Ukraine

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — The messages, reports from across Ukraine, scroll in real time:

One civilian dead.

Thirteen military casualties.

Five civilians injured.

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova glances at her cell phone. The stark numbers and bare-bones accounts that unreel in her hand are just the start; her staff will catalog them, investigate them -- and try to bring the Russian perpetrators of war crimes to justice.

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Unbroken by a Russian blockade and relentless bombardment, the key port of Mariupol is still holding out, a symbol of staunch Ukrainian resistance that has thwarted the Kremlin’s invasion plans.

More than six weeks after the Russian siege began, Ukrainian troops are continuing to fight the vastly superior Russian forces in ferocious battles amid the ruins of what once was a bustling city on the Sea of Azov coast.

The city’s mayor says that an estimated 120,000 people remain in the city, of Mariupol’s pre-war population of about 450,000.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A day after Moscow suffered a stinging symbolic defeat with the loss of the flagship of its Black Sea fleet, Russia’s Defense Ministry promised Friday to ramp up missile attacks on the Ukrainian capital in response to Ukraine’s alleged military “diversions on the Russian territory.”

by Seymanur Yont

The war between Russia and Ukraine since 24 February has already had a global impact. Energy prices have spiked, triggering a sharp increase in the cost of food. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation's food price index that measures the monthly global price change in food commodities reached an all-time high last month.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine said its forces struck and seriously damaged the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, dealing a potentially major setback to Moscow’s troops as they try to regroup for a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine after retreating from much of the north, including the capital.

KYIV/LVIV, Ukraine, April 13 (Reuters) - More than 1,000 Ukrainian marines have surrendered in the port of Mariupol, Russia's defence ministry said on Wednesday, signalling that it had moved closer to capturing the ruined city, its main strategic target in eastern Ukraine.

If the Russians take the Azovstal industrial district, where the marines have been holed up, they would have full control of Mariupol, Ukraine's main Sea of Azov port, reinforcing a southern land corridor before an expected new offensive in the country's east. 

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The presidents of four countries on Russia’s doorstep visited Ukraine on Wednesday in a show of support for the embattled country, after Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to continue his bloody offensive until its “full completion.”

The presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — all NATO countries that worry they may face Russian attack in the future if Ukraine falls — were traveling by train to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

LVIV, Ukraine, April 12 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had largely vanished from public view since his forces were driven from the approaches to Kyiv this month, resurfaced on Tuesday to defend his "noble" invasion of Ukraine, saying peace talks had come to a dead end.

In a press event inside a hangar at a far eastern space base six time zones from Moscow, Putin rattled off talking points: that Moscow had "no choice" but to intervene to protect separatists, defeat neo-Nazis and "help people".

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Vladimir Putin vowed Tuesday that Russia’s bloody offensive in Ukraine would continue until its goals are fulfilled, and insisted the campaign was going as planned, despite a major withdrawal in the face of stiff Ukrainian opposition and significant losses.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine investigated a claim that a poisonous substance was dropped on besieged Mariupol, as Western officials warned Tuesday that any use of chemical weapons by Russia would be a serious escalation of the already devastating war.