The U.S. has begun an aggressive new push to inflict pain on Russia’s economy and specifically its oligarchs with the intent of thwarting the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. From the Treasury Department to the Justice Department, U.S. officials will focus on efforts to legally liquidate the property of Russian oligarchs, expand financial penalties on those who facilitate the evasion of sanctions, and close loopholes in the law that allow oligarchs to use shell companies to move through the U.S. financial system. Andrew Adams, who heads the KleptoCapture task force, designed to enforce the economic restrictions within the U.S. imposed on Russia and its billionaires, told The Associated Press that the group is prioritizing its efforts to identify those who help Russians evade sanctions and violate export controls. “These illicit procurement networks will continue to take up an ever-increasing amount of our bandwidth,” said Adams, who also serves as acting deputy assistant attorney general. So far, more than $58 billion worth of sanctioned Russians’ assets have been blocked or frozen worldwide, according to a report last week from the Treasury Department. That includes two luxury yachts each worth $300 million in San Diego and Fiji, and six New York and Florida properties worth $75 million owned by sanctioned oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Also Read: US government moves to stop potential banking crisis The U.S. has begun attempts to punish the associates and wealth managers of oligarchs — in Vekselberg's case, a federal court in New York indicted Vladimir Voronchenko after he helped maintain Vekselberg’s properties. He was charged in February with conspiring to violate and evade U.S. sanctions. The case was coordinated through the KleptoCapture group. “I think it can be quite effective to be sanctioning facilitators,” Adams said, calling them “professional sanctions evasion brokers.” A February study led by Dartmouth University researchers showed that targeting a few key wealth managers would cause far greater damage to Russia than sanctioning oligarchs individually. Other attempts to inflict pain on the Russian economy will come from the efforts to liquidate yachts and other property owned by Russian oligarchs and the Kremlin, turning them into cash to benefit Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has long called for Russian assets to be transferred to Ukraine, and former Biden administration official Daleep Singh told the Senate Banking Committee on Feb. 28 that forfeiting Russia's billions in assets held by the U.S. is “something we ought to pursue.” Singh suggested the U.S. should “use the reserves that we have immobilized at the New York Fed, transfer them to Ukraine and allow them to put them up as collateral to raise money.” He ran the White House's Russia sanctions program when he was national security adviser for international economics. Adams said the KleptoCapture task force is pursuing efforts to sell Russians' yachts and other property, despite the legal difficulties of turning property whose owners' access has been blocked into forfeited assets that the government can take and sell for the benefit of Ukraine. He stressed that the U.S. will operate under the rule of law. “Part of what that means is that we will not take assets that are not fully, totally forfeited through the judicial procedures and begin confiscating them without a legal basis,” Adams said. He added that the task force has had “success in working with Congress and working with folks around the executive branch in obtaining authorization to transfer certain forfeited funds to the State Department.” The Treasury Department said on Thursday that the government is “paving the way” for $5.4 million in seized funds to be sent as foreign assistance to Ukraine. Additionally, strengthening laws that serve as loopholes for sanctions evaders will also be a priority across federal departments, officials say. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, under Treasury, is expected to roll out rules to address the use of the U.S. real estate market to launder money, including a requirement on disclosing the true ownership of real estate. Steven Tian, director of research at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, who tracks companies' disengagement from Russia, said the new real estate rule is long overdue. “I would point out that it’s not just unique to Russian oligarchs. As you know, the real estate market makes use of shell companies in the United States, period," Tian said. Erica Hanichak, the government affairs director at the FACT Coalition, a nonprofit that promotes corporate transparency, urged the administration to put the rule forward by late March, when the U.S. co-hosts the second Summit for Democracy with the governments of Costa Rica, Netherlands, South Korea and Zambia. “We’re viewing this as an opportunity for the United States to demonstrate leadership not only in addressing corrupt practices abroad, but looking to our own backyard and addressing the loopholes in our system that facilitate corruption internationally," she said.

Russian shelling destroyed homes and killed one person in northern Ukraine's Kharkiv province, the region's governor said Sunday, while fighting raged in the fiercely contested eastern city of Bakhmut. The town of Kupiansk is about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Russian border; the region has come under frequent attacks even though Russian ground forces withdrew from the area nearly six months ago. Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said at least five homes were razed in the latest attack that left a 65-year-old man dead. Two civilians were killed over the past day in Bakhmut, Donetsk province Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said. Russian forces have spent months trying to capture the city as part of their offensive in eastern Ukraine, and the area has seen some of the bloodiest ground fighting of the war. In recent days, Ukrainian units destroyed two key bridges just outside Bakhmut, including one linking it to the nearby town of Chasiv Yar along the last remaining Ukrainian resupply route, according to U.K. military intelligence officials and other Western analysts. Also Read: Biden, Scholz to huddle on Ukraine war at White House Associated Press journalists near Bakhmut on Saturday saw a pontoon bridge set up by Ukrainian soldiers to help the few remaining residents reach the nearby village of Khromove. Later, the AP team saw at least five houses on fire as a result of attacks in Khromove, a nearby settlement. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, assessed last week that Kyiv’s actions may point to a looming pullout from parts of the city. It said Ukrainian troops may “conduct a limited and controlled withdrawal from particularly difficult sections of eastern Bakhmut,” while seeking to inhibit Russian movement there and limit exit routes to the west. Capturing Bakhmut would not only give Russian fighters a rare battlefield gain after months of setbacks but might rupture Ukraine’s supply lines and allow the Kremlin’s forces to press on toward other Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk province. In southern Ukraine, a woman and two children were killed in a residential building in the Kherson region village of Poniativka, the Ukrainian president's office reported. A Russian artillery shell hit a car in Burdarky, another Kharkiv province village, killing a man and his wife, the regional prosecutor's office said. Casualties increased from an attack earlier in the week. Ukraine’s emergency services reported Sunday that the death toll from a Russian missile strike that hit a five-story apartment building in southern Ukraine on Thursday rose to 13. One of the few areas where Russia and Ukraine have cooperated during the war is grain shipments. On that front, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Sunday his country is engaged in “intense efforts” to extend an agreement that allowed Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports. The deal, which the U.N. and Turkey brokered in July 2022 and was extended by four months in November, is set to expire March 18. In a speech at the opening of the U.N. Conference on Least Developed Countries in Doha, Qatar, Cavusoglu said he had discussed another extension with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The agreement, which also allows Russia to export food and fertilizers, has helped temper rising global food prices. However, Russian officials have complained that shipments of the country’s fertilizer were not being facilitated under the agreement, leaving the deal's renewal in question.

Europe is taking another big step toward cutting its energy ties with Russia, banning imports of diesel fuel and other products made from crude oil in Russian refineries. The European Union ban takes effect Feb. 5 following its embargo on coal and most oil from Russia. The 27-nation bloc is trying to sever its last uses of Russian energy and stop feeding the Kremlin's war chest as the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine nears. The newest ban has risks: Diesel prices have already jumped since the war started on Feb. 24, and they could rise again for the fuel that is key to the global economy. “We’re leaving money in the road to provide our services,” said Hans-Dieter Sedelmeier of the family-run German bus and travel company Rast Reisen. Most things people buy or eat is transported at some point by trucks, which mostly run on diesel. It also powers farm equipment, city buses and industrial equipment. The higher cost of diesel is built into the price of almost everything, helping push up inflation that has made life harder for people worldwide. Here are key facts about the upcoming European embargo: WILL THE EMBARGO PUSH UP DIESEL PRICES? That depends. Diesel, like crude oil, is sold globally, and Europe could look for new sources, such as the U.S., India or countries in the Middle East. If that goes smoothly, the impact on prices might be temporary and modest. Europe has already cut Russian diesel imports almost in half, from 50% of total imports before the war to 27%. U.S. suppliers have stepped up supplies to record levels, from 34,000 barrels a day at the start of 2022 to 237,000 barrels per day so far in January, according to S&P Global. Read more: What's the effect of Russian oil price cap, ban? The EU’s top energy official, Kadri Simson, says markets have had time to adjust after the ban was announced in June. Europeans also appear to have stocked up on Russian diesel before the deadline, with imports rising last month. There is a complicating factor: The Group of Seven major democracies are talking about imposing a price cap on Russian diesel heading to other countries, just as they did on Russian crude. As with oil, the idea is to keep Russian diesel flowing to world markets but reduce Moscow’s revenue. If the cap works as advertised, global diesel flows should reshuffle, with Europe finding new suppliers and Russian diesel finding new customers, without a major loss of supply. But it's hard to say how the cap will work without knowing where the price will be set and whether Russia will retaliate by withholding shipments. “When Russian exports are constrained, for whatever reason, that would of course cause some trouble in this whole reshuffle process," said Hedi Grati, head of fuels and refining research for Europe at S&P Global Commodity Insights. “Europe would be competing with other big importers, and that would cause upward pressure on pricing.” If the cap doesn't block large amounts of Russian diesel, there might be “a short-lived price spike” as the market adjusts. For one, tankers would have a longer journey to Europe from the U.S., Middle East or India than from Russia's Baltic Sea ports, stressing shipping capacity. But massive new refining capacity is launching in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia later this year and in Oman in 2024. That “could further alleviate any pressure points from this divorce from Russia,” Grati said. WHAT COULD A DIESEL PRICE CAP ACCOMPLISH? The hope is to reproduce the effect of the oil price cap, which barred Western companies that largely control shipping services from handling Russian crude priced above $60 a barrel. Read more: Russia rejects $60-a-barrel cap on its oil, warns of cutoffs Russia says it won't sell oil to countries observing the price ceiling, but the cap and falling demand from a slowing global economy has meant customers in China, India and elsewhere can buy Russian oil at steep discounts, cutting into the Kremlin's revenue. Boosted by more expensive crude, diesel prices rose to over $1,000 a ton last week from $800 a ton in early December. Diesel costs more than $40 per barrel above the crude used to make it. One reason for the price hike was a late December storm in the U.S. that disrupted refineries, said Barbara Lambrecht, an analyst at Commerzbank. WHAT HAPPENS IF DIESEL GETS MORE EXPENSIVE? Fuel prices have been a major factor behind painful inflation in Europe that has robbed consumers of purchasing power and slowed the economy. Diesel prices at the pump have swung from 1.66 euros per liter ($6.43 a gallon) to 2.14 euros per liter ($8.29 a gallon) in the course of a year. “That is a gigantic increase,” said Christopher Schuldes, the third generation of his family to run German trucking company Schuldes Spedition. The company has 27 diesel trucks and 50 employees in the small town of Alsbach-Haehnlein between Frankfurt and Heidelberg in southwest Germany. It already has cut fuel costs by equipping trucks with efficient engines, ensuring trucks leave fully loaded and training employees in fuel-efficient driving. “We did all that a long time ago, long before Russia invaded Ukraine," Schuldes said. “There's no more room for optimization.” To ease the extra diesel costs, the company tried negotiating higher prices with customers who have long-term contracts. Some agreed, some didn’t. Even if a contract allows prices to rise with diesel costs, there’s a two-month lag. Regarding the embargo, “I am of two minds about it,” Schuldes said. “I have to see that the company is in good shape, and that our purchasing is as economical as possible. On the other hand — on the personal level — I say Russia must not be supported.” Meanwhile, Rast Reisen, the bus and travel company near Freiburg im Breisgau in southwestern Germany, has seen diesel fuel rise from 12%-15% of costs to 20%-25%. Because 15 of its 25 buses are part of the regional public transport network, the company can't automatically raise fares, and government increases so far are “a droplet on a hot stone,” said Sedelmeier, managing director for public transport. Read more: Russian oil cap begins, trying to pressure Putin on Ukraine Rast Reisen had to add a 10- to 15-euro diesel surcharge to trips to popular destinations like northern Germany's island of Sylt or Croatia's coast because prices spiked after catalogues were printed. Next year, prices for trips will simply be higher. WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Energy markets are looking to China and wondering when the world's second-largest economy will recover after the end of drastic COVID-19 restrictions. With low demand for fuel at home, the Chinese government let refineries ramp up their exports. But if travel picks up in China, that diesel may disappear from the world market, raising prices as competition for fuel increases.

CES is not allowing Russian companies to display their gadgets at the annual tech show because of the country’s invasion of Ukraine. A spokesperson for the Consumer Technology Association, the trade group putting together the event in Las Vegas, said the move has only impacted one potential exhibitor. The organization did not immediately respond to an inquiry about how many Russian companies attended past CES events, or if there was less interest from them this year. The U.S. is among about 30 countries that have sanctioned Russia over the invasion. Read more: Best of CES 2023: Electric skates, pet tech and AI for birds CTA president and CEO Gary Shapiro, who previously called the Russian invasion a “tragic and illegal assault on the people and independent nation of Ukraine,” said some Ukrainian tech companies and startups will display their gadgets at the Las Vegas show. “A lot of people from around the world want to support Ukraine,” Shapiro said in an interview, while wearing a Ukrainian flag pin on his jacket lapel. “I know my wife actively seeks out products from Ukraine that she can order. And we have bought stuff from Ukraine directly.” The tech show is expected to draw up to 100,000 attendees by the time it concludes on Sunday. It kicked off on Tuesday evening with media previews from just some of the 3,000 companies signed up to attend. CES officially opens Thursday. It’s open to the media and others in the tech industry, but not the general public.

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. The attack came less than a day after 11 other rockets were fired at the city, one of the two main Ukrainian-held ones in Donetsk province, the focus of an ongoing Russian offensive to capture eastern Ukraine's Donbas region. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Saturday its forces had taken control of Pisky, a village on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk, the provincial capital that pro-Moscow separatists have claimed since 2014. Russian troops and the Kremlin-backed rebels are seeking to seize Ukrainian-held areas north and west of the city of Donetsk to expand the separatists' self-proclaimed republic. But the Ukrainian military said Saturday that its forces had prevented an overnight advance toward the smaller cities of Avdiivka and Bakhmut. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov also claimed that Russian strikes near Kramatorsk, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Donetsk city, destroyed a U.S.-supplied multiple rocket launcher and ammunition. Ukrainian authorities did not acknowledge any military losses but said that Russian missile strikes Friday on Kramatorsk had destroyed 20 residential buildings. Neither claim could be independently verified. The Ukrainian governor of neighboring Luhansk province, which is part of the fight over the Donbas region and was overrun by Russian forces last month, claimed that Ukrainian troops still held a small area. Writing on Telegram, Luhansk Gov. Serhii Haidai said the defending troops remained holed up inside an oil refinery on the edge of Lysychansk, a city that Moscow claimed to have captured, and also control areas near a village. “The enemy is burning the ground at the entrances to the Luhansk region because it cannot overcome (Ukrainian resistance along) these few kilometers," Haidai said. "It is difficult to count how many thousands of shells this territory of the free Luhansk region has withstood over the past month and a half.” Further west, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region reported more Russian shelling of the city of Nikopol, which lies across the Dnieper River from Europe's largest nuclear power plant. Gov. Yevhen Yevtushenko did not specify whether Russian troops had fired at Nikopol from the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Writing on Telegram, he said Saturday that there were no casualties but residential buildings, a power line and a gas pipeline were damaged. Nikopol has undergone daily bombardment for most of the past week, and a volley of shells killed three people and damaged 40 apartment buildings on Thursday, he said. Russia and Ukrainian officials have for days accused each other of shelling the Zaporizhzhia plant in contravention of nuclear safety rules. Russian troops have occupied the plant since the early days of Moscow's invasion, although the facility's pre-war Ukrainian nuclear workers continue to run it. Read: Russia takes small cities, aims to widen east Ukraine battle Ukrainian military intelligence alleged Saturday that Russian troops were shelling the plant from a village just kilometers away, damaging a plant pumping station and a fire station. The intelligence directorate said the Russians had bused people into the power plant and mounted a Ukrainian flag on a self-propelled gun on the outskirts of Enerhodar, the city where the plant is located. “Obviously, it will be used for yet another provocation to accuse the armed forces of Ukraine,” the directorate said, without elaborating. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly alleged that Russian forces were cynically using the plant as a shield while firing at communities across the river, knowing that Ukrainian forces were unlikely to fire back for fear of triggering a nuclear accident. They said Russian shelling on Friday night killed one woman and injured two other civilians in the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is 122 kilometers (76 miles) from the plant. Ukraine's southern Mykolayiv region also said a woman died there in shelling. For several weeks, Ukraine's military has tried to lay the groundwork for a counter-offensive to reclaim southern Ukraine's Russian-occupied Kherson region. A local Ukrainian official reported Saturday that a Ukrainian strike had damaged the last working bridge over the Dnieper River in the region and further crippled Russian supply lines. “The Russians no longer have any capability to fully turn over their equipment,” Serhii Khlan, a deputy to the Kherson Regional Council, wrote on Facebook. His claims could not be immediately verified. In the north, five civilians were injured overnight as Russia launched missiles at the border Kharkiv region, home to Ukraine’s second-largest city. The governor of neighboring Sumy said 200 missiles were fired at his region from Russian territory in the last 24 hours. Sumy Gov. Dmytro Zhyvytsky reported a widespread loss of crops as wheat fields caught fire, but he did not mention any casualties.

Russian House in Dhaka hosted a reception and farewell programme for students who have won the Russian government scholarships for the academic year 2022-2023. Maxim Dobrokhotov, director of the Russian House, praised the Bangladeshi youths for choosing Russia as a destination for higher education. Five thousand Bangladeshi graduates of Soviet or Russian universities have worked in government, private and international organisations in their country and abroad since 1972, he added. Md Jahirul Islam, a monitoring and evaluation specialist at the education ministry, earned a PhD from the Krasnodar University in 1991. Mahmudul Hasan Shamim, a sports journalist, did his masters in civil engineering from the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia in 1989.   SK Anisur Rahman, senior scientific officer at the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulation Authority, earned a PhD from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute in 2020. All of them attended the event and shared their experience of studying in Russia.

European Union governments agreed Tuesday to ration natural gas this winter to protect themselves against any further supply cuts by Russia as Moscow pursues its invasion of Ukraine. EU energy ministers approved a draft European law meant to lower demand for gas by 15% from August through March. The new legislation entails voluntary national steps to reduce gas consumption and, if they yield insufficient savings, a trigger for mandatory moves in the 27-member bloc. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the move, saying in a statement that “the EU has taken a decisive step to face down the threat of a full gas disruption by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.” On Monday, Russian energy giant Gazprom said it would limit supplies to the EU through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20% of capacity, heightening concerns that Putin will use gas trade to challenge the bloc’s opposition to the war in Ukraine. “The winter is coming and we don’t know how cold it will be,” said Czech Industry Minister Jozef Sikela, whose policy portfolio includes energy. “But what we know for sure is that Putin will continue to play his dirty games in misusing and blackmailing by gas supplies.” The ministerial agreement was sealed in less than a week. It’s based on a proposal last Wednesday from the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm. Keen to maintain a common EU front over a conflict that shows no sign of ending, the commission said coordinated rationing would enable the bloc as a whole to get through the winter should Russia stop all gas deliveries. Read: EU prepared for Russian gas cut-off: von der Leyen Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February and the West protested with economic sanctions, 12 EU countries have faced halts to, or reductions in, Russian gas deliveries. Although it has agreed to embargo oil and coal from Russia starting later this year, the EU has refrained from sanctioning Russian natural gas because Germany, Italy and some other member states rely heavily on these imports. “Germany made a strategic error in the past with its great dependency on Russian gas and faith that it would always flow constantly and cheaply,” said German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, who is also responsible for energy and serves as the country’s vice chancellor. “But it is not just a German problem.” The disruptions in Russian energy trade with the EU are stoking inflation already at record levels in Europe and threatening to trigger a recession in the bloc just as it was recovering from a pandemic-induced slump. The energy squeeze is also reviving decades-old political tests for Europe over policy coordination. While the EU has gained centralized authority over monetary, trade, antitrust and farm policies, national sovereignty over energy matters still largely prevails. In a sign of this, the energy ministers scrapped a provision in the draft gas-rationing law that would have given the European Commission the power to decide on any move from voluntary to mandatory actions. Instead, the ministers ensured any decision on mandatory steps will be in member-state hands. They also diluted other elements of the original proposal, including with exemptions for island countries. Nonetheless, Tuesday’s deal marks another milestone in EU policy integration and crisis management. The accord comes just six days after the commission rushed out the draft law — a stark contrast to past EU legislative initiatives in the area of energy that often involved months or years of negotiations among national governments. In that respect, the new gas-rationing plan resembles developments in EU health policy two years ago when, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, member states agreed to act in unison. This included letting the commission negotiate agreements with pharmaceutical companies on the supply of vaccines to all 27 countries.

As Russian forces press their offensive to take the eastern Ukrainian cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, civilians who have managed to flee say intensified shelling over the past week left them unable to even venture out from basement bomb shelters. Despite the attacks, some managed to make it to the town of Pokrovsk, 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the south, and boarded an evacuation train Saturday heading west, away from the fighting. Fighting has raged around Lysychansk and neighboring Sievierodonetsk, the last major cities under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk region. Luhansk and the Donetsk region to its south make up the Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland which is the focus of Russia’s current offensive. Moscow-backed separatists have controlled parts of the Donbas for eight years and Russian forces are now trying to capture at least the whole Donbas. Bouncing her 18-month-old son on her lap, Yana Skakova choked back tears as she described living in a basement under relentless bombing, and having to leave her husband behind when she fled with her baby and 4-year-old son. READ: Russia takes small cities, aims to widen east Ukraine battle Initially after the war broke out, there were quiet times when they could come out of the basement to cook in the street and let the children play outdoors. But about a week ago, the bombing intensified. For the past five days, they hadn’t been able to venture out of the basement at all. “Now the situation is bad, it’s scary to go out,” she said. It was the police who came to evacuate them Friday from the basement where 18 people, including nine children, had been living for the past two and a half months. “We were sitting there, then the traffic police came and they said: ‘You should evacuate as fast as possible, since it is dangerous to stay in Lysychansk now,'” Skakova said. Despite the bombings and the lack of electricity, gas and water, nobody really wanted to go. “None of us wanted to leave our native city,” she said. “But for the sake of these small children, we decided to leave." She broke down in tears as she described how her husband stayed behind to take care of their house and animals. “Yehor is 1 1/2-years old, and now he’s without a father,” Skakova said. Oksana, 74, who was too afraid to give her surname, said she was evacuated from Lysychansk on Friday by a team of foreign volunteers along with her 86-year-old husband. There were still other people left behind in the city, she said, including young children. Sitting on the same evacuation train as Skakova, she broke down and cried. The tears came hard and fast as she described leaving her home for an uncertain future. “I’m going somewhere, not knowing where,” she wept. “Now I am a beggar without happiness. Now I have to ask for charity. It would be better to kill me.” She had worked for 36 years as an accountant, a civil servant, she said, and the thought of now having to rely on others was unbearable. “God forbid anyone else suffers this. It’s a tragedy. It’s a horror,” she cried. “Who knew I would end up in such a hell?”

A Ukrainian court sentenced a 21-year-old Russian soldier to life in prison on Monday for killing a Ukrainian civilian, in the first war crimes trial since Russia’s invasion. Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin was accused of shooting a Ukrainian civilian in the head in a village in the northeastern Sumy region in the early days of the war. Read: Record 100 million people forcibly displaced worldwide: UNHCR He pleaded guilty and testified that he shot the man after being ordered to do so. He told the court that an officer insisted that the Ukrainian man, who was speaking on his cellphone, could pinpoint their location to the Ukrainian forces. During the trial, Shishimarin asked the widow of the victim to forgive him. Read: Russia presses Donbas attacks as Polish leader praises Kyiv Shishimarin’s defense attorney Victor Ovsyanikov argued that his client, a member of a Russian tank unit who was eventually captured, had been unprepared for the “violent military confrontation” and mass casualties that Russian troops encountered when they first invaded Ukraine.

Russian troops were withdrawing from around Ukraine’s second-largest city after bombarding it for weeks, the Ukrainian military said Saturday, as Kyiv and Moscow's forces engaged in a grinding battle for the country’s eastern industrial heartland. Ukraine’s military said the Russian forces were pulling back from the northeastern city of Kharkiv and focusing on guarding supply routes, while launching mortar, artillery and airstrikes in the eastern province of Donetsk in order to “deplete Ukrainian forces and destroy fortifications.” Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine was “entering a new — long-term — phase of the war.” In a show of support, a U.S. Senate delegation led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday in Kyiv. A video posted on Zelenskyy's Telegram account showed McConnell, who represents the state of Kentucky, and fellow Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine, John Barrasso of Wyoming and John Cornyn of Texas greeting him. Their trip came after Kentucky's other senator, Rand Paul, blocked until next week Senate approval of an additional $40 billion to help Ukraine and its allies withstand Russia’s 3-month-old invasion. In a statement after leaving Ukraine, McConnell said the United States “stands squarely behind Ukraine and will sustain our support until Ukraine wins this war.” After failing to capture Kyiv following the Feb. 24 invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin has shifted his focus eastward to the Donbas, an industrial region where Ukraine has battled Moscow-backed separatists since 2014. The offensive aims to encircle Ukraine's most experienced and best-equipped troops, who are deployed in the east, and to seize parts of the Donbas that remain in Ukraine's control. Airstrikes and artillery barrages make it extremely dangerous for journalists to move around in the east, hindering efforts to get a full picture of the fighting. But it appears to be a back-and-forth slog without major breakthroughs on either side. Russia has captured some Donbas villages and towns, including Rubizhne, which had a prewar population of around 55,000. Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s forces have also made progress in the east, retaking six towns or villages in the past day. In his nightly address Saturday, he said “the situation in Donbas remains very difficult” and Russian troops were “still trying to come out at least somewhat victorious.” “Step by step,” Zelenskyy the president said, “we are forcing the occupants to leave the Ukrainian land.” Kharkiv, which is near the Russian border and only 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of the Russian city of Belgorod, has undergone weeks of intense shelling. The largely Russian-speaking city with a prewar population of 1.4 million was a key military objective earlier in the war, when Moscow hoped to capture and hold major cities. READ: Ukraine opens first war crimes trial of captured Russian Ukraine “appears to have won the Battle of Kharkiv,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said. “Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from encircling, let alone seizing Kharkiv, and then expelled them from around the city, as they did to Russian forces attempting to seize Kyiv.” Regional Gov. Oleh Sinegubov said via the Telegram messaging app that there had been no shelling attacks on Kharkiv in the past day. He added that Ukraine launched a counteroffensive near Izyum, a city 125 kilometers (78 miles) south of Kharkiv that has been held by Russia since at least the beginning of April. Fighting was fierce on the Siversky Donets River near the city of Severodonetsk, where Ukraine has launched counterattacks but failed to halt Russia’s advance, said Oleh Zhdanov, an independent Ukrainian military analyst. “The fate of a large portion of the Ukrainian army is being decided — there are about 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers,” he said. However, Russian forces suffered heavy losses in a Ukrainian attack that destroyed a pontoon bridge they were using to try to cross the same river in the town of Bilohorivka, Ukrainian and British officials said. Britain’s defense ministry said Russia lost “significant armored maneuver elements” of at least one battalion tactical group in the attack. A Russian battalion tactical group consists of about 1,000 troops. The ministry said the risky river crossing was a sign of “the pressure the Russian commanders are under to make progress in their operations in eastern Ukraine.” Zelenskyy has warned of a global food crisis as Russia blockades Ukrainian grain from leaving port. The Group of Seven leading economies echoed that Saturday, saying that “Russia’s war of aggression has generated one of the most severe food and energy crises in recent history, which now threatens those most vulnerable across the globe.” Putin launched the war in Ukraine aiming to thwart NATO’s expansion in Eastern Europe. But the invasion has other countries along Russia’s flank worried they could be next, and this week the president and prime minister of Finland said they favor seeking NATO membership. Officials in Sweden are expected to announce a decision Sunday on whether to apply to join the Western military alliance. In a phone call Saturday, Putin told Finnish President Sauli Niinisto that there are no threats to Finland’s security and joining NATO would be an “error” and “negatively affect Russian-Finnish relations.” The Kremlin said the two leaders had a “frank exchange of views.” Niinisto said the discussion “was straightforward and unambiguous and was held without exaggeration. Avoiding tensions was considered important.” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said accession to NATO by Finland and Sweden would heighten security tensions in the Arctic, “turning it into an arena of military competition.” Russian energy group Inter RAO suspended deliveries of electricity to Finland on Saturday, according to a statement from the Finnish national electrical grid operator. But only around 10% of Finland’s electricity comes from Russia, and authorities did not expect shortages. The Nordic nations' potential bids were thrown into question Friday when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country is “not of a favorable opinion.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to meet his NATO counterparts, including Turkey's foreign minister, this weekend in Germany.