Unauthorized use of cell phones by Russian soldiers led to a deadly Ukrainian rocket attack on the facility where they were stationed, the Russian military said late Tuesday, raising the death toll from the weekend attack to 89. Gen. Lt. Sergei Sevryukov said in a statement that phone signals allowed Kyiv’s forces to “determine the coordinates of the location of military personnel” and launch a strike. Sevryukov said unspecified measures were being taken to “prevent similar tragic incidents in the future” and promised to punish officials responsible for the infraction. Read more: Russia, shaken by Ukrainian strike, could step up drone use The attack, one of the deadliest on the Kremlin’s forces since the start of the war over 10 months ago, occurred one minute into the new year, according to Sevryukov. Ukrainian forces fired six rockets from a U.S.-provided HIMARS multiple launch system at a building “in the area of Makiivka” where the soldiers were stationed. Two rockets were downed but four hit the building and detonated, prompting the collapse of the structure. The Russian Defense Ministry initially said the strike killed 63 troops. But as emergency crews sifted through the rubble of the building, the death toll has grown to 89, Sevryukov said on Tuesday. The regiment’s deputy commander was among the dead. Other, unconfirmed reports put the death toll much higher. The Strategic Communications Directorate of Ukraine’s armed forces claimed Sunday that around 400 mobilized Russian soldiers were killed in a vocational school building in Makiivka and about 300 more were wounded. That claim couldn’t be independently verified. The Russian statement said the strike occurred “in the area of Makiivka” and didn’t mention the vocational school. Read more:  The attack marked yet another setback for the Kremlin’s bogged-down war effort in Ukraine, undermined by a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive. It stirred renewed criticism inside Russia of the way the war is being conducted. Unconfirmed reports in Russian-language media said the victims were mobilized reservists from the region.

A top adviser to Ukraine’s president has cited military chiefs as saying 10,000 to 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the country’s nine-month struggle against Russia’s invasion, a rare comment on such figures and far below estimates of Ukrainian casualties from Western leaders. Russian forces kept up rocket attacks on infrastructure and airstrikes against Ukrainian troop positions along the contact line, the Ukrainian general staff said Friday, adding that Moscow’s military push has focused on a dozen towns including Bakhmut and Avdiivka — key targets for Russia in the embattled east. Read more: EU proposes UN-backed court to investigate Russia's war crimes in Ukraine Late Thursday, Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, relayed new figures about Ukrainian soldiers killed in battle, while noting that the number of injured troops was higher and civilian casualty counts were “significant.” “We have official figures from the general staff, we have official figures from the top command, and they amount to between 10,000 and 12,500-13,000 killed,” Podolyak told Channel 24.  The Ukrainian military has not confirmed such figures and it was a rare instance of a Ukrainian official providing such a count. The last dates back to late August, when the head of the armed forces said that nearly 9,000 military personnel had been killed. In June, Podolyak said that up to 200 soldiers were dying each day, in some of the most intense fighting and bloodshed this year.  On Wednesday, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive Commission, said 100,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed before her office corrected her comments — calling them inaccurate and saying that the figure referred to both killed and injured. Last month, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that as many as 40,000 Ukrainian civilians and “well over” 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war so far. He added that it was the “same thing probably on the Ukrainian side.” Read more: Lull in Russian attacks against Ukraine energy, aid pledged The U.N. human rights office, in its latest weekly update published Monday, said it had recorded 6,655 civilians killed and 10,368 injured, but has acknowledged that its tally includes only casualties that it has confirmed and likely far understates the actual toll.  Ukrainians have been bracing for freezing winter temperatures as Russia’s campaign has recently hit infrastructure including power plants and electrical transformers, leaving many without heat, water and electricity. Ukraine has faced a blistering onslaught of Russian artillery fire and drone attacks since early October. The shelling has been especially intense in southern Kherson since Russian forces withdrew and Ukraine’s army reclaimed the southern city almost three weeks ago. Local authorities said about two-thirds of the city of Kherson had electricity as of Thursday night, after new Russian strikes had cut power that had recently been restored.

At least 11 Russian soldiers were killed Saturday in a shooting incident that underlined the challenges posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hasty mobilization, just as Ukrainian troops pressed an offensive to reclaim the areas in the country’s south that were illegally annexed by Moscow. The Russian Defense Ministry said two men opened fire at volunteer soldiers during a target practice session in western Russia, killing 11 of them and wounding 15 others before being killed themselves. The ministry called it a terror attack. Russia has lost ground in the nearly seven weeks since Ukraine’s armed forces opened their southern counteroffensive. This week, the Kremlin launched what is believed to be its largest coordinated air and missile raids on Ukraine’s key infrastructure since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. In the continuation of those attacks, a missile strike Saturday seriously damaged a key energy facility in Ukraine’s capital region, the country’s grid operator said. Following mounting setbacks, the Russian military has worked to cut off power and water in far-flung populated areas while also fending off Ukrainian counterattacks in occupied areas. In the Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said the Russian military carried out strikes with suicide drones from Iran and long-range S-300 missiles. Some experts said the Russian military’s use of the surface-to-air missiles may reflect shortages of dedicated precision weapons for hitting ground targets. Dmytro Pocishchuk, a hospital medic in the Zaporizhzhia region’s capital who has treated dozens of people wounded during Russian attacks in recent weeks, said people sought safety outdoors or in his building’s basement when the familiar blasts started at 5:15 a.m. Saturday. “If Ukraine stops, these bombings and killings will continue. We can’t give up to the Russian Federation,’” Pocishchuk said several hours later. He put a small Ukrainian flag on the broken windshield of his heavily damaged car. Kyiv region Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said the missile that hit a power facility Saturday morning didn’t kill or wound anyone. Citing security, Ukrainian officials didn’t identify the site, one of many infrastructure targets the Russian military tried to destroy after an Oct. 8 truck bomb explosion damaged the bridge that links Russia to the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Ukrainian electricity transmission company Ukrenergo said repair crews were working to restore electricity service, but warned residents about further possible outages. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, urged residents of the capital and three neighboring regions to conserve energy. “Putin may hope that by increasing the misery of the Ukrainian people, President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy may be more inclined to negotiate a settlement that allows Russia to retain some stolen territory in the east or Crimea,” said Ian Williams, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy organization based in Washington. “A quick look at history shows that the strategic bombing of civilians is an ineffective way to achieve a political aim.” This week’s wide-ranging retaliatory attacks, which included the use of self-destructing explosive drones from Iran, killed dozens of people. The strikes hit residential buildings as well as infrastructure such as power stations in Kyiv, Lviv in western Ukraine, and other cities that had seen comparatively few strikes in recent months. Putin said Friday that Moscow didn’t see a need for additional massive strikes but his military would continue selective ones. He said that of 29 targets the Russian military planned to knock out in this week’s attacks, seven weren’t damaged and would be taken out gradually. The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, interpreted Putin’s remarks as intended to counter criticism from pro-war Russian bloggers who “largely praised the resumption of strikes against Ukrainian cities, but warned that a short campaign would be ineffective.” In the southern Kherson region, one of the first areas of Ukraine to fall to Russia after the invasion and which Putin also illegally designated as Russian territory last month, Ukrainian forces pressed their counteroffensive Saturday. Kyiv’s army has reported recapturing 75 villages and towns there in the last month, but said the momentum had slowed, with the fighting settling into the sort of grueling back-and-forth that characterized Russia’s months-long offensive to conquer Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. On Saturday, Ukrainian troops attempted to advance south along the banks of the Dnieper River toward the regional capital, also named Kherson, but didn’t gain any ground, according to Kirill Stremousov, a deputy head of the occupied region’s Moscow-installed administration. “The defense lines worked, and the situation has remained under the full control of the Russian army,” he wrote on his messaging app channel. The Kremlin-backed local leaders asked civilians Thursday to leave the region to ensure their safety and to give Russian troops more maneuverability. Stremousov reminded them they could evacuate to Crimea and cities in southwestern Russia, where Moscow offered free accommodations to residents who agreed to leave. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, said the military destroyed five crossings on the Inhulets River, another route Ukraine’s fighters could take to progress toward the Kherson region. Konashenkov claimed Russian troops also blocked Ukrainian attempts to make inroads in breaching Russian defenses near Lyman, a city in the annexed Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine that the Ukrainians retook two weeks ago in a significant defeat for the Kremlin. Amid the fighting, two men from an unnamed former Soviet nation fired on volunteer soldiers during target practice at a firing range in the Belgorod region that borders Ukraine and were killed by return fire, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The shooting comes amid a mobilization ordered by Putin to beef up Russian forces in Ukraine — a hasty and poorly executed move that triggered protests and caused hundreds of thousands to flee Russia. Some of the mobilized reservists were sent to the front lines without receving proper training and equipment, according to activists and media reports. Putin said on Friday that more than 220,000 reservists already had been called up as part of an effort to recruit 300,000. To the north and east of Kherson, Russian shelling killed two civilians in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Gov. Valentyn Resnichenko said. He said the shelling of the city of Nikopol, which is located across the Dnieper from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, damaged a dozen residential buildings, several stores and a transportation facility. Fighting near the nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, has been an ongoing concern during the nearly eight-month war. The power station temporarily lost its last remaining outside electricity source twice in the past week, fueling fears the reactors could eventually overheat and cause a catastrophic radiation leak. International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi reported that such fears were somewhat eased late Friday, because Ukrainian engineers had managed after several weeks to restore backup power lines that can serve as a “buffer” in case of further war-related outages. “Working in very challenging conditions, operating staff at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant are doing everything they can to bolster its fragile offsite power situation,” Grossi said. “Restoring the backup power connection is a positive step in this regard, even though the overall nuclear safety and security situation remains precarious.”

Pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin mounted on the battlefield and in the halls of global power as Ukrainian troops pushed their counteroffensive Saturday to advance farther into Ukraine's partly recaptured northeast. Western officials and analysts said Russian forces were apparently setting up a new defensive line in Ukraine’s northeast after the counteroffensive punched through the previous one, allowing Kyiv’s soldiers to recapture large swaths of land in the northeastern Kharkiv region that borders Russia. Putin, at a high-level summit in Uzbekistan this week, vowed to press his attack on Ukraine despite the recent military setbacks but also faced concerns by India and China over the drawn-out conflict. “I know that today’s era is not of war," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the Russian leader in televised comments as they met Friday in Uzbekistan. “We discussed this with you on the phone several times, that democracy and dialogue touch the entire world.” At the same summit a day earlier, Putin acknowledged China's unspecified “questions and concerns” about the war in Ukraine while thanking President Xi Jinping for Beijing's “balanced position” on the conflict. The hurried retreat of Russian troops this month from parts of a northeast region they occupied early in the war, together with the rare public reservations expressed by key allies, underscored the challenges that Putin faces on all fronts. Both China and India have maintained strong ties with Russia and had sought to remain neutral on Ukraine. Xi, in a statement, expressed support for Russia’s “core interests” but also wanted to work together to “inject stability” into world affairs. Modi said he wanted to discuss “how we can move forward on the path of peace," adding that the biggest concerns facing the world are the problems of food security, fuel security and fertilizers. "We must find some way out and you too must contribute to that,” Modi stressed in a rare public rebuke. The comments cast a shadow over a summit that Putin had hoped would burnish his diplomatic status and show he was not so internationally isolated. On the battlefield, Britain's Defense Ministry said the new front line likely was between the Oskil River and Svatove, 150 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. After Russian troops retreated from the city of Izium, Ukrainian authorities discovered a mass grave site, one of the largest found so far. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that there were more than 440 graves at the location containing the bodies of hundreds of civilian adults and children, as well as soldiers, and that some had been tortured, shot or killed by artillery shelling. He cited evidence of atrocities, such as a body with a rope around its neck and broken arms. “Torture was a widespread practice in the occupied territory. That’s what the Nazis did. That’s what (the Russians) do,” Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly video address. “We will establish the identity of all those who tortured, who mocked, who brought this atrocity from Russia here to Ukrainian soil.” Ukrainian forces, in the meantime, were crossing the Oskil River in the Kharkiv region and have placed artillery there, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Saturday. The river, which flows south from Russia into Ukraine, had been a natural break in the newly emerged front lines since Ukraine launched its counteroffensive about a week ago. “Russian forces are likely too weak to prevent further Ukrainian advances along the entire Oskil River,” the institute said. Videos circulating online indicated that Ukrainian forces were continuing to retake land in the country's embattled east, although their veracity could not be independently verified. One showed a Ukrainian soldier walking past a damaged building and then pointing at a colleague hanging the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag over a mobile phone tower. The soldier identified the seized village as Dibrova, just northeast of the city of Sloviansk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Another video showed two Ukrainian soldiers in what appeared to be a bell tower, with one saying they had retaken the village of Shchurove, also northeast of Sloviansk. The Ukrainian military and Russia did not comment on the two villages. Elsewhere, Russian forces continued pounding cities and villages with missile strikes and shelling. A Russian missile attack early Saturday started a fire in Kharkiv's industrial area, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Firefighters extinguished the blaze. Syniehubov said remnants suggested the Russians fired S-300 surface-to-air missiles at the city. The S-300 is designed for striking missiles or aircraft in the sky, not targets on the ground. Analysts say Russia’s use of the missiles suggest they may be running out of some precision munitions. Shelling of the nearby city of Chuhuiv later in the day killed an 11-year-old girl, Syniehubov reported. In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, a large part of which is occupied by Russian forces, one person was wounded in shelling of the city of Orikhiv, the region's Ukrainian governor, Oleksandr Starukh, reported on Telegram. He said Russian troops also shelled two villages in the region, destroying several civilian facilities. Explosions were also reported in Russian-occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia. Russian-installed official Vladimir Rogov said on Telegram that at least five blasts were heard in the city of Melitopol. The city's Ukrainian mayor, Ivan Fedorov, said they were in a village south of the city, where the Russian troops had relocated some military equipment. Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region also came under Russian fire overnight, according to its governor, Valentyn Reznichenko. “The enemy attacked six times and launched more than 90 deadly projectiles on peaceful cities and villages,” he said. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s atomic energy operator, Energoatom, said a convoy of 25 trucks had brought diesel and other critical supplies to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe's largest — which was shut down a week ago amid fears that nearby fighting could result in a radiation disaster. The trucks were allowed through Russian checkpoints Friday to deliver spare parts for repairs of damaged power lines, chemicals for the operation of the plant and additional fuel for backup diesel generators, Energoatom said. The six-reactor plant was captured by Russian forces in March but is operated by Ukrainian engineers. Its last reactor was switched off Sunday after repeated power failures due to shelling put crucial safety systems at risk. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Saturday that one of the nuclear plant’s four main external power lines had been repaired. The Russian military accused Ukraine of renewed artillery shelling of the power plant. Ukrainian authorities did not immediately address the claim. In Russia, one person was killed and two others wounded Saturday by shelling, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Russian border region of Belgorod. Gladkov blamed Ukraine. The claim could not be verified.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has already killed some 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers since it began nearly six months ago, a general said, and the fighting Monday showed no signs that the war is abating. At a veteran's event, Ukraine’s military chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said many of Ukraine’s children need to be taken care of because “their father went to the front line and, perhaps, is one of those almost 9,000 heroes who died.” In Nikopol, across the river from Ukraine's main nuclear power plant, Russian shelling wounded four people Monday, an official said. The city on the Dnieper River has faced relentless pounding since July 12 that has damaged 850 buildings and sent about half its population of 100,000 fleeing. “I feel hate towards Russians,” said 74-year-old Liudmyla Shyshkina, standing on the edge of her destroyed fourth-floor apartment in Nikopol that no longer has walls. She is still injured from the Aug. 10 blast that killed her 81-year-old husband, Anatoliy. “The Second World War didn’t take away my father, but the Russian war did,” noted Pavlo Shyshkin, his son. Also read: UN: US buying big Ukraine grain shipment for hungry regions The U.N. says 5,587 civilians have been killed and 7,890 wounded in the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began on Feb. 24, although the estimate is likely an undercount. The U.N. children’s agency said Monday that at least 972 Ukrainian children have been killed or injured since Russia invaded. UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said these are U.N.-verified figures but “we believe the number to be much higher.” U.S. President Joe Biden and the leaders of Britain, France and Germany pleaded Sunday for Russia to end military operations so close to the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant — Europe's largest — but Nikopol came under fire three times overnight from rockets and mortar shells. Houses, a kindergarten, a bus station and stores were hit, authorities said. There are widespread fears that continued shelling and fighting in the area could lead to a nuclear catastrophe. Russia has asked for an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to discuss the situation — a move “the audacity” of which Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decried in his evening video address. “The total number of different Russian cruise missiles that Russia used against us is approaching 3,500. It is simply impossible to count the strikes of Russian artillery; there are so many of them, and they are so intense," Zelensky said Monday. Western nations had already scheduled a council meeting on Wednesday -- the six-month anniversary of the Russian invasion -- on its impact on Ukraine. Vladimir Rogov, an official with the Russia-installed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, claimed that because of shelling from Ukraine, staffing at the nuclear plant had been cut sharply. Ukrainians say Russia is storing weapons at the plant and has blocked off areas to Ukrainian nuclear workers. Monday's announcement of the scope of Ukraine's military dead stands in sharp contrast to Russia's military, which last gave an update on March 25 when it said 1,351 Russian troops were killed during the first month of fighting. U.S. military officials estimated two weeks ago that Russia has lost between 70,000 to 80,000 soldiers, both killed and wounded in action. On Monday though, Moscow turned its attention to one specific civilian death. Russia blamed Ukrainian spy agencies for the weekend car bombing on the outskirts of Moscow that killed the daughter of a far-right Russian nationalist who ardently supports the invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main successor to the KGB, said Monday the killing was “prepared and perpetrated by the Ukrainian special services.” It charged that the bombing that killed 29-year-old TV commentator Darya Dugina, whose father, political theorist Alexander Dugin, is often referred to as “Putin’s brain," was carried out by a Ukrainian citizen who left Russia for Estonia quickly afterward. Ukrainian officials have vehemently denied any involvement in the car bombing. Estonian officials say Russia has not asked them to look for the alleged bomber or even spoken to them about the bombing. Also read: Doctors stay in Ukraine’s war-hit towns: ‘People need us’ On the front lines, the Ukraine military said it carried out a strike on a key bridge over the Dnieper River in the Russian-occupied Kherson region. Local Russia-installed officials said the strike killed two people Monday and wounded 16 others. Photos on social media showed thick plumes of smoke rising over the Antonivskiy Bridge, an important supply route for the Russian military in Kherson. On the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, anxiety has been spreading following a spate of fires and explosions at Russian facilities over the past two weeks. The Russian-backed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, ordered that signs showing the location of bomb shelters be placed in the city, which had long seemed untouchable. Razvozhaev said on Telegram the city is well-protected but “it is better to know where the shelters are.” Sevastopol, the Crimean port that is the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, has seen a series of drone attacks. A drone exploded at the fleet’s headquarters on July 31, and another was shot down over it last week. Authorities said air-defense systems have shot down other drones as well. On Monday evening, Sevastopol residents reported hearing loud explosions on social media. Razvozhaev said the air-defense system had shot down “an object ... at high altitude." “Preliminary (conclusion) is that it is, again, a drone,” he wrote on Telegram. Russian President Vladimir Putin didn't directly mention the war during a speech Monday marking National Flag Day but echoed some of the justifications cited for the invasion. "We are firm in pursuing in the international arena only those policies that meet the fundamental interests of the motherland,” Putin said. He maintains that Russia sent troops into Ukraine to protect its people against the encroaching West.

Russian and Ukrainian troops traded blows in fierce close-quarter combat Sunday in an eastern Ukrainian city as Moscow’s soldiers, supported by intense shelling, attempted to gain a strategic foothold to conquer the region. Ukraine's leader also made a rare frontline visit to Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, to assess the strength of the national defense. In the east, Russian forces stormed Sievierodonetsk after trying unsuccessfully to encircle the strategic city, Ukrainian officials said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the situation there as “indescribably difficult,” with a relentless Russian artillery barrage destroying critical infrastructure and damaging 90% of the buildings. Also read:'Now I am a beggar': Fleeing the Russian advance in Ukraine “Capturing Sievierodonetsk is a principal task for the occupation force,” Zelensky said, adding that the Russians don’t care about casualties. The city's mayor said the fighting had knocked out power and cellphone service and forced a humanitarian relief center to shut down because of the dangers. The deteriorating conditions raised fears that Sieverodonetsk could become the next Mariupol, a city on the Sea of Azov that spent nearly three months under Russian siege before the last Ukrainian fighters surrendered. Sievierodonetsk, located 143 kilometers (89 miles) south of the Russian border, has emerged in recent days as the epicenter of Moscow's quest to capture all of Ukraine's eastern industrial Donbas region. Russia also stepped up its efforts to capture the nearby city of Lysychansk, where civilians rushed to escape persistent shelling. The two eastern cities span the strategically important Siverskiy Donetsk River. They are the last major areas under Ukrainian control in Luhansk province, which makes up the Donbas together with the adjacent Donetsk region. Zelenskyy, meanwhile, visited soldiers in Kharkiv, where Ukrainian fighters pushed Russian forces back from nearby positions several weeks ago. "I feel boundless pride in our defenders. Every day, risking their lives, they fight for Ukraine’s freedom,” Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app after the visit. Russia has kept up its bombardment of the northeastern city from afar, and explosions could be heard shortly after Zelenskyy's visit. Shelling and airstrikes have destroyed more than 2,000 apartment buildings in the city since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, according to the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov. In a video address later Sunday, Zelenskyy praised Kharkiv regional officials but said he had fired the regional head of the country’s top security agency, the SBU, for his poor performance. In the wider Kharkiv region, Russian troops still held about one-third of the territory, Zelenskyy said. After failing to seize Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, Russia is focused on occupying parts of Donbas not already controlled by pro-Moscow separatists. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told French TF1 television Sunday that Moscow's "unconditional priority is the liberation of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions," adding that Russia sees them as "independent states.” He also suggested other regions of Ukraine should be able to establish close ties with Russia. In Luhansk, constant Russian shelling has created what provincial governor Serhiy Haidai called a “severe situation.” “There are fatalities and wounded people,” he wrote on Telegram. On Saturday, he said, one civilian died and four were injured after a Russian shell hit a high-rise apartment building. But some Luhansk supply and evacuation routes functioned Sunday, he said. He claimed the Russians had retreated “with losses” around a village near Sievierodonetsk but conducted airstrikes on another nearby river village. Civilians who reached the eastern city of Pokrovsk, 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Lysychansk, said they held out as long as they could before fleeing the Russian advance. Also read:Russia takes small cities, aims to widen east Ukraine battle Yana Skakova choked back tears as she described leaving with her 18-month and 4-year-old sons while her husband stayed behind to take care of their house and animals. The family was among 18 people who lived in a basement for the past 2 1/2 months until police told them Friday it was time to evacuate. “None of us wanted to leave our native city,” she said. “But for the sake of these small children, we decided to leave.” Oksana, 74, who was too afraid to give her surname, was evacuated from Lysychansk by a team of foreign volunteers along with her 86-year-old husband. “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.” Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Striuk said there was fighting at the city’s bus station on Saturday. Residents remaining in the city, which had a prewar population of around 100,000, risked exposure to shelling just to get water from a half-dozen wells, and there was no electricity or cellphone service. Striuk estimates that 1,500 civilians in the city have died since the war began, from Russian attacks as well as from a lack of medicine or treatment. The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, questioned the Kremlin’s strategy of assembling a huge military effort to take Sieverodonetsk, saying it was proving costly for Russia and would bring few returns. “When the battle of Sieverodonetsk ends, regardless of which side holds the city, the Russian offensive at the operational and strategic levels will likely have culminated, giving Ukraine the chance to restart its operational-level counteroffensives to push Russian forces back,” the institute said late Saturday. In Mariupol on Sunday, an aide to its Ukrainian mayor alleged that after Russia's forces gained complete control of the city, they piled the bodies of dead people inside a supermarket. The aide, Petro Andryushchenko, posted a photo on the Telegram messaging app of what he described as a “corpse dump” in the occupied city. It showed bodies stacked alongside closed supermarket counters. “Here, the Russians bring the bodies of the dead, which were washed out of their graves during attempts to restore the water supply, and partially exhumed. They just dump them like garbage,” he wrote. It was not immediately possible to verify his claim. Regions across Ukraine were pummeled overnight by renewed Russian airstrikes. On the ground in the eastern Donetsk region, fighters battled back and forth for control of villages and cities. The Ukrainian army reported heavy fighting around Donetsk, the provincial capital, as well as Lyman to the north, a small city that serves as a key rail hub in the Donetsk region. Moscow claimed Saturday to have taken Lyman, but Ukrainian authorities said their fighters remained engaged in combat in parts of the city. “The enemy is reinforcing its units,” the Ukrainian armed forces’ General Staff said. “It is trying to gain a foothold in the area.”

The fate of hundreds of Ukrainian fighters who surrendered after holding out against punishing attacks on Mariupol’s steel factory hung in the balance Thursday, amid international fears that the Russians may take reprisals against the prisoners. The International Committee of the Red Cross gathered personal information from hundreds of the soldiers — name, date of birth, closest relative — and registered them as prisoners of war, as part of its role in ensuring the humane treatment of POWs under the Geneva Conventions. Also read:Battle for Mariupol draws toward close after surrender Amnesty International said in a tweet that the Ukrainian soldiers are now prisoners of war and as such “must not be subjected to any form of torture or ill-treatment.” More than 1,700 defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol have surrendered since Monday, Russian authorities said, in what appeared to be the final stage in the nearly three-month siege of the now-pulverized port city. At least some of the fighters were taken by the Russians to a former penal colony in territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. Others were hospitalized, according to a separatist official. But an undisclosed number remained in the warren of bunkers and tunnels in the sprawling plant. In a brief video message, the deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, which led the defense of the steel mill, said he and other fighters were still inside. “An operation is underway, the details of which I will not announce,” Svyatoslav Palamar said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was working to ensure “that the most influential international forces are informed and, as much as possible, involved in saving our troops.” While Ukraine expressed hope for a prisoner exchange, Russian authorities have threatened to investigate some of the Azovstal fighters for war crimes and put them on trial, branding them “Nazis” and criminals. The Azov Regiment’s far-right origins have been seized on by the Kremlin as part of an effort to cast Russia’s invasion as a battle against Nazi influence in Ukraine. Meanwhile, in the first war crimes trial held by Ukraine, a captured Russian soldier testified that he shot an unarmed civilian in the head on an officer’s orders, and he asked the victim’s widow to forgive him. The soldier pleaded guilty earlier in the week, but prosecutors presented the evidence against him in line with Ukrainian law. In the Poltava region, two other Russian soldiers appeared in court Thursday on war-crimes charges that they shelled civilians. Prosecutors said both pleaded guilty. The next court session in their case was set for May 26. Also, more U.S. aid appeared to be on its way to Ukraine when the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $40 billion package of military and economic aid for the country and its allies. The House voted for it last week. President Joe Biden’s quick signature was certain. “Help is on the way, really significant help. Help that could make sure that the Ukrainians are victorious,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Taking the Azovstal steel plant would allow Russia to claim complete control of Mariupol and secure a long-sought victory. But it would be a mostly symbolic victory at this point, since the city is already effectively in Moscow’s hands and analysts say most of the Russian forces that were tied down by the battle there have already left. Kyiv’s troops, bolstered by Western weapons, thwarted Russia’s initial goal of storming the capital, Kyiv, and have put up stiff resistance against Moscow’s forces in the Donbas, the eastern industrial region that President Vladimir Putin has set his sights on capturing. The surprising success of Ukraine’s troops has buoyed Kyiv’s confidence. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who was involved in several rounds of talks with Russia, said in a tweet addressed to Moscow: “Do not offer us a cease-fire — this is impossible without total Russian troops withdrawal.” “Until Russia is ready to fully liberate occupied territories, our negotiating team is weapons, sanctions and money,” he wrote. Russia, though, again signaled its intent to incorporate or at least maintain influence over areas its troops have seized. Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin this week visited the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, large parts of which have been under the control of Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began in February. He was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying the regions could become part of “our Russian family.” Also, Volodymyr Saldo, the Kremlin-installed head of the Kherson region, appeared in a video on Telegram saying Kherson “will become a subject of the Russian Federation.” In other developments, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke by phone on Thursday with his Russian counterpart for the first time since the war began, and they agreed to keep the lines of communications open, the Pentagon said. On the battlefield, Ukraine’s military said Russian forces pressed their offensive in various sections of the front in the Donbas but were being repelled. The governor of the Luhansk region said Russian shelling killed four civilians, while separatist authorities in Donetsk said Ukrainian shelling killed two. Also read:Interrogation, uncertainty for surrendering Mariupol troops Zelenskyy said 12 people were killed and dozens more wounded in the city of Severodonetsk, and attacks on the northeastern Chernihiv region included a severe strike on the village of Desna, where many more died and rescuers were still going through the rubble. On the Russian side of the border, the governor of Kursk province said a truck driver was killed by shelling from Ukraine. At the war crimes trial in Kyiv, Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old member of a Russian tank unit, told the court that he shot Oleksandr Shelipov, a 62-year-old Ukrainian civilian, in the head on orders from an officer. Shishimarin said he disobeyed a first order but felt he had no choice but to comply when it was repeated by another officer. He said he was told the man could pinpoint the troops’ location to Ukrainian forces. A prosecutor has disputed that Shishimarin was acting under orders, saying the direction didn’t come from a direct commander. Shishimarin apologized to the victim’s widow, Kateryna Shelipova, who described seeing her husband being shot just outside their home in the early days of Russia’s invasion. She told the court that she believes Shishimarin deserves a life sentence, the maximum possible, but that she wouldn’t mind if he were exchanged as part of a swap for the Azovstal defenders.

Ukrainian troops are finding brutalized bodies and widespread destruction in suburbs of the capital as Russian soldiers withdraw and Moscow focuses its attacks elsewhere, including missile strikes Sunday that targeted fuel and ammunition supplies in southern and eastern Ukraine. Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a small city northwest of Kyiv, saw the bodies of at least nine people in civilian clothes who appeared to have been killed at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs. The AP also saw two bodies wrapped in plastic, bound with tape and thrown into a ditch. Authorities said they were documenting evidence as Ukraine's military reclaims territory and discovers indications of execution-style slayings to add to their case for for prosecuting Russian officials for war crimes. Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said scores of killed civilians were found on the streets of Bucha and the Kyiv suburbs of Irpin and Hostomel in what looked like a “scene from a horror movie.” Arestovych said some people were shot in the head and had their hands bound, and some bodies showed signs of torture, rape and burning. Also read: Ukraine's Odesa comes under airstrike The capital city's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said civilians were “shot with joined hands” and told German newspaper Bild that “what happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide.” A day earlier, AP journalists witnessed Ukrainian soldiers gingerly removing at least six bodies from a street in Bucha with cables in case the Russians had booby-trapped corpses with explosives before their withdrawal. Local residents said the dead people were civilians killed without provocation, a claim that could not be independently verified. Klitschko called on other nations to immediately end Russian gas imports, saying they were funding the invasion of Ukraine, now in its 39th day. “Not a penny should go to Russia anymore. That's bloody money used to slaughter people. The gas and oil embargo must come immediately,” the mayor said. Charles Michel, president of the European Council, wrote on Twitter that he was shocked by the “haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army" in the capital region. The EU and non-governmental organizations were assisting in the effort to preserve evidence of war crimes, according to Michel, who promised “further EU sanctions” against Russia. On Sunday morning, Russian forces launched an airstrike on the Black Sea port of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, sending up clouds of dark smoke that veiled parts of the city. The Russian military said the targets were an oil processing plant and fuel depots around Odesa, which is Ukraine's largest port and home to its navy. "I live in that eight-floor building. At six in the morning, Russia launched an attack, and this piece of rock reached my house,” said Maiesienko Ilia, who lives near one of the targeted facilities. The Odesa city council said Ukraine’s air defense shot down some missiles before they hit the city. Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Nazarov said there were no casualties from the attack. The smaller port of Mariupol, located to the east on the Sea of Azov, remained cut off from the rest of the country as Russian and Ukrainian soldiers fought for control of the besieged city. About 100,000 civilians -less than a quarter of the prewar population of 430,000 - are believed to be trapped there with little or no food, water, fuel and medicine, The International Committee of the Red Cross said it hoped a team of nine staffers and three vehicles it sent Saturday to help evacuate residents would reach Mariupol on Sunday but cautioned, "The situation on the ground is volatile and subject to rapid changes.” Ukrainian authorities said Russia agreed days ago to allow safe passage from the city, which has been the site of some of the worst attacks and greatest suffering, but similar agreements have broken down repeatedly under continued shelling. Mariupol is in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years. Its capture would create an unbroken land corridor from Russia to Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014. With Mariupol squarely in Russia’s crosshairs, Ukraine insisted it had gained a leg up elsewhere in the country. As his country's troops retook territory north of the capital of Kyiv from departing Russian troops, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on all Ukrainians to do whatever they could "to foil the enemy’s tactics and weaken its capabilities.” Also read: Zelenskyy: Troops shell retreating Russians “Peace will not be the result of any decisions the enemy makes somewhere in Moscow. There is no need to entertain empty hopes that they will simply leave our land. We can only have peace by fighting,” Zelenskyy said late Saturday. Zelenskyy and Ukraine's Western allies believe Russia has shifted its forces from the capital region and the country's north in order to build strength in the east and south. The Ukrainian leader again urged the West to supply his military with warplanes and more anti-missile systems. "Every Russian missile that hits our cities and every bomb dropped on our people, on our children, only adds black paint to the history that will describe everyone on whom the decision depended - the decision of whether to help Ukraine with modern weapons,” Zelenskyy said. While the geography of the battlefield morphed, little changed for many Ukrainians more than five weeks into a war that has sent more than 4 million people fleeing the country as refugees and displaced millions more from their homes. The regional governor in Kharkiv, said Sunday that Russian artillery and tanks performed over 20 strikes on Ukraine’s second-largest city and its outskirts in the country's northeast over the past day. Gov. Oleh Synyehubov said a missile strike on the city of Lozovo wounded four people and that Russian tanks bombarded a hospital in the town of Balakliia. Zelenskyy alleged Saturday that Russian troops have left mines around homes, abandoned equipment and even the bodies of the dead as they withdraw from around Kyiv. Those claims could not be independently verified, but Ukrainian troops were seen heeding the warning. In towns and cities surrounding Kyiv, signs of fierce fighting were everywhere in the wake of the Russian redeployment. Destroyed armored vehicles from both armies lay in streets and fields along with scattered military gear. Ukrainian troops were stationed at the entrance to Antonov Airport in the suburb of Hostomel, demonstrating control of the runway that Russia tried to storm in the first days of the war. Inside the compound, the Mriya, one of the biggest planes ever built, lay wrecked underneath a hangar pockmarked with holes from the February attack. The head of Ukraine’s delegation in talks with Russia said Moscow’s negotiators informally agreed to most of a draft proposal discussed during face-to-face talks in Istanbul this week, but no written confirmation has been provided. The Ukrainian negotiator, Davyd Arakhamia said on Ukrainian TV that he hoped the was developed enough so that the two countries’ presidents can meet to discuss it. But the top Russian negotiator in talks with Ukraine, Vladimir Medinksy, was quoted by Interfax as saying that it’s too early to talk about a meeting between the two leaders. Ukrainian authorities warned that Russia's focus on eastern Ukraine did not mean Kyiv and other cities wouldn't become targets again. In his evening address Saturday, Zelenskyy called for his people to do whatever they can to ensure the country’s survival, even by engaging in acts as simple as showing each other kindness. “When a nation is defending itself in a war of annihilation, when it is a question of life or death of millions, there are no unimportant things. ... And everyone can contribute to a victory for all,” the president said.

Outgunned but determined Ukrainian troops slowed Russia’s advance and held onto the capital and other key cities — at least for now. In the face of stiff resistance and devastating sanctions, President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear forces put on high alert, threatening to elevate the war to a terrifying new level. Explosions and gunfire that have disrupted life since the invasion began last week appeared to subside around Kyiv overnight, as Ukrainian and Russian delegations prepared to meet Monday on Ukraine’s border with Belarus. It's unclear what, if anything, those talks would yield. Terrified Ukrainian families huddled in shelters, basements or corridors, waiting to find out. Exact death tolls are unclear, but Ukraine’s president says at least 16 children have been killed and another 45 wounded, among hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other casualties. Millions have fled homes or the country all together. Russia's Central Bank scrambled to shore up the tanking ruble Monday and the U.S. and European countries upped weapons shipments to Ukraine. While they hope to curb Putin’s aggression after he unleashed Europe's biggest conflict since World War II, the measures also risked pushing an increasingly cornered Putin closer to the edge. Also read: 16 children killed, 45 injured in Ukraine: President Zelenskyy “I sit and pray for these negotiations to end successfully, so that they reach an agreement to end the slaughter, and so there is no more war," said Alexandra Mikhailova, weeping as she clutched her cat in a makeshift shelter in the strategic southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Around her, parents sought to console children and keep them warm. The relative lull in warfare Monday morning in Ukraine was unlikely to last. Neighboring Belarus could send troops to help Russia as soon as Monday, according to a senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of current U.S. intelligence assessments. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. U.S. officials say they believe the invasion has been more difficult, and slower, than the Kremlin envisioned, though that could change as Moscow adapts. The British Defense Ministry said Monday that the bulk of Putin’s forces are about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Kyiv, their advance having been slowed by Ukrainian forces. Also read: Ukraine says Kiev still under control Western nations ramped up the pressure with a freeze on Russia’s hard currency reserves, threatening to bring Russia’s economy to its knees. Russians withdrew savings and sought to shed rubles for dollars and euros, while Russian businesses scrambled to protect their finances. In addition to sanctions, the U.S. and Germany announced they will send Stinger missiles to Ukraine among other military supplies. The European Union — founded to ensure peace on the continent after World War II — is supplying lethal aid for the first time, including fighter jets. EU defense ministers were to meet Monday to discuss how to get the pledged weaponry into Ukraine. Germany’s defense minister said without elaborating that her country has “channels and possibilities” to do that, and a trainload of Czech equipment arrived Sunday. Blocking off those shipments will clearly be a key Russian priority. It remains to be seen how much the weaponry will help Ukraine fend off Russia’s vastly greater arsenal. The increasingly erratic Putin made a clear link between ever-tightening sanctions and his decision Sunday to raise Russia’s nuclear posture. He also pointed at “aggressive statements” by NATO as a reason for his move, a reference to his long-running stance that the U.S.-led alliance is an existential threat to Russia. U.S. and British officials played down Putin’s nuclear threat, and its practical meaning was not immediately clear. Russia and the United States typically have land- and submarine-based nuclear forces that are prepared for combat at all times, but nuclear-capable bombers and other aircraft are not. A tiny sliver of hope emerged as a Ukrainian delegation arrived on the border with Belarus for talks with Russian officials Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said it would demand an immediate cease-fire. While Ukraine sent its defense minister and other top officials, the Russian delegation is led by Putin's adviser on culture — an unlikely envoy for ending the war and a sign of how Moscow views the talks. It wasn’t immediately clear what Putin is seeking in the talks or from the war itself. Western officials believe Putin wants to overthrow Ukraine’s government and replace it with a regime of his own, reviving Moscow’s Cold War-era influence. His comments Sunday raised fears that the invasion of Ukraine could lead to nuclear war, whether by design or mistake. In New York, the 193-member U.N. General Assembly scheduled an emergency session Monday on Russia’s invasion. With the Ukrainian capital besieged, the Russian military offered to allow residents to leave Kyiv via a safe corridor, raising fears a further onslaught is coming. The mayor of the city of nearly 3 million had earlier expressed doubt that civilians could be evacuated. Authorities have been handing out weapons to anyone willing to defend the city. Ukraine is also releasing prisoners with military experience who want to fight, and training people to make firebombs. Battles also broke out in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, and strategic ports in the country's south came under assault from Russian forces. Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of Azov, is “hanging on,” said Zelenskyy adviser Oleksiy Arestovich. The Russian military claimed Monday it had taken full control of Ukraine’s airspace after showering its air bases and air defense batteries with air and missile strikes. But a similar claim on the first day of the invasion turned out to be untrue, and U.S. officials said Sunday that Moscow has failed to fully control Ukrainian skies. In Mariupol, where Ukrainians were trying to fend off attack, a medical team at a city hospital desperately tried to revive a 6-year-old girl in unicorn pajamas who was mortally wounded in Russian shelling. During the rescue attempt, a doctor in blue medical scrubs, pumping oxygen into the girl, looked directly into the Associated Press video camera capturing the scene. “Show this to Putin," he said angrily. “The eyes of this child, and crying doctors." Their resuscitation efforts failed, and the girl lay dead on a gurney, covered by her blood-splattered jacket. Nearly 900 kilometers (560 miles) away, Faina Bystritska was under threat in the city of Chernihiv. “I wish I had never lived to see this,” said Bystritska, an 87-year-old Jewish survivor of World War II. She said sirens blare almost constantly in the city, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Kyiv. Among Western sanctions is a freeze on Russia's hard currency reserves, which Putin had built up in recent years to increase the country's economic independence. The unprecedented move could have devastating consequences for the country's financial system. The U.S., European Union and Britain also agreed to block selected Russian banks from the SWIFT system, which facilitates moving money around thousands of banks and other financial institutions worldwide.