KIEV — It"s now three and a half weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine and launched a full-scale war. The United Nations says 10 million people have fled their homes, many heading abroad. Thousands have been killed or wounded as Vladimir Putin"s forces target residential areas. Shelling and airstrikes have caused widespread damage to buildings and infrastructure. Moscow denies targeting civilians. Ukrainian authorities say the Russian military bombed an art school in Mariupol where about 400 people had taken refuge. The attack has not been confirmed and the number of casualties is unknown. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of committing war crimes in Mariupol, saying in his latest video address that the siege of the city will go down in history for "terror that will be remembered for centuries to come". Local authorities at the besieged and battered southeastern port city say thousands of residents there have been taken by force across the border into Russia. The claim has not been confirmed. The Russian military said on Sunday morning that it has carried out a new series of strikes on Ukrainian military facilities with long-range hypersonic and cruise missiles. On Saturday it said the Kinzhal hypersonic missile was used for the first time in combat to destroy an ammunition depot in western Ukraine. The UN said on Sunday that 10 million people in Ukraine have now fled their The claim comes from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, via Twitter. The figure amounts to almost a quarter of the country"s population. Also Pope Francis has denounced Russia’s “repugnant war” against Ukraine as “cruel and sacrilegious inhumanity.” In some of his strongest words yet since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, the Pope told thousands of people in St Peter’s Square on Sunday that every day brings more atrocities in a "senseless massacre". “There is no justification for this,’’ Francis said, again stopping short of naming Russia as the aggressor. Pontiffs typically have decried wars and their devastating toll on civilians without citing warmongers by name. Francis also called on “all actors in the international community” to work toward ending the war. “Again this week, missiles, bombs, rained down on the elderly, children and pregnant mothers,’’ the pope said. His thoughts, he said, went to the millions who flee. “And I feel great pain for those who don’t even have the chance to escape.’’ The Pope said that “above all, defenseless life should get respected and protected, not eliminated.” That priority “comes before any strategy,’’ Francis said, before leading those in the square in a moment of silent prayer. Meanwhile, Australia on Sunday passed new sanctions against Russia by banning exports of alumina and aluminum ores, including bauxite, and vowed to provide more weapons and humanitarian aid to Kiev. The ban on such exports is intended to hurt aluminum production in Russia, which depends on Australia for 20% of its alumina, according to Canberra. A joint statement from several ministries said that the move will limit Russia"s capacity to produce aluminum, which is a critical export for Russia. The government also said it will donate at least 70,000 tons of thermal coal to Ukraine to meet its energy needs. Australian coal producers have come into high demand from Ukraine and other countries such as Poland that have been reliant on Russian supplies. Zelenskyy, in another development, has ordered activities of 11 political parties with links to Russia to be suspended. The largest of them is the Opposition Platform for Life, which has 44 out of 450 seats in the country’s parliament. The party is led by Viktor Medvedchuk, who has friendly ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter. Also on the list is the Nashi (Ours) party led by Yevheniy Murayev. Before the Russian invasion. the British authorities had warned that Russia wanted to install Murayev as the leader of Ukraine. Speaking in a video address early Sunday, Zelenskyy said that “given a large-scale war unleashed by the Russian Federation and links between it and some political structures, the activities of a number of political parties is suspended for the period of the martial law.” He added that “activities by politicians aimed at discord and collaboration will not succeed.” Zelenskyy’s announcement follows the introduction of the martial law that envisages a ban on parties associated with Russia. Also, the latest military intelligence assessment from the UK"s Ministry of Defense links Russia"s "indiscriminate shelling of urban areas" to the "limited progress" it has made in capturing Ukrainian cities. It forecasts further "heavy firepower" targeting urban areas and causing more civilian casualties as Russia looks to "limit its own already considerable casualties". The Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, one of the largest in Europe, was heavily damaged by shelling, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday. "The economic losses for Ukraine are huge. The environment is devastated," said Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko. She posted a video on her Twitter account showing thick columns of smoke rising of an industrial complex. Euronews cannot verify its content. Another politician, Serhiy Taruta, wrote on his Facebook page that Russian forces besieging Mariupol "virtually destroyed the factory". Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday that the Russian military bombed an art school where about 400 people had taken refuge in Mariupol. Local authorities said the school’s building was destroyed and people could remain under the rubble. The attack has not been confirmed and there was no immediate word on casualties. "Yesterday (Saturday), the Russian occupiers dropped bombs on the G12 art school located on the left bank of Mariupol, where 400 Mariupol residents -- women, children and the elderly — had refugees", said the local authority of this port city besieged by the forces of Moscow. "We know that the building was destroyed and that peaceful people are still under the rubble. The death toll is being clarified," it added in a statement posted on Telegram. Elsewhere in Mariupol, a group of 19 children, most of them orphans, were said to be "in great danger", stranded in a sanatorium, their guardians having been unable to recover them because of the fighting, their relatives and witnesses told AFP on Saturday. Last Wednesday Russian forces bombed a theater in the city where civilians were sheltering. City authorities said 130 people were rescued but many more could remain under the debris. Capturing Mariupol — a city of 450,000 before the war — would be a strategic coup for Russia. The relentless bombardment by Putin"s forces has left hundreds of thousands of people trapped in appalling conditions. Amid a shortage of water, gas and electricity, people have spent nights spent in cellars with sub-zero temperatures. Bodies have been left lying in the streets for several days. The city council in Mariupol has claimed that Russian soldiers forcibly relocated several thousand city residents, mostly women and children, to Russia. The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kirilenko, also accused Moscow on Sunday of having "forcibly deported more than 1,000 inhabitants of Mariupol" living in the east of the city to Russia, without specifying when the alleged relocations took place. Kirilenko said Russian forces have set up "filtration camps" where they "check the telephones" of Mariupol inhabitants before "confiscating their identity documents". "Then they are sent to Russia," he said on Facebook, adding that "their fate on the other side (of the border) is unknown". The claims by both the governor and Mariupol council have not been verified. Russian news agencies have said buses have carried several hundred people Moscow calls refugees, from the southeastern port to Russia in recent days. The vast majority of people trying to flee the fighting have looked to move west to more peaceful parts of Ukraine, or abroad. In Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, rescuers on Saturday searched the rubble of a marine barracks that was destroyed in an apparent missile attack a day earlier. It isn’t clear how many marines were inside at the time. Around Kiev, the northwestern suburbs of Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin and Moshchun were under fire Saturday, according to the Kyiv regional administration. It said Slavutich, 165 kilometers north of the capital, was “completely isolated.” More than 6,000 people were able to evacuate along eight of 10 humanitarian corridors Saturday, said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. That figure included 4,128 people from Mariupol, who were taken to the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia. In Zaporizhzhia, a 38-hour curfew is in effect until 6 am Monday, after two missile strikes on the city"s suburbs killed nine people. Local authorities say they continue to evacuate people from areas occupied by Russian troops. — Euronews