Russian strikes battered cities across Ukraine yesterday, killing 25 people including five children, as Kyiv said preparations for a counter-offensive against Moscow’s forces were nearly complete.

The early-morning attacks were carried out as Kyiv prepares to launch a counteroffensive to try to retake Russian-occupied territory

A Russian court yesterday fined the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, two million roubles ($24,510) for not deleting what it said was “banned content” related to the Russian military, Interfax reported.

The Kremlin yesterday said it welcomed any attempt to end the Ukrainian conflict, on Moscow’s terms, a day after the leaders of China and Ukraine had their first call since the offensive.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet repelled a drone attack on the Crimean port of Sevastopol in the early hours of yesterday, the Moscow-installed governor of the city said through social media.

The United States will host a meeting in Germany on Friday to discuss further support for Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelensky pushed Western allies to send more fighter jets and long-range missiles.

US reporter Evan Gershkovich appeared at a court hearing partly open to the press today for the first time since his arrest for espionage, an AFP reporter in the courtroom saw..Gershkovich wore a checkered shirt, crossed his arms and smiled before the start of the hearing in Moscow, which

Ukrainian and Russian armed forces are fighting extraordinarily bloody battles in the smashed eastern city of Bakhmut, but pro-Kyiv forces are still holding on, Ukraine’s military said yesterday.

Ukraine compared Russia to Islamic State yesterday, after a video emerged online showing apparent Russian soldiers filming themselves beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war (POW) with a knife.

Russian forces pounded frontline cities in eastern Ukraine with air strikes and artillery attacks, while US officials stepped up efforts to locate the source of a leak of classified US documents, including those on Ukrainian counter-offensive plans.

Russian forces are pressing attacks in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, focusing on two cities and pounding Ukrainian positions with air strikes and artillery barrages, Kyiv said yesterday.

A 50-year-old man and his 11-year-old daughter were killed after Russian missiles struck a house in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, officials said yesterday.

More than 30 children were reunited with their families in Ukraine this weekend after a long operation to bring them back home from Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea, where they had been taken from areas occupied by Russian forces during the war

Russia or pro-Russian elements are likely behind the leak of several classified US military documents posted on social media that offer a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, three US officials told Reuters on Friday.

Thirty-one children have been brought back to Ukraine after being illegally taken to Russia from territories occupied by Moscow, a charity said yesterday.

Russian Federal Security Service investigators have formally charged Evan Gershkovich with espionage but the Wall Street Journal reporter denied the charges and said he was working as a journalist, domestic news agencies said on Friday..Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on March

Russian forces have very likely seized the centre of the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine and are threatening a key supply route for Ukrainian forces to the west, British intelligence said yesterday.

French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to reason with close ally Russia and help end the Ukraine war, while Xi responded by saying he hoped the two sides could hold peace negotiations as soon as possible.

A total of 17 countries, including Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, abstained from voting on a UN resolution for the extension of the mandate of the investigation into possible war crimes committed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday thanked Poland for its “historic” help in rallying Western support for Ukraine during a visit to Warsaw and said Ukrainian troops were still fighting for Bakhmut in the east but could withdraw if they risked being cut off.