Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s president has suggested he’s open to peace talks with Russia, softening his refusal to negotiate with Moscow as long as President Vladimir Putin is in power while sticking to Kyiv’s core demands.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s appeal to the international community to “force Russia into real peace talks” reflected a change in rhetoric. In late September, after Russia illegally annexed four Ukrainian regions, he signed a decree stating “the impossibility of holding talks” with Putin.

Nov 6 (Reuters) - Russia is suffering heavy losses in continuing "fierce" attacks in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region and is preparing new assaults on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday.

"Very fierce Russian attacks on Donetsk region are continuing. The enemy is suffering serious losses there," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Zelenskiy said he believed Russia was "concentrating forces and means for a possible repetition of mass attacks on our infrastructure, energy in the first instance".

KYIV, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Ukraine has received its first delivery of NASAMS air defence systems which will "significantly strengthen" its armed forces, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Monday.

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said last month the United States was accelerating the shipment of the sophisticated NASAMS systems to Ukraine after a devastating missile barrage from Russia.

MOSCHUN, Ukraine (AP) — Standing amid the wreckage of his home, Vadym Zherdetsky shows photos on his phone of how it once looked: handsome rooms, a hand-carved wooden bed and a chest of drawers he intended to leave to his grandchildren.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, two missiles struck the house in the tiny village of Moschun on the outskirts of Kyiv, the capital, ripping off the roof and nearly killing four family members. The town was recaptured from Russian forces in April, but Zherdetsky’s house, like many others in the Kyiv region, remains in ruins.

DONETSK, November 6. /TASS/: The number of foreigners in the ranks of the Ukrainian armed forces is such that they not only command, but also personally work in firing positions, Lieutenant Colonel of the People's Militia and the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) lawmaker Andrey Bayevsky told TASS.

Nov 6 (Reuters) - Ukraine's Russian-held Nova Kakhovka dam was damaged in shelling by Ukrainian forces, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, citing emergency services.

Russian state-owned news agency TASS quoted a representative of the emergency services as saying that a rocket launched by a U.S.-made HIMARS missile system had hit the dam's lock and caused damaged. The official quoted said it was an "attempt to create the conditions for a humanitarian catastrophe" by breaching the dam.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, is warning residents that they must prepare for the worst this winter if Russia keeps striking the country’s energy infrastructure — and that means having no electricity, water or heat in the freezing cold cannot be ruled out.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s state electricity operator on Saturday announced blackouts in Kyiv and seven other regions of the country in the aftermath of Russia’s devastating strikes on energy infrastructure.

The move comes as Russian forces continue to pound Ukrainian cities and villages with missiles and drones, inflicting damage on power plants, water supplies and other civilian targets, in a grinding war that is nearing its nine-month mark.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian soldiers are forcing Ukrainian civilians from their apartments in the occupied capital of the Kherson region and moving in themselves, a resident said Friday as the southern city became a growing focus of war in Ukraine.

His account of soldiers spreading throughout the city of Kherson suggested that Russia could be preparing for intense urban warfare in anticipation of Ukrainian advances.

DONETSK, November 3. /TASS/: An exchange of prisoners of war with Ukraine under a "107 for 107" formula is scheduled for Thursday; 65 residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics are to return home, the DPR’s acting head, Denis Pushilin, has said.

"Today, we are to welcome home 107 of our fighters released from Ukrainian dungeons. We are returning the same number of prisoners to Ukraine, mostly military personnel. In the group of POWs to be released to us there are 65 people from the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics," he wrote on his Telegram channel.