Ukraine Russia

More than 260 Ukrainian fighters, including some who are badly wounded, have been evacuated from a steel plant in the ruined city of Mariupol.

"The work continues to bring the guys home, and it requires delicacy and time." McDonald's exit from Russia is a bitter end to an era that once promised hope. On Monday, Putin initially said the expansion of NATO "is a problem," but later stated that there was no threat to Russia if Sweden and Finland joined. Remarking on the evacuation of Ukrainian soldiers in the plant, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last night that "Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive. He said the "heavily wounded" were getting medical help. It added that severe malnutrition in children could go to "catastrophic levels." It's uncertain whether the evacuation has been completed and if not, how many Ukrainian soldiers could still be in the plant. It's our principle," he said. "And they fulfilled all their tasks. But it is impossible to unblock Azovstal by military means." Any decision on enlargement requires the approval of all current members. An exchange would be worked out for their return home, she said.

Twenty civilians were killed in Russian shelling in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, according to Ukraine's Joint Forces Task Force. A village in Russia's ...

- Regional police in the Bucha region north of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, said the bodies of three more civilians were found near a village. - Explosions rocked the western city of Lviv and a Russian attack hit a military base close to Poland’s border, Ukrainian officials said. Ukraine has accused Russian forces of killing hundreds of civilians as they retreated from the area more than two months ago. - A village in Russia’s western province of Kursk bordering Ukraine came under Ukrainian fire, regional governor Roman Starovoit said. - Germany is open to the idea of seizing Russian state assets to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine, Finance Minister Christian Lindner said. - A Russian missile attack struck “civilian targets” in the city of Okhtyrka, wounding at least five people, the governor of the Sumy region said.

Ukraine says its troops have repelled Russian forces and advanced as far as the border with Russia. Ukraine's military aims to evacuate its remaining soldiers ...

"We hope that we will be able to save the lives of our guys," - Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an early morning address. * Russia and Ukraine are not holding talks "in any form", Interfax news agency cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko as saying. Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive."

Russia was expected to dominate the skies over Ukraine. But Ukrainians are still shooting down helicopters and planes, making Russian pilots very wary about ...

Now life is returning to normal in many ways — shops are open, people are on the street, traffic jams are becoming commonplace. If Russia controlled the skies, its planes could hang out, loiter over the combat zone and target Ukrainian troops whenever they spot them. "They're staying over the Black Sea, or they're staying in Russia and firing guided missiles. But perhaps Ukraine's most under-appreciated weapon in this war is the S-300 surface-to-air missile system. Sometimes they briefly venture into the air over Ukraine to briefly fire their weapons — but there are many cases where they shoot from afar, without ever entering Ukraine. Is that the case? Ukraine has a relatively small number — and it's not saying how many. But Ukrainian troops are at their base, civilians are combing back into the ravaged town. "Those are incredibly important to Ukraine," said Obrien. "They don't threaten every Russian flight. The airport is a graveyard of burned out buildings and charred vehicles stacked on top of each other. This episode set the tone for Russian air operations that have fallen far short of expectations. To answer that question, I took a short drive outside Kyiv today.

More than 250 Ukrainian fighters surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol and Kyiv said it had ordered its entire garrison to ...

read more * Eight people were killed and 12 wounded in a Russian air strike on the village of Desna in the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv, the regional emergency service said. read more

Ukrainian troops counter-attacking against Russian forces in the country's north-east reportedly push them back from the city of Kharkiv and advance as far ...

Reuters was unable to verify the reports. Russia also said it had agreed to evacuate wounded Ukrainian soldiers from the bunkers below the steelworks to a medical facility in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk. "An agreement has been reached on the removal of the wounded," the Moscow defence ministry said in a statement. "In order to save lives, the entire Mariupol garrison is implementing the approved decision of the Supreme Military Command and hopes for the support of the Ukrainian people," the Azov Regiment said in a social media post. Nonetheless, the Governor of the Luhansk region in Donbas, Serhiy Gaidai, said the situation "remains difficult", with Russian forces trying to capture the town of Sieverodonetsk. The Ukrainian unit holed up beneath the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol said on Monday its garrison was fulfilling orders to save the lives of troops, an apparent sign that the longest and bloodiest battle of the Ukraine war had come to an end. The most intense of the recent fighting appeared to be around the eastern Russian-held city of Izium, where Russia said it had struck Ukrainian positions with missiles. Ukraine's defence ministry said on Monday the 227th Battalion of the 127th Brigade of Ukraine's Territorial Defence Forces had reached the border with Russia. - The Governor of the Luhansk region said the situation "remains difficult", with Russian forces trying to capture the town of Sieverodonetsk "Thanks to this, we can go to the rear of the Russian group of forces." Russia said it had agreed to evacuate wounded Ukrainian soldiers to a medical facility in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk. Buses have been seen leaving the ruined plant. A senior US defence official confirmed reports on Monday that Russian forces had been pushed back from Kharkiv, saying Ukrainian defenders had pushed the troops to within 4 kilometres of the border.

After 82 days, Ukraine's military says the mission to defend the besieged Azovstal steel plant in the strategic southern port of Mariupol is over, ...

The wife of an Azov Regiment member described conditions at the plant earlier on Monday: "They are in hell. And time," he added. But the evacuation likely marked the end of the longest and bloodiest battle of the Ukraine war and a significant defeat for Ukraine. "We hope that we will be able to save the lives of our guys," Mr Zelenskyy said in a late-night address. "The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel." - The evacuation likely marks the end of the longest and bloodiest battle of the Ukraine war

Ukrainian forces have completed their "combat mission" in Mariupol, according to the country's military. It comes after hundreds of people were evacuated ...

No one will meet the Russian army with bread, salt and flowers in Ukraine." The situation for us will frankly get worse," he said. And the whole world is against us — even if we don’t want to admit it."

The online graphic design company says it is 'strongly opposed to the ongoing war in Ukraine' and has a responsibility 'to promote truth' to its users in ...

Following inquiries from Guardian Australia, Canva added an update to the blogpost on Tuesday stating that the company is “strongly opposed to the ongoing war in Ukraine and strongly condemn Russia’s continued and illegal acts of aggression”. He said that the company also included “prominent” banners in its product “highlighting the illegal war in Ukraine” – an approach that he said was likely to result in Canva being banned in Russia. While the post refers to an “unlawful and reckless act of aggression”, it does not use the word “invasion” and the word “war” appears only in a sample layout template that Obrecht said Canva was offering for free to “amplify the important call for peace while bringing additional awareness to the tragic situation continuing to unfold”.

More than 250 Ukrainian fighters have surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol after weeks...

In a statement on Monday, the Azov Regiment, the main Ukrainian unit that had held out in the steelworks, said it had achieved its objective over 82 days of resistance by making it possible to defend the rest of the country. The regiment, now part of Ukraine's territorial defence forces, originated as an ultra-nationalist militia, and Russia has portrayed defeating its fighters as central to its stated objective of "de-Nazifying" Ukraine. "The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel." "The 'Mariupol' garrison has fulfilled its combat mission," the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in a statement. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, saying it wanted to "denazify" the country, to the bewilderment of the international community. TASS news agency said a Russian committee planned to question the soldiers, many of them members of the Azov Battalion, as part of an investigation into what Russia calls "Ukrainian regime crimes".

From the battle for Snake Island to a spate of military general deaths and a devastating battalion loss crossing a river, Russia's mistakes on the ...

"This is a Russian warship. As well as having a huge impact on morale in the Russian military, the deaths of generals leave a power vacuum at the top. "We still assess the Russian ground force in the Donbas to be slow and uneven," a senior official told reporters on May 10. "Conducting river crossings in a contested environment is a highly risky manoeuvre," the UK Defence Ministry said of the incident. When Russia's invasion of Ukraine faltered in the first days, senior commanders were rushed to the front in a desperate bid to keep up momentum. On April 14, Ukrainian officials claimed a hefty scalp: the Moskva, the very same Russian missile cruiser that had approached the island on the first day of the war. I suggest you lay down your weapons and surrender to avoid bloodshed and needless casualties. In the meantime, Snake Island itself has become not just a symbol of resistance but of Russia's paper tiger of a military. But days later, several of the Ukrainians were spotted on Russian TV, held captive by Russian forces in Sevastopol. Thanks to a handful of miscalculations, analysts say Russian forces have largely abandoned their original objective of a large-scale occupation in favour of cementing their hold on the eastern Donbas region. Perhaps the earliest embarrassment for the Russian forces came on the very first day of fighting, in what would go on to become a parable of Ukrainian resistance. And while Russia's budget and troop numbers pale in comparison to major Western powers like the US, it still dwarfed Ukraine's capability at the beginning of the war.

The resistance of Ukraine's fighters in Mariupol also helped bog down Russian forces and resources, preventing them from achieving their war aims elsewhere. “ ...

As Clark said, Russia “built up Mariupol as this central location of the ‘fascism’ in the Ukrainian military that they say they are targeting.” But, as Seskuria said, that declaration of victory “doesn’t have that meaning that they were looking for at the beginning because it took them almost three months to take Mariupol.” But, again, it required Russian troops to pour manpower and resources into a fight that a few thousand soldiers in the tunnels of a steel plant withstood for weeks. The status of the potential tens of thousands left in the city is unclear. Mariupol also has resonance with Putin’s claims that he launched a “special military operation” in order to “de-Nazify” Ukraine and protect Russian speakers. (It also helped the Ukrainian government retake Mariupol in 2014.) The group has, under pressure from the Ukrainian government, distanced itself from those extremist ties, but it still operates as a fairly independent group with occasional ongoing bigoted activities. Besides the thousands who fled, Ukraine has alleged that Russia has forcibly transferred thousands of civilians to Russian territory. Putin had declared Mariupol “liberated” last month, and as experts said then, besides the holdouts in the steel plant, the city was largely already under Russian control. Mariupol’s ability to hold on despite the onslaught also helped Ukraine in its pleas for foreign aid and military assistance, which the West is now delivering on in substantial ways. “On the Ukrainian side, you have these tales of heroism and self-sacrifice,” Oliker added. The city has been under Russian siege for the length of the entire war. But the resistance of Ukraine’s fighters in Mariupol helped bog down Russian forces and resources, preventing them from achieving their war aims elsewhere.

A roundup of key developments and the latest in-depth coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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The departure of Ukrainian fighters from the Azovstal plant is the beginning of the end of a nearly three-month siege that turned Mariupol into a worldwide ...

"Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes to be alive. Hundreds were reported killed there. More than 260 fighters — some of them seriously wounded and taken out on stretchers — left the ruins of the Azovstal plant on Monday and turned themselves over to the Russian side in a deal reached by the two warring nations.

Russia accused Ukraine of hardening its stance and the West for bolstering the government in Kyiv, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying Washington, London ...

But there has been little communication between the two nations in recent weeks. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak confirmed that talks were “on hold” as Russia was unwilling to accept that it “will not achieve any goals” and the war was no longer going according to the Kremlin’s rules. “We always say that we are ready for negotiations … but we were given no other choice,” Mr Lavrov said.

The International Criminal Court sends more investigators to Ukraine in an effort to "show the law in action", as it investigates allegations of war crimes ...

It also maintains close political and military ties with Moscow. Thousands have been killed and millions displaced by the war. All these years we insisted on negotiations — we have been ignored," Mr Lavrov said. Serbia's Prime Minister alleged on Tuesday that nearly 100 bomb threats that have prompted mass evacuations of schools and public venues were part of pressure from abroad over Belgrade's refusal to sanction Russia over the war in Ukraine. The US State Department on Tuesday announced the launch of a new program to capture and analyse evidence of war crimes and other atrocities allegedly perpetrated by Russia in Ukraine, as Washington sought to ensure Moscow was held accountable for its actions. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak confirmed to Ukrainian media that talks were "on hold" as Russia was not willing to accept that it would "not achieve any goals" and that the war was no longer going according to the Kremlin's rules.

Russia says 265 Ukrainian fighters, who had for months been defending Mariupol's last stronghold, have surrendered.

“It is not for us to define the objectives that our Ukrainian partners seek to achieve,” Price told reporters. The post did not provide further details of the alleged attacks. The fall of Mariupol appears at hand as Ukraine is moving to abandon the Azovstal steel plant where its soldiers had held out for months. “The IOC should ban the Russian team now. “It is the task of the Ukrainian government, which is in turn expressing the will of the Ukrainian people.” “My biggest concern is that I don’t think this represents a nationalist foreign policy. I’m a nohttps://t.co/qHno86Qllj The $40 billion Ukraine bill represents a return to nation building. So they are trying to show success through their missiles and other activities,” Zelenskyy added. “This terrible conflict in Ukraine has underlined what can be achieved through a cohesive global approach. “Actions speak louder than words. He said the strikes were Russia’s attempt to “compensate” for failures in the east and south of the country.

The world knows an unjust war when it sees one. That is why Russian President Vladimir Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has attracted such widespread ...

The responsibility for convincing Putin to make these concessions, in exchange for appropriate strategic arrangements, falls primarily on the US. After all, in Putin’s view, Russia is currently fighting the US and NATO—not just Ukraine. US President Joe Biden recognises the dangers of a cornered Putin, so he should offer a face-saving exit strategy. Beyond ending its bid to join NATO and maintaining an Austria-like neutrality—concessions to which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has all but agreed—a settlement on the ethnic Russian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, whose ‘ independence’ Putin recognised days before the invasion, will be needed. But that day has come and gone, and the war remains a ‘special military operation’ in Russia. Putin, it seems, did not want to risk stirring popular opposition. But the chances that this would produce a liberal democratic Russia that abandons Putin’s grand strategic designs are slim. Lest we forget, Russia possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, and Putin has both the unconstrained authority to use it and an inability to accept defeat. If Putin feels backed into a corner, he may well view deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as the minimum requirement to save face. Of course, the West is providing vast—and growing—military aid to Ukraine, which could tip the scales to some extent, especially given Russia’s international isolation. But, in the current war, a military deadlock would hurt Ukraine far more than it would hurt Russia, even if Putin refrains from using chemical or tactical nuclear weapons. But negotiating a peace settlement—the key to ending most wars—will require attention not only to justice, but also to stability and balance between competing national interests and ambitions. That means ensuring Russia’s unconditional defeat, the restitution of Ukraine’s full territorial integrity and possibly even reparations from Russia to help fund Ukraine’s reconstruction. But the era of glorious wars, overwhelming victories, and clear-cut defeats is over. Others believe that Russia will suffer a decisive defeat on the battlefield.

More than 250 Ukrainian fighters have surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol after weeks...

In a statement on Monday, the Azov Regiment, the main Ukrainian unit that had held out in the steelworks, said it had achieved its objective over 82 days of resistance by making it possible to defend the rest of the country. The regiment, now part of Ukraine's territorial defence forces, originated as an ultra-nationalist militia, and Russia has portrayed defeating its fighters as central to its stated objective of "de-Nazifying" Ukraine. "The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel." "The 'Mariupol' garrison has fulfilled its combat mission," the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in a statement. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, saying it wanted to "denazify" the country, to the bewilderment of the international community. TASS news agency said a Russian committee planned to question the soldiers, many of them members of the Azov Battalion, as part of an investigation into what Russia calls "Ukrainian regime crimes".

Russia and Ukraine trade blame for stalled peace talks; Finland and Sweden to submit Nato bids on Wednesday.

Finland’s parliament overwhelmingly approved a government proposal to join Nato, a day after Sweden confirmed its intention to join the alliance. Speaking at a meeting with domestic oil managers and government officials, Putinsaid it was impossible for some European countries to quickly ditch Russian oil. Eight people have died and 12 were wounded after Russia launched a missile strike on the village of Desna in the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, promised his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, that French arms deliveries to Kyiv would intensify in the coming days, the Élysée said. The fate of more than 260 Ukrainian soldiers who have ended weeks of resistance at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol remains unclear, after the fighters surrendered and were transferred to Russian-controlled territory. “We always say that we are ready for negotiations ... but we were given no other choice,” Lavrov said.

Peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have stagnated, officials say, with both sides trading blame and Moscow indicating...

"Russia does not demonstrate a key understanding of today's processes in the world," Podolyak said, according to Ukrainian media. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak confirmed that talks were "on hold" as Russia was not willing to accept that it "will not achieve any goals" and the war was no longer going according to the Kremlin's rules. Russia accused Ukraine of hardening its stance and the West for bolstering the government in Kyiv, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying Washington, London and Brussels want to use Ukraine to their strategic advantage.