Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s prime minister has appealed for Patriot missile batteries and other high-tech air defense systems to counter Russian attacks that knocked out electricity and water supplies for millions of Ukrainians, putting Europe on alert Monday to brace for more refugees.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told French broadcaster LCI that in addition to making Ukrainians suffer, Russia wants to swamp Europe with a new wave of Ukrainian refugees by continuing to strike power stations and other infrastructure.

BOYARKA, Ukraine (AP) — Bice is an American pit bull terrier with an important and sensitive job in Ukraine — comforting children traumatized by Russia’s war.

The playful 8-year-old gray dog arrived on time this week to a rehabilitation center on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, ready to start his duties.

As Bice waited in a hallway, inside of what looked like a school classroom with paintings and some books, a dozen children were seated around a table listening to Oksana Sliepova, a psychologist.

KYIV, Dec 10 (Reuters) - All non-critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Odesa was without power after Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities, leaving 1.5 million people without power, officials said on Saturday.

"The situation in the Odesa region is very difficult," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

"Unfortunately, the hits were critical, so it takes more than just time to restore electricity... It doesn't take hours, but a few days, unfortunately."

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — A hand grenade jerry-rigged into the detergent tray of a Kherson home’s washing machine. A street sign maliciously directing passers-by toward a deadly minefield. A police station that allegedly housed a torture chamber but remains so booby-trapped that demining crews can’t even start to hunt for evidence.

Sunday marks exactly one month since Russia’s troops withdrew from Kherson and its vicinity after an eight-month occupation, sparking jubilation across Ukraine. But life in the southern city is still very far from normal.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Over the grinding wail of a chainsaw pruning trees, Oleh Braharnyk recalls how his crew sprang into action in Kyiv a week earlier to repair power lines downed by Russian missiles and keep electricity flowing to his beleaguered fellow Ukrainians.

Braharnyk, an electric company foreman, knows the stakes: Like many others in Ukraine, his family has dealt with daily power outages caused by Russian strikes.

“We, too, sit in the dark,” he says, acknowledging that his home gets power for only about half of each day.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces have “destroyed” the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, while Ukraine’s military on Saturday reported missile, rocket and air strikes in multiple parts of the country that Moscow is trying to conquer after months of resistance.

KYIV, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Russian forces shelled the entire front line in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, officials in Kyiv said on Friday, as Russia's President Vladimir Putin accused the West of using Ukrainians as "cannon fodder" in its quest for global dominance.

Putin also said, without elaborating, that Russia would probably have to do a deal over Ukraine some day, while accusing France and Germany of betrayal over past efforts to bring peace to eastern Ukraine.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of NATO expressed worry that the fighting in Ukraine could spin out of control and become a war between Russia and NATO, according to an interview released Friday..

“If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in remarks to Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

“It is a terrible war in Ukraine. It is also a war that can become a full-fledged war that spreads into a major war between NATO and Russia,” he said. “We are working on that every day to avoid that.”

NEAR BAKHMUT, Ukraine, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Russian forces attacked settlements in eastern Ukraine from the ground and air, officials said on Thursday, in support of the Kremlin's apparently scaled-back ambition of only securing the bulk of Ukrainian lands it has claimed in the war.

Fighting was underway along the entire line of demarcation in the Donetsk region, with the frontline town of Avdiivka shelled by Russian tanks on Thursday morning, said Tatiana Ignatchenko, a spokeswoman for the regional administration.

DONETSK, December 7. /TASS/: Numerous residents who left Mariupol due to military activities have returned to the city, Acting Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Denis Pushilin said in an interview with TASS.

"There are now traffic jams in Mariupol, which point to positive changes. A great number of residents have returned to the city and markets have reopened," he noted.