A child emerges from the Azovstal steel plant during UN-led evacuations, after nearly two months of siege warfare on the city by Russia during its invasion, in Mariupol, Ukraine in this still image from handout video released May 1, 2022. (David Arakhamia/Azov Regiment/Handout via Reuters) Hungary and Sweden announced that they are moving their embassy in Ukraine back to Kyiv as the security situation in the capital keeps improving. Meanwhile, a video posted online Sunday by Ukrainian forces showed elderly women and mothers with small children climbing over a steep pile of rubble from the sprawling Azovstal steel plant and eventually boarding a bus in Mariupol. The evacuation, if successful, would represent rare progress in easing the human cost of the almost 10-week war, which has caused particular suffering in Mariupol.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Berlin, Germany on the first leg of his visit to three European nations on Monday. He will then head to Denmark on Tuesday and make a brief stopover in Paris for a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday.
In other news, European Union ministers are meeting in Brussels to discuss their response to Russia’s decision last week to cut gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland. It came after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that “unfriendly” countries must start paying for gas in rubles, Russia’s currency.
Israel lambasted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday for claiming that Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins, saying it was an "unforgivable" falsehood that debased the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust.
In a signal of sharply deteriorating relations with Moscow, the Israeli foreign ministry summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an apology.
"Such lies are intended to accuse the Jews themselves of the most horrific crimes in history that were committed against them," Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement. "The use of the Holocaust of the Jewish people for political purposes must stop immediately," he added. (Read more)
A rocket strike hit the Black Sea port city of Odesa in southwestern Ukraine on Monday evening, causing deaths and injuries, the local governor, Maksym Marchenko, said on the Telegram messaging app.
No further details were immediately available. Separately, Ukraine's public broadcaster Suspilne quoted the southern military command as saying that the strike had damaged a religious building. (Reuters)
Sweden will on Wednesday re-open its embassy in Kyiv after it closed temporarily following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Swedish foreign minister said on Twitter on Monday.
"Sweden will continue to #StandWithUkraine, and is delighted that @SwedeninUA 's diplomatic presence will be back where it belongs," Foreign Minister Ann Linde wrote on the social media platform. (Reuters)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in a joint press conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, criticised the Ukraine war and appealed Russian leader Vladimir Putin to 'end this senseless killing' and withdraw troops from Ukraine.
'Through its attack on Ukraine, Russia has violated fundamental principles of international law. The war & the brutal attacks against civilian population in Ukraine show how unrestrained Russia has been in violating the fundamental principles of the UN Charter,' he said. Follow live updates here.
Hungary has moved its embassy in Ukraine back to Kyiv from Lviv as the security situation in the capital keeps improving, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday.
In a Facebook video, Szijjarto said the move was finished over the weekend and the embassy in Kyiv was already operating. (Reuters)
Teams of workers strove Monday to repair a bridge in southwestern Russia near the border with Ukraine that was damaged in what a local governor described as an act of sabotage.
The regional administration said it expects the repair work will be completed Wednesday.
Kursk regional Gov. Roman Starovoit said Sunday that the bridge was blown up by unidentified attackers and the Investigative Committee, Russia's top state investigative agency, has launched a criminal probe into what it described as a "terrorist act." (AP)
Finnish-led consortium Fennovoima said on Monday it had terminated a contract for Russia's state-owned Rosatom to build a nuclear power plant in Finland, citing delays and increased risks due to the war in Ukraine.
The announcement ended months of uncertainty over the planned plant in Finland's cape of Hanhikivi, a project which has been dogged by hold-ups and political wrangling.
Fennovoima said it had terminated the contract due to RAOS Project's "significant delays and inability to deliver the project," referring to Rosatom's Finnish subsidiary. "The war in Ukraine has worsened the risks for the project. RAOS has been unable to mitigate any of the risks," it added, without going into further detail. (Reuters)
The Ukrainian military says that Russia has redeployed some of its forces from the port of Mariupol to join its offensive in the east. The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces on Monday said several Russian battalions had been sent from Mariupol to the town of Popasna in the eastern Luhansk region.
Popasna has been one of the epicentres of fighting in the east as the Russian military has sought to break through the Ukrainian defences there in a bid to encircle Ukrainian forces in the east.
The Ukrainian General Staff also said that the Russians were also trying to press their attacks from Izyum to the towns of Slovyansk and Barvinkove. (AP)
A Russian rocket strike hit a strategically important bridge across the Dniester estuary in the Odesa region of southwest Ukraine on Monday, local authorities said.
The bridge, which has already been hit twice by Russian forces, provides the only road and rail link on Ukrainian territory to a large southern section of the Odesa region. Serhiy Bratchuk, the Odesa regional administration's spokesman, reported the strike on the Telegram messaging app but gave no further details. (Reuters)
An explosive device damaged a railway bridge Sunday in the Kursk region of Russia, which borders Ukraine, and a criminal investigation has been started. The region's government reported the blast in a post on Telegram.
The explosion Sunday caused a partial collapse of the bridge near the village of Konopelka, on the Sudzha-Sosnovy Bor railway, the report from Kursk said.
'It was a sabotage, a criminal case has been opened,' said the region's governor, Roman Starovoit, according to TASS. He said there were no casualties, and no effect on the movement of trains. (AP)
India has witnessed a flurry of diplomatic activity during the past week with a long line of ministers, senior military officers and diplomats from a number of countries visiting Delhi and engaging with their Indian counterparts. The annual Raisina Dialogue provided the ostensible reason for these visits, but public interactions were no doubt accompanied by more private and candid conversations.
The European presence was prominent. China and Russia were absent from among official delegates, which is a pity. The senior-most official and inaugural speaker was Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. (Read more)
India has witnessed a flurry of diplomatic activity during the past week with a long line of ministers, senior military officers and diplomats from a number of countries visiting Delhi and engaging with their Indian counterparts. The annual Raisina Dialogue provided the ostensible reason for these visits, but public interactions were no doubt accompanied by more private and candid conversations.
The European presence was prominent. China and Russia were absent from among official delegates, which is a pity. The senior-most official and inaugural speaker was Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. (Read more)
Ukrainian civilians holed up inside a steel plant in Mariupol under siege by Russian forces nearly two months began evacuating over the weekend and people sheltering elsewhere in the city were to leave Monday, local officials said.
Video posted online Sunday by Ukrainian forces showed elderly women and mothers with small children climbing over a steep pile of rubble from the sprawling Azovstal steel plant and eventually boarding a bus.
More than 100 civilians were expected to arrive in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. "Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vitally needed (humanitarian) corridor has started working," Zelenskyy said in a pre-recorded address published on his Telegram messaging channel.
Ukrainian civilians holed up inside a steel plant in Mariupol under siege by Russian forces nearly two months began evacuating over the weekend and people sheltering elsewhere in the city were to leave Monday, local officials said.
Video posted online Sunday by Ukrainian forces showed elderly women and mothers with small children climbing over a steep pile of rubble from the sprawling Azovstal steel plant and eventually boarding a bus.
More than 100 civilians were expected to arrive in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. "Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vitally needed (humanitarian) corridor has started working," Zelenskyy said in a pre-recorded address published on his Telegram messaging channel.
On social media, the 'Ghost of Kyiv' was a military hero, an ace fighter pilot hailed for supposedly shooting down multiple Russian planes. The tales began just days into the war and circulated for months, bolstered by official Ukrainian accounts.
But on Saturday, Ukrainian authorities admitted that the legendary pilot was a myth. "The Ghost of Kyiv is a super-hero legend whose character was created by Ukrainians!" Ukraine's air force said in Ukrainian on Facebook.
The statement came after multiple media outlets published stories wrongly identifying Major Stepan Tarabalka as the man behind the moniker. Tarabalka was a real pilot who died on March 13 during air combat and was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine, Ukraine's air force said last month. But he was not the Ghost of Kyiv, the force said in Saturday's statement.
"The information about the death of the The Ghost of #Kyiv is incorrect," Ukraine's air force wrote in a separate post Saturday on Twitter. "The #GhostOfKyiv is alive, it embodies the collective spirit of the highly qualified pilots of the Tactical Aviation Brigade who are successfully defending #Kyiv and the region." (AP)
Ukraine's president is describing his hourslong weekend meeting with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Kyiv as a powerful signal of support in a difficult time.
In a televised address on Sunday evening, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his meeting with Pelosi included discussions of defense supplies to Ukraine, financial support and sanctions against Russia.
Pelosi and a half dozen U.S. lawmakers met with Zelenskyy and his top aides for about three hours late Saturday to voice American solidarity with the besieged nation and get a first-hand assessment as she works to steer a massive new Ukraine aid package through Congress.
Zelenskyy says Ukrainians "are grateful to all partners who send such important and powerful signals of support by visiting our capital at such a difficult time". (AP)
Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic criticised Wimbledon's decision to exclude players from Russia and Belarus from taking part in this year's tournament following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The two tennis greats said that Wimbledon had acted unfairly. "I think it's very unfair of (on) my Russian tennis mates, my colleagues ... it's not their fault what's happening in this moment with the war," Nadal, a 21-time Grand Slam winner, said in Spain where both he and Djokovic are preparing to play in the Madrid Open.
"I'm sorry for them," Nadal said. "Wimbledon just took their decision ... the government didn't force them to do it."
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba on Sunday has tried to increase pressure on the European Union, by insisting for the next round of sanctions against Russia including an oil embargo.
Kuleba in a tweet said, "I spoke with Josep Borrell Fontelles on the next round of EU sanctions on Russia which must include an oil embargo. I also emphasized there can be no alternative to granting Ukraine EU candidate status. We paid separate attention to further safe evacuation from besieged Mariupol."
Later on, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Fontelles, in a tweet said, held a "Call with Dmytro Kuleba to discuss continued EU support to Ukraine. Work is ongoing on the next package of sanctions. EU-Ukraine Association Council will be a key moment to advance even further our partnership
He also said that the situation in Mariupol is appalling and humanitarian evacuations is urgent.
US Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on Sunday he will add provisions to the $33 billion Ukraine aid package that will allow the United States to seize Russian oligarchs' assets and send money derived from them to Ukraine.
"Ukraine needs all the help it can get and, at the same time, we need all the assets we can put together to give Ukraine the aid it needs," Schumer said. (Reuters)
A plan to evacuate civilians from areas of the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol outside of the Azovstal steel works has been postponed to 0500 GMT on Monday, Mariupol's city council said. (Reuters)
The European Union is leaning toward a ban on imports of Russian oil by the end of the year, two EU diplomats said, after talks between the European Commission and EU member states this weekend.
The European Union is preparing a sixth package of sanctions against Russia in response to the invasion just over two months ago of Ukraine that Moscow calls a special military operation. The package is expected to target Russian oil, Russian and Belarusian banks, as well as more individuals and companies.
The Commission, which is coordinating the EU response, held talks dubbed "confessionals" with small groups of EU countries and will aim to firm up its sanctions plan in time for a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday. EU energy ministers are also due to meet in the Belgian capital on Monday to discuss the issue.
The EU diplomats said some EU countries were able to end their use of oil before the end of 2022, but others, particularly more southerly members, were concerned about the impact on prices. (Reuters)
The United Nations is conducting a "safe passage operation" for civilians from the Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Sunday.
The operation began on April 29 and is being coordinated with the International Committee of the Red Cross, Russia and Ukraine, the spokesperson, Saviano Abreu, told Reuters. He said the operation arrived at the steel works on Saturday morning. He added that no further details could be released so as not to jeopardise the safety of evacuees and the convoy. (Reuters)
A Russian defence ministry facility in the southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine has caught fire, Belgorod region governor said on Sunday. There was no immediate information about damage or casualties, the governor said in a post on Telegram. Images posted to social media showed a large funnel of smoke rising above the ground. (Reuters)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has brushed aside criticism that his government is not doing enough to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia's invasion.
Even though Germany reversed its policy of not sending weapons to countries at war, Scholz has been accused at home and abroad of being hesitant and slow in coming to Ukraine's aid. In an interview published on Sunday by newspaper Bild, the Social Democratic leader defended his government's approach.
“I make my decisions quickly - and in coordination with our partners,” Scholz was quoted as saying. “I am suspicious of acting too hastily and Germany going it alone.” Germany broke with tradition after Russia's invasion on February 24 to supply anti-tank weapons, surface-to-air missiles and other military equipment to Ukraine. (AP)
A group of 40 civilians was evacuated on Sunday from Mariupol's Azovstal steel works in a convoy with vehicles bearing United Nations symbols, signalling a deal had been struck to ease the ordeal of the most destructive siege in the Ukraine conflict.
In one of the first major signs of an evacuation deal, a group of around 40 civilians arrived on Sunday at a temporary accommodation centre after leaving the area around the Azovstal plant, a Reuters photographer said.
Reuters photographs showed the civilians arriving in the village of Bezimenne in the Donetsk Region, around 30 km east of Mariupol, with Ukrainian number plates in a convoy with Russian forces and vehicles with United Nations symbols. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Thursday that intense discussions were under way to enable the evacuation of Azovstal. (Reuters)
A US congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the courage of the Ukrainian people in remarks during a visit to Poland on Sunday, a day after a surprise trip to Kyiv to meet with President Volodymr Zelenskyy.
The American legislators assessed Ukraine's needs for the next phase of the war, with Pelosi vowing that Washington would stand with the country until it defeats Russia.
Pelosi, a California Democrat who is second in line to the presidency after the vice president, was the most senior American lawmaker to visit Ukraine since Russia's war began more than two months ago.
Her previously unannounced visit came just days after Moscow bombed the Ukrainian capital while the U.N. secretary-general was there. Pelosi and a half-dozen U.S. lawmakers met for three hours late Saturday with Zelenskyy and his top aides to get a first-hand assessment of the war effort to date. (AP)
Pope Francis on Sunday described the war in Ukraine a 'macabre regression of humanity' that makes him 'suffer and cry', calling for humanitarian corridors to evacuate people trapped in the Mariupol steelworks. Speaking to thousands of people in St. Peter's Square for his noon blessing, Francis again implicitly criticised Russia, saying that Mariupol had been 'barbarously bombarded and destroyed'. (Reuters)
An evacuation of civilians from Ukraine's mostly Russian-controlled southeastern port city of Mariupol could be possible on Sunday, local officials said.
Mariupol's city council and the local governor told residents who wished to leave for the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia to gather at an evacuation point in Mariupol at 4 p.m. local time (1300 GMT). (Reuters)
Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida discussed the war in Ukraine with Vietnamese leaders on Sunday and said they agreed on the respect for international law and rejection of the use of force.
Japan has condemned Russia's invasion and joined Western nations in imposing sanctions against Moscow. Vietnam, like most other Southeast Asian nations, has avoided directly criticising Russia and has called for restraint, the respect of the UN charter and dialogue to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict. Vietnam abstained from a vote at the UN General Assembly in March that deplored Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Vietnam is one of Moscow's historic allies and Vietnam's military has been equipped mostly with Russian weapons. It has also strong ties with Ukraine, where about 10,000 Vietnamese live, work and study. In recent years, Vietnam has forged closer ties with the United States in opposing China's vast territorial claims in the South China Sea. (AP)
Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday it had struck at weapons supplied to Ukraine by the United States and European countries and destroyed a runway at a military airfield near the Ukrainian city of Odesa. The ministry said it used high-precision Onyx missiles to strike the airfield, after Ukraine accused Russia of knocking out a newly-constructed runway at the main airport of Odesa.
Odesa regional governor Maksym Marchenko said Russia had used a Bastion missile, launched from Crimea. Reuters could not immediately verify the reports. Russia's defence ministry also said its air defence systems had shot down two Ukrainian Su-24m bombers over the Kharkiv region overnight. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden praised journalists covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine as he resumed a Washington tradition of speaking at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday night.
Biden thanked journalists for their courage in covering Ukraine and beyond, before making a plea for national unity. "A poison is running through our democracy... with disinformation massively on the rise," Biden said. "You, the free press, matter more than you ever did in the last century. I really mean it." (Reuters)
US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has met with Ukraine's president.
Footage released early Sunday by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office showed Pelosi in Kyiv with a Congressional delegation. Those with Pelosi included Reps. Jason Crow, Jim McGovern and Adam Schiff.
Pelosi later said, "We believe that we are visiting you to say thank you for your fight for freedom. We are on a frontier of freedom and your fight is a fight for everyone. Our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done."
Some women and children were evacuated from a steel plant that is the last defensive stronghold in the bombed-out ruins of the port city of Mariupol, a Ukrainian official and Russian state news organizations said, but hundreds are believed to remain trapped with little food or water.
The United Nations was working to broker an evacuation of the up to 1,000 civilians living beneath the sprawling Soviet-era Azovstal plant after numerous previous attempts failed. Ukraine has not said how many fighters are also in the plant, the only part of Mariupol not occupied by Russian forces, but Russia put the number at about 2,000. An estimated 100,000 civilians remain in the city. (AP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy switched to Russian in his nightly video address to urge Russian soldiers not to fight in Ukraine, saying even their generals expected that thousands of them would die.
He said Russia has been recruiting new troops "with little motivation and little combat experience" for the units that were gutted during the early weeks of the war so these units can be thrown back into battle.
He said Russian commanders fully understand that thousands of them will die and thousands more will be wounded in the coming weeks. (AP)
Sweden has said that a Russian military plane violated its airspace. The incident happened late Friday in the Baltic Sea near the island of Bornholm.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the Swedish Armed Forces said a Russian AN-30 propeller plane flew toward Swedish airspace and briefly entered it before leaving the area.
The Swedish Air Force scrambled fighter jets which photographed the Russian plane. Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist told Swedish public radio that the violation was "unacceptable" and "unprofessional".
Hollywood actress and UN humanitarian Angelina Jolie made a surprise visit to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, the Lviv regional governor said on Telegram.
According to Maksym Kozytskyy, Jolie - who has been a UNHCR Special Envoy for Refugees since 2011 - had come to speak with displaced people who have found refuge in Lviv, including children undergoing treatment for injuries sustained in the missile strike on the Kramatorsk railway station in early April. "She was very moved by (the children's) stories," Kozytskyy wrote. "One girl was even able to privately tell Ms. Jolie about a dream she'd had."
He said Jolie also visited a boarding school, talk with students and took photos with them, adding "she promised she would come again". (AP)
Britain Prime Minister Boris Johnson discussed the progress of the UN effort to evacuate people from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol during a talk with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, an official statement said.
During the interaction, Johnson also offered the UK's "continued economic and humanitarian support" to Ukraine, it said. "The prime minister reiterated that he is more committed than ever to reinforcing Ukraine and ensuring (Russian President Vladimir) Putin fails, noting how hard the Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom,'' Johnson's Downing Street office said.
"He confirmed that the UK will continue to provide additional military aid to give the Ukrainians the equipment they needed to defend themselves," the statement said. (AP)
A Russian rocket attack destroyed an airport runway in Odesa, Ukraine's third-largest city and a key Black Sea port, the Ukrainian army said.
In a Telegram post, Ukraine's Operational Command South said there was no way that the Odesa runway could be used as a result of the rocket attack.
Local authorities urged residents of the area to shelter in place as Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, citing army sources, reported that 'several' explosions were heard in Odesa.
Odesa's regional governor said that the rocket was fired from Russian-occupied Crimea. (AP)
Prices for Russian credit default swaps - insurance contracts that protect an investor against a default - plunged sharply overnight after Moscow used its precious foreign currency reserves to make a last minute debt payment on Friday.
The cost for a five-year credit default swap on Russian debt was USD 5.84 million to protect USD 10 million in debt.
That price was nearly half the one on Thursday, which at roughly USD 11 million for USD 10 million in debt protection was a signal that investors were certain of a eventual Russian default. (AP)