Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces attacked a steel plant in the shattered Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, apparently seeking to eliminate the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic city the Kremlin claims its military has otherwise seized.

KYIV, April 22 (Reuters) - Ukraine's national postal service Ukrposhta said it had been hit by a cyberattack on Friday after sales of a postage stamp depicting a Ukrainian soldier making a crude gesture to a Russian warship went online.

Queues formed to buy the stamp when it went on sale at the postal headquarters in Kyiv last week following the sinking of the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet. Kyiv said it had hit the cruiser Moskva with missiles. Russia said the ship sank while being towed in stormy seas after a fire caused by an explosion of ammunition.

KYIV/MARIUPOL, April 22 (Reuters) - A Russian general said on Friday that Moscow wants to seize all of southern and eastern Ukraine, far wider war aims than it had acknowledged as it presses on with a new offensive after its campaign to capture the capital Kyiv collapsed last month.

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — New satellite images show apparent mass graves near Mariupol, where local officials accused Russia of burying up to 9,000 Ukrainian civilians to conceal the slaughter taking place in the ruined port city that’s almost entirely under Russian control.

KIEV, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday met with European Council President Charles Michel, appreciating the European Union (EU) for the support of Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia, Zelensky's press service reported.

"European partners have made a significant contribution to our military capabilities," Zelensky said.

In particular, he thanked the EU for allocating 1.5 billion euros (some 1.63 billion U.S. dollars) within the European Peace Fund to finance the military needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to claim victory in the strategic port of Mariupol on Thursday, even as he ordered his troops not to storm the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the war’s iconic battleground.

KYIV, April 20 (Reuters) - European Council President Charles Michel pledged European solidarity with Ukraine during a surprise visit to Kyiv on Wednesday and said justice must be done for alleged Russian war crimes.

Michel, the head of the European Council, which represents the European Union's 27 member states, visited the town of Borodianka northwest of Kyiv before holding talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the capital.

April 20 (Reuters) - Ukraine is ready to hold a "special round of negotiations" with Russia in the besieged city of Mariupol without any conditions, negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted on Wednesday.

He said the talks could be "one on one. Two on two. To save our guys, (the far right) Azov (battalion), military, civilians, children, the living and the wounded".

KIEV, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine and Russia on Tuesday conducted their fifth prisoner exchange since the start of the conflict, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

As a result of the swap, 76 Ukrainian prisoners-of-war, including 16 civilians, returned home following their release by Russian forces, Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.

Of the 60 Ukrainian military personnel released, 10 were officers, she said.

Vereshchuk gave no details on how many Russian captives were exchanged during the swap.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces tightened the noose around diehard Ukrainian defenders holed up at a Mariupol steel plant Wednesday amid desperate new efforts to open an evacuation corridor for trapped civilians in the ruined city, a key battleground in Moscow’s drive to seize the country’s industrial east.