Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Explosions and fires ripped through an ammunition depot in Russia-annexed Crimea on Tuesday in the second suspected Ukrainian attack on the peninsula in just over a week, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people.

Russia blamed the blasts in the village of Mayskoye on an “act of sabotage,” without naming the perpetrators.

Separately, the Russian business newspaper Kommersant quoted residents as saying plumes of black smoke also rose over an air base in Crimea’s Gvardeyskoye.

MELITOPOL, August 15. /TASS/: More than 30,000 people have applied for Russian citizenship in the Zaporozhye region, Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the region’s military civilian administration, said on Monday.

YUZHNE, Ukraine, Aug 14 (Reuters) - The United Nations-chartered ship Brave Commander will depart Ukraine for Africa in coming days after it finishes loading more than 23,000 metric tonnes of wheat in the Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi, a U.N. official said.

The ship, which arrived in the port near Odesa, will sail to Ethiopia via a grain corridor through the Black Sea brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in late July.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces on Sunday fired rockets on the Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine, killing at least one person, and a Russian diplomat called on Ukraine to offer security assurances so that international inspectors could visit a nuclear power station that has come under fire.

The Mykolaiv region is just to the north of the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, which Ukrainian forces have vowed to retake. The Ukrainian emergency service said one person was killed in shelling early Sunday of the Mykolaiv region settlement of Bereznehuvate.

KYIV, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Ukraine is targeting Russian soldiers who shoot at an occupied nuclear plant in the south of the country or use it as a base to shoot from, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday.

Ukraine and Russia have traded accusations over multiple recent incidents of shelling at the Zaporizhzhia facility, Europe's largest nuclear power plant. Russian troops captured the station early in the war.

KIEV, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday proposed to the parliament to prolong the current martial law and general mobilization in the country for another 90 days, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported.

Two separate drafts on extending the martial law and general mobilization have been submitted to the parliament for consideration, according to the parliament's website.

The Ukrainian parliament imposed a martial law after the start of the conflict with Russia on Feb. 24 and extended it three times since then.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s health minister has accused Russian authorities of committing a crime against humanity by blocking access to affordable medicines in areas its forces have occupied since invading the country 5 1/2 months ago.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Liashko said Russian authorities repeatedly have blocked efforts to provide state-subsidized drugs to people in occupied cities, towns and villages.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s military pounded residential areas across Ukraine overnight, claiming gains, as Ukrainian forces pressed a counteroffensive to try to take back an occupied southern region, striking the last working bridge over a river in the Russian-occupied Kherson region, Ukrainian authorities said Saturday.

A Russian rocket attack on the city of Kramatorsk killed three people and wounded 13 others Friday night, according to the mayor. Kramatorsk is the headquarters for Ukrainian forces in the country’s war-torn east.

SUMY REGION, Ukraine, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Ukraine's interior minister said on Thursday that Ukraine had to be ready for any scenario at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that has been hit shelling, including evacuating people from the area.

Ukraine and Russia-installed local officials blamed each other for a new volley of shelling on Thursday at the nuclear power plant - Europe's biggest - which lies in southern Ukraine.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s air force said Wednesday that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in a deadly string of explosions at an air base in Crimea, amid speculation the blasts were the result of a Ukrainian attack that would represent a significant escalation in the war.

Russia denied any aircraft were damaged in Tuesday’s blasts — or that any attack took place.