane carrying paratroopers in February.

David Gilmour said he and Pink Floyd are protesting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by removing a large portion of their music catalog from streaming properties in Russia and Belarus.

“To stand with the world in strongly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the works of Pink Floyd, from 1987 onwards, and all of David Gilmour’s solo recordings are being removed from all digital music providers in Russia and Belarus from today,” an announcement shared Friday to the band’s Twitter account states.

The included works that are set to be leaving Russian and Belarusian streaming platforms are Pink Floyd studio albums “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” (1987), “The Division Bell” (1994) as well as 2014’s “The Endless River.” 

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ISTANBUL – The Ukrainian Embassy in Turkey says a group of 86 Turkish nationals, including 34 children, are among those sheltering in a mosque in the besieged city of Mariupol.

An embassy spokeswoman, citing information from the city mayor, said they had taken shelter in the mosque along with others seeking refuge from the Russian attack on the encircled port on the Sea of Azov.

She says, “There are really big communication problems in Mariupol and there’s no opportunity to reach them.”

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been trapped in Mariupol for more than a week with no food, water, heat or power amid freezing temperatures. Efforts to establish a cease-fire to let them leave have repeatedly broken down.

Turkish officials did not respond to requests for comment. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Friday that Turkey has evacuated nearly 14,000 of its citizens from Ukraine.

Russian forces appeared to make headway in their slow push toward Kyiv on Saturday, while continuing to pound the capital and other Ukrainian cities with aircraft and artillery assaults.

Air raid sirens were heard across most Ukrainian cities early Saturday morning, urging people to seek shelters in Kyiv, as well as the western city of Lviv, Kharkiv, Cherkasy and the Sumy region in the northeast of the country, local media reported.

The massive 40-mile convoy that had stalled on its way to the capital has begun to spread out around Kyiv, satellite photos show, with forces now within 20 miles of the city’s center from the northeast.

The photos showed howitzers newly set up in firing position, and armored units staged near the Antonov Airport north of the city, according to Maxar Technologies.

Satellite images on Friday appeared to show heavy shelling in the suburbs of Kyiv, as Russia inched closer toward the capital. The images from Maxar Technologies showed impact craters and burning residential buildings as well as muzzle flashes from Russian big guns. 

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A warehouse based in Kvitneve was set ablaze as a result of Russian shelling, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine early Saturday.

Officials said the warehouse stored frozen products. There are no reported casualties from the destructive attack.

Kvitneve is a village 21 miles east of Kyiv. A Russian convoy had circled the Ukrainian capital ahead of a potential attempt to invade the city.

GUATEMALA CITY - Guatemala on Friday received its first arrivals of Ukrainian families fleeing their homeland since Russia's invasion of its neighbor last month, authorities said.

The eight Ukrainians were the first to arrive in the Central American country "for humanitarian reasons," an immigration spokesperson told Reuters.

Another flight carrying more Ukrainians arrived several hours later, officials said. It is unclear how many may have arrived privately in Guatemala since the Russian attacks on Ukraine began.

"I don't know what the future holds for us, but I hope the war ends soon," said one of arrivals in a video disseminated by Guatemalan authorities. "It's hard to say how much my heart hurts for my mother and father in Ukraine, who can't leave."

Guatemala's announcement was the first on Ukrainian arrivals from the Central American countries known as the Northern Triangle - also including Honduras and El Salvador - which have themselves seen much of their populations emigrate due to violence and poverty.

A rising number of Ukrainians and Russians have fled to Latin America in recent months, including those who turn up at the United States-Mexico border.

The US on Friday unleashed new sanctions on Russian oligarchs connected to the attack on Ukraine — including President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman and his family.

The stateside assets of billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov, his wife and children, and 12 lawmakers were frozen for “enabling Putin’s unjustified and unprovoked war,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.

The spokesman and his family lead “luxurious lifestyles that are incongruous with Peskov’s civil servant salary,” the Treasury Department said.

His Instagram influencer daughter Elizaveta Peskova, 24, was among the family members targeted in the crackdown. The jet-setter had posted an anti-war message on her account last week before deleting it an hour later and setting her account to private.

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An elderly Ukrainian couple stood up to Russian soldiers who had broken onto their property — earning praise from the US Embassy for their remarkable bravery.

Surveillance camera footage of the tense encounter was shared on social media by the embassy in Kyiv on Friday.

“Today we salute this elderly couple, who stood up to three Russian soldiers,” the embassy wrote, along with the hashtag #UkrainianHeroes.

In the clip, three armed Russian soldiers in combat gear approach the front of the couple’s gated driveway and begin breaking in. They force the gate open and move forward with their weapons drawn as dogs bark in the background.

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Air raid sirens were heard across most Ukrainian cities early on Saturday morning urging people to seek shelters, local media reported.

Sirens were heard in the capital city of Kyiv, the western city of Lviv in Odessa, and Kharkiv, Cherkasy, as well as in the Sumy region in northeast of the country, a number of local Ukrainian media reported.

Russian forces appeared to be regrouping on Friday for a possible assault on Kyiv, with satellite images showing them firing artillery as they closed in on the capital.

Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of shelling a cancer hospital and residential buildings in the southern city of Mykolaiv.

The hospital's top doctor, Maksim Beznosenko, said that hundreds of patients were laid up in the hospital at the time of the shelling, but nobody was killed. The building was damaged and several windows were blown out in the attack.

Russian forces have escalated their siege on Mykolaiv, a city of about 475,000 people located 292 miles south of Kyiv.

Ukrainian and Western officials accused Russia of shelling a maternity hospital in the port city of Mariupol on Wednesday, killing three people.

With Post wires