Ukraine

Kyiv, Apr 18 (AP) Braced for an all-out Russian assault in the east, Ukraine vowed to "fight absolutely to the end in strategically vital Mariupol, where the ruined port city's last known pocket of resistance was holed up in a sprawling steel plant laced with tunnels.

With missiles and rockets also battering other parts of the country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian soldiers of carrying out torture and kidnappings in areas they control.

Reuters, April 17 (Reuters) - Five people were killed in shelling of the city centre of Kharkiv on Sunday, and 13 were injured, the Ukrainian Suspilne public broadcaster reported citing local health authorities.

"Rescuers are operating in the sites (affected by shelling)," the report said.

April 17 (Reuters) - Ukraine has asked G7 nations for $50 billion in financial support and is also considering issuing 0% coupon bonds to help it cover a war-linked budget deficit over the next six months, the president's economic adviser Oleh Ustenko said on Sunday.

Speaking on national television, Ustenko said these options were being actively discussed.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces pummeled a hulking steel plant that held the last pocket of resistance Sunday in Mariupol, a southern Ukraine city that has suffered under siege for six weeks and whose capture would aid Moscow’s plans for a full-scale offensive in the country’s east.

15 April 2022; MEMO: Ukraine yesterday accused Russia of blocking four Egypt-bound ships loaded with wheat and corn from leaving Ukrainian ports.

"The Riva Wind ship is ready to bring 27,000 metric tons of corn to Egypt – enough to feed well over a million people for a month," the Ukrainian embassy in Egypt said on Facebook.

The embassy had pointed out that Moscow had mined the "Black Sea floor, preventing the ship from sailing to Egypt from Ukraine's Pivdennyi port."

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Indignant over what it called Ukrainian strikes in Russian territory and following the stunning loss of its Black Sea flagship, Moscow threatened renewed missile attacks on Kyiv, where authorities said the bodies of more than 900 civilians were found outside the capital. Most had been shot dead, police said, and likely “simply executed.”

DONETSK, April 15. /TASS/: The Prosecutor General's Office of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) has opened a criminal case for espionage against several employees of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, who passed state secrets to Ukraine, the press service of the DPR Prosecutor General's Office told TASS on Friday.

KYIV, April 15 (Reuters) - Around 1.25 million tonnes of grains and oilseeds are still on commercial vessels blocked in Ukrainian seaports due to Russia's invasion and part of the cargo may deteriorate in the near future, Ukraine's farm minister was quoted as saying on Friday.

Ukraine used to export almost all its grain and oilseeds via seaports and now is forced to find new routes as its ports are blocked.

April 15 (Reuters) - Ukraine's defence ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said on Friday that for, the first time since the start of its invasion, Russia used long-range bombers to attack the besieged port city of Mariupol.

Motuzyanyk said Russia was concentrating its efforts on seizing the cities of Rubizhne, Popasna and Mariupol.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, a guided-missile cruiser that became a potent target of Ukrainian defiance in the opening days of the war, sank Thursday after it was heavily damaged in the latest setback for Moscow’s invasion.

Ukrainian officials said their forces hit the vessel with missiles, while Russia acknowledged a fire aboard the Moskva but no attack. U.S. and other Western officials could not confirm what caused the blaze.