Vladimir Putin Russia Ukraine war

Fighting for the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk rages with Russian forces conducting assault operations. Invading forces appear close to seizing ...

- A ship entered the Ukrainian port of Mariupol for the first time since Russia completed its capture of the city to load metal and ship it east to Russia. - Putin told Macron and Scholz that Moscow was willing to discuss ways to make it possible for Ukraine to resumeshipments of grain, the Kremlin said. - Invading forces appear close to seizing all of the Luhansk region, one of the more modest war goals of the Kremlin.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Lyman, the second small city to fall this week, had been “completely liberated” by a joint force of Russian soldiers and ...

Meanwhile, some 50 homes in the village of Demydiv remain partially submerged months after a dam was destroyed and the area flooded to stop Russian troops from advancing on Ukraine capital Kyiv, regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba said. The Ukrainian military blew up a dam on the river Irpin in February, sending water surging into the village and thousands of acres around it, flooding houses and fields, but preventing Russian tanks from reaching the capital city. The Russian Defense Ministry said Lyman, the second small city to fall this week, had been “completely liberated” by a joint force of Russian soldiers and Kremlin-backed separatists, who have waged war for eight years in the industrial Donbas region bordering Russia. Ukraine’s train system has ferried arms and evacuated citizens through Lyman, a key railway hub in the east.

The outcome of Russia's attacks on the Donetsk and Luhansk areas will determine the fate of the rest of Ukraine.

Since the Russians withdrew at the beginning of April, there has been no artillery threat, and no repeat of the booms from the suburbs that characterised the first weeks of the war. The occasional air raid siren and men with guns on the streets are reminders of the war, but cafe terraces are busy, the opera has reopened and the curfew has been pushed back to 11pm. Last Thursday, areas within the city limits were shelled for the first time in two weeks and nine civilians died, according to local authorities. Now, there is talk of rapid annexation of the parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces that Russia took in the first days of the invasion. Ukraine will not accept the loss of these areas, but if it launches a counterattack, Russia could claim Ukraine was attacking Russian territory. Last week, the focus was on the city of Sievierodonetsk, where local governor Serhiy Haidai said Russia had committed 10,000 soldiers and an extra 2,500 pieces of equipment to attacking the city.

As the battle for the Donbas region heats up, Russian forces are trying to surround Ukrainian troops in Lysychansk and Severodonetsk.

Biden's comments Monday leave open the possibility that the US could send the advanced, long-range rocket systems without the longest-range rockets. More background: The rocket systems the Biden administration is preparing to send to Ukraine are capable of firing different kinds of ammunition that reach a range of distances. CNN reported last week the Biden administration is preparing to step up the kind of weaponry it is offering Ukraine by sending advanced, long-range rocket systems that are now the top request from Ukrainian officials.

Russian forces continue to pound Ukrainian positions in the country's Donbas, which Moscow has described as an "unconditional priority."

Eurovision is an international song contest that's been held annually since 1956, where countries from Europe put forward bands and songs to compete for the most votes from the public and a panel of judges. Hungary has been the main roadblock in enacting a Russian oil ban and is set to get an exemption along with a few other landlocked states that receive their oil via pipeline. Russian forces are surrounding Severodonetsk, a city in the Luhansk Oblast which many fear could be the next Mariupol. It had a pre-war population of some 100,000 people, now reduced to roughly 10,000, authorities have said. All the wounded received home care and are already in hospitals in Donetsk region." According to the governor, the damaged section is part of a branch that has not been used since 2014. The auction was held on Facebook and hosted by Ukrainian TV presenter Serhiy Prytula. As a whole, the bloc imports just over one-third of its oil from Russia. The towns around the capital were heavily damaged following weeks of brutal war as Russia made its failed bid to take Kyiv. This tragic event reminds us of the dangers faced by all journalists who have been reporting this conflict at the risk of their lives for more than three months now. The towns around the capital were heavily damaged following weeks of brutal war as Russia made its failed bid to take Kyiv. "And some of them are located not in Kyiv at all," Medvedev wrote. "This was my first interview with the French media during a full-scale war."

A draft of the agreement allows pipeline imports, in a nod to Hungary's complaints. Even still, it would be the toughest action yet over Russia's invasion ...

It also suggested that Russian forces were making progress in their effort to encircle and ultimately take the city. “I don’t know what location he was evacuated to, I don’t know what state of health he was in when he left,” she said at a news conference in Kyiv, the capital. Russia’s Investigative Committee, the equivalent of the F.B.I., also issued a statement saying that it would look into the explosion, which it blamed on “Ukrainian saboteurs” and said had gone off while humanitarian aid was being distributed. “And you are supporting it with the money you are paying for the oil and gas. “He grew up to a be a defender of the whole country,” she continued. Officials said that the vague approach, known in Brussels as “constructive ambiguity,” was deliberate, because E.U. firms were nowhere near ready to cut off Russian gas supply on which they heavily rely to fuel European households and industries. After weeks of shelling, Russian forces have fought their way into “the northeastern and southeastern outskirts” of Sievierodonetsk, the Ukrainian defense ministry said in a statement, adding that Russia had funneled still more war matériel from Russia into the Donbas. Members of the 95th Air Assault infantry have been sleeping in a farm building at night and hiding from Russian drones during the day. In the Saltivka neighborhood of Kharkiv, one family’s car rested on its front against a house after a shell exploded next to it. Battalions that the Russians are cobbling together “from survivors of multiple units are likely to be less effective.” A draft of the agreement allows pipeline imports, in a nod to Hungary’s complaints. In NATO, which also operates by consensus, Turkey has blocked the admission of Finland and Sweden, which have been sufficiently alarmed by Russia’s war on Ukraine to abandon their long-held neutrality.