Ukraine

KYIV, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv on a surprise trip on Sunday, meeting President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and pledging that Britain would "stick by Ukraine as long as it takes".

Johnson, who left office in September in the wake of a series of scandals, was prime minister when Russia invaded Ukraine last February and he sought to position London as Kyiv's top ally in the West.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held an emotional meeting Saturday with the families of those who died in a helicopter crash earlier this week.

Zelenskyy spoke with family members of seven of those killed in Wednesday’s crash in the Brovary area of Kyiv, the capital city. The helicopter carrying Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi and other top officials slammed into a kindergarten building in the residential suburb, killing him and about a dozen other people, including a child on the ground.

BROVARY, Ukraine (AP) — A small broom and dustpan in hand, Olga Prenzilevich cleans up the debris along the road in a sleepy Kyiv suburb next to a cordoned-off mound of charred vehicles and misshapen wreckage.

But she can’t sweep away the terrible memory of seeing the government helicopter that carried Ukraine’s interior minister tumbling through the fog and crashing into the kindergarten building. Or the frantic dash afterward to save the children, their tiny bodies in flames.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia claimed Friday to have captured a village in eastern Ukraine as part of its intense, monthslong push toward the city of Bakhmut, while military analysts cautioned that tanks Kyiv hopes to receive from Western allies wouldn’t provide a magic wand to end the almost 11-month war.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the village of Klishchiivka, which is located nine kilometers (five miles) south of Bakhmut, had been “liberated.”

KYIV/BERLIN, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Western allies pledged billions of dollars in new weapons for Ukraine on Thursday, but the big question of whether to send heavy tanks remained unanswered, with Berlin yet to signal whether it would lift a veto.

Fearing winter will give Russian forces time to regroup and unleash a major attack, Ukraine is pushing for German-made Leopard battle tanks, which are held by an array of NATO nations but whose transfer to Ukraine requires Germany's approval.

KIEV, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is finalizing the stationing of permanent missions at Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs), the Ukrainian government press service reported Wednesday.

While speaking at a joint briefing with IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the mission at Khmelnytsky NPP in western Ukraine is to start working in the coming days.

BROVARY, Ukraine (AP) — A helicopter carrying Ukraine’s interior minister crashed into a kindergarten in a foggy residential suburb of Kyiv on Wednesday, killing him and about a dozen other people, including a child on the ground, authorities said.

DNIPRO, Ukraine (AP) — Before the Russian missile struck the apartment building next door, Anna Kotova had moved closer to the window to take a congratulatory 19th birthday call from her sister.

Kotova’s boyfriend staggered into the kitchen after the explosion and found her covered in blood. The blast at the neighboring building blew out windows and doors in her apartment, and a shard of glass had pierced one of the young woman’s eyes. Another just barely missed a major artery on her neck.

BROVARY, Ukraine (AP) — A helicopter carrying Ukraine’s interior minister and other government officials crashed Wednesday in a residential area near the capital of Kyiv, killing him and about a dozen other people, including a child on the ground, authorities said.

DNIPRO, Ukraine/KYIV, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Ukraine came a step closer on Tuesday to winning the fleet of modern battle tanks it hopes could turn the course of the war against Russia, after the West's big holdout Germany said this would be the first item on its new defence minister's agenda.

In the central city of Dnipro, authorities called an end to the search for survivors in the ruins of an apartment building destroyed during Russian missile attacks on Saturday.