Ukraine

KYIV, April 30 (Reuters) - Russian forces have stolen "several hundred thousand tonnes" of grain in the areas of Ukraine they occupy, Ukraine's deputy agriculture minister said on Saturday.

Speaking to Ukrainian national TV, Taras Vysotskiy expressed concern that most of what he said was 1.5 million tonnes of grain stored in occupied territory could also be stolen by Russian forces.

Ukraine's foreign ministry accused Russia on Thursday of stealing grain in territory it has occupied, an act it said increased the threat to global food security. 

DOBROPILLIA, Ukraine/KYIV, April 30 (Reuters) - Russian carried out missile strikes across southern and eastern Ukraine on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, including one that destroyed the runway at the main airport in the strategic Black Sea port of Odesa.

Moscow has turned its focus toward Ukraine's south and east after failing to capture the capital Kyiv in a nine-week assault that has flattened cities, killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 5 million to flee abroad.

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces fought Saturday to hold off a Russian advance in their country’s south and east, where the Kremlin is seeking to capture the industrial Donbas region and Western military analysts said Moscow’s offensive was going much slower than planned.

The United Nations continued trying to broker an evacuation of civilians from the increasingly hellish ruins of Mariupol, a southern port city that Russia has sought to capture since it invaded Ukraine more than nine weeks ago.

KYIV, April 29 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian fighter holed up in Mariupol's steel works said on Friday he hoped the United Nations would come to the besieged and devastated area to evacuate civilians, and that for the first time he had real hope his troops might make it out alive.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office said on Friday that Ukraine planned to evacuate civilians sheltering in underground bunkers in the vast industrial complex of Mariupol's Azovstal steel works, though he gave no details.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of trying to humiliate the United Nations by raining missiles on Kyiv during a visit to the city by the U.N. chief, an attack that shattered weeks of relative calm in the capital and upset a tentative return to normal.

April 28 (Reuters) - Russia has handed over 33 Ukrainian soldiers, including 13 officers, in an exchange of prisoners of war with Ukraine, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Thursday.

"We are also bringing home 12 civilians," Vereshchuk wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Five of the troops exchanged on Thursday had been wounded, she said.

Vereshchuk did not say how many Russians were involved in the exchange.

KYIV, April 28 (Reuters) - The United States accused Russia on Thursday of planning to stage fake independence votes to justify its conquest of territory in Ukraine, as Russian forces stepped up their assault on the east.

More than two months into an invasion that has flattened cities but failed to capture the capital Kyiv, Russia is pursuing an offensive to seize two eastern provinces in a battle the West views as a decisive turning point in the war.

IRPIN, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine said Thursday that Russia’s offensive in the east picked up momentum, with several towns coming under intense attack as Moscow’s forces attempt to surround Ukrainian troops.

In a reminder of the horrific toll the war has taken since it began Feb. 24, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres visited towns outside the capital of Kyiv where evidence of mass killings of civilians was found after Russia’s retreat from the area.

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ever since Russian forces took the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson in early March, residents sensed the occupiers had a special plan for their town. Now, amid a crescendo of warnings from Ukraine that Russia plans to stage a sham referendum to transform the territory into a pro-Moscow “people’s republic,” it appears locals guessed right.

KIEV, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine is seeking to receive 5 billion U.S. dollars from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) per month, Ukraine's media outlet Hromadske reported on Wednesday, citing the country's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

"We are talking about 5 billion dollars a month -- the need for this amount has been confirmed by both the IMF and the World Bank. These are the funds that the budget of Ukraine needs in order to fulfill all our social and humanitarian obligations," Shmyhal said.