Russia-Ukraine War Highlights: UN says convoy with civilians from Mariupol steel plant evacuated

Russia-Ukraine War Highlights: The fighting between the Russian and Ukrainian forces has entered the 68th day. The invasion has killed thousands and displaced more than 13 million people in a war the scale of which has not been seen in Europe for generations.

Smoke rises from the grounds of the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol, Ukraine on Friday. (AFP)

Russia on Monday launched a fresh assault on the critical Ukrainian port of Odessa as the United States warned that Moscow was preparing formally to annex embattled regions in the east. The new heavy fighting came as the European Union said it was bracing for a complete end to Russian gas supplies, with the bloc preparing another package of sanctions sure to anger President Vladimir Putin....Read More

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• 3 May 2022, 10:54:19 PM IST

  German opposition leader meets Zelenskyy as Scholz refuses visit

  German opposition leader Friedrich Merz had an hour-long meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, amid growing tension between the governments in Berlin and Kyiv. The talk went “exceptionally well”, Merz’s spokesman later wrote on Twitter. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has made it clear that he won’t travel to the Ukraine capital after German President Frank Walter Steinmeier’s trip was canceled at the last minute by Ukraine officials two weeks ago.

• 3 May 2022, 10:52:25 PM IST

  Exhausted evacuees from Mariupol steel plant reach Ukrainian city

  Dozens of evacuees who took refuge for weeks in the bunkers of a steel works in Russian-occupied Mariupol reached the safety of Kyiv-controlled Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday, but aid workers said many still remained trapped in the port city.

• 3 May 2022, 09:56:07 PM IST

  German opposition leader visits Kyiv, Scholz refuses to go

  Germany’s conservative opposition leader traveled to Kyiv for meetings with Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as Chancellor Olaf Scholz made clear that he wouldn’t be visiting Ukraine any time soon.

  Scholz has traded barbs with Ukrainian officials in recent weeks because of Kyiv's refusal to invite Germany's head of state, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whom Ukraine accuses of cozying up to Russia during his time as foreign minister.

• 3 May 2022, 09:54:56 PM IST

  Kremlin says Putin and Macron discussed Mariupol during 2-hr call

  French President Emmanuel Macron held a two-hour call with Vladimir Putin in which he asked the Russian leader to allow evacuations to continue from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.

• 3 May 2022, 07:05:47 PM IST

  UN says stranded civilians evacuated from Mariupol steel plant

  A UN humanitarian official said it had successfully evacuated some 101 people from the Azovstal steel plant, saying that most of the evacuees were in Zaporizhzhia, where they are receiving humanitarian assistance.

• 3 May 2022, 06:46:50 PM IST

  Russian forces storm Mariupol steel plant

  Russian forces launched an offensive against the Azovstal steel plant, the last hold-out of Ukrainian forces in the battered southern port city of Mariupol, after a ceasefire that had allowed civilians to evacuate. "Using artillery and aircraft, units of the Russian army and the Donetsk People's Republic are beginning to destroy" the "firing positions" of the Ukrainian troops, the defence ministry said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies

• 3 May 2022, 06:41:00 PM IST

  Pope says he wants to go to Moscow to meet Putin over Ukraine war

  Pope Francis said in an interview that he asked for a meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to stop the war in Ukraine but had not received a reply. The pope also told Italy's Corriere Della Sera newspaper that Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has given the war his full-throated backing, "cannot become Putin's altar boy".

• 3 May 2022, 06:01:52 PM IST

  UK PM addresses Ukrainian lawmakers, promises more military aid

  Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Tuesday another £300 million ($376 million, 358 million euros) in UK military aid for Ukraine as he hailed its resistance to Russia as its "finest hour" in a remote address to parliament in Kyiv. Johnson used the speech delivered via video link, the first by a foreign leader to Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada since Russia invaded on February 24, to commend Kyiv for fighting "with the energy and courage of lions".

• 3 May 2022, 05:53:07 PM IST

  Italy PM urges 'stronger' EU that spreads east

  Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said the EU needs to emerge stronger from the historic challenges thrown up by the war in Ukraine, including by expanding eastwards. The conflict, he told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, was "a security, humanitarian, energy and economic crisis all rolled into one" that had revealed existing EU institutions to be "inadequate" in their response.

• 3 May 2022, 04:16:52 PM IST

  Nine civilians killed in Ukraine's Donetsk region

  At least nine civilians were killed by Russian fire in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

• 3 May 2022, 03:47:09 PM IST

  Putin signs decree on new retaliatory sanctions against West

  Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on retaliatory economic sanctions in response to the "unfriendly actions of certain foreign states and international organisations", the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

• 3 May 2022, 03:12:15 PM IST

  France’s Macron to speak with Putin over call

  Emmanuel Macron’s office said the French president will speak with his Russian counterpart by phone later on Tuesday in their first conversation since late March.

• 3 May 2022, 02:41:43 PM IST

  Slovakia to seek exemption from any EU embargo on Russian oil

  Slovakia will seek an exemption from any embargo of Russian oil agreed by the European Union in its next set of sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, Slovakia's economy ministry said.

• 3 May 2022, 02:39:04 PM IST

  Evacuations from Mariupol, other cities may take place today

  Evacuations from the besieged city of Mariupol, as well as other Ukrainian cities in Russian hands including Tokmak and Vasylivka, have been agreed for Tuesday, the Mariupol authorities said.

• 3 May 2022, 02:36:42 PM IST

  Pope Francis pushing for direct talks with Putin

  Pope Francis said he continues to press for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to try to broker an end to the war in Ukraine.

• 3 May 2022, 01:50:46 PM IST

  Russia says it hit logistics centre near Ukraine's Odesa used to deliver foreign weaponry

  Russian high-precision missiles have hit a logistics centre located at a military airfield near Ukraine's Odesa which was used to deliver weaponry given to Kiev by the West, the Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday as per news agency Reuters.

  "Hangars containing unmanned Bayraktar TB2 drones, as well as missile weapons and ammunition from the U.S. and European countries, were destroyed," the statement said.

  On Monday, evening governor of Odesa Maksym Marchenko said on Telegram that a rocket strike had hit the Black Sea port city on Monday evening, causing deaths and injuries.

• 3 May 2022, 12:52:34 PM IST

  UK: Russian military 'significantly weaker'

  The British military says it believes the Russian military is now “significantly weaker” after suffering losses in its war on Ukraine. The British Defense Ministry made the comment Tuesday in its daily statement on Twitter regarding the war.

  It said: “Russia’s military is now significantly weaker, both materially and conceptually, as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. Recovery from this will be exacerbated by sanctions. This will have a lasting impact on Russia’s ability to deploy conventional military force.”

  The ministry added while Russia’s defense budget has doubled from 2005 to 2018, the modernization program it undertook “has not enabled Russia to dominate Ukraine.”

  “Failures both in strategic planning and operational execution have left it unable to translate numerical strength into decisive advantage," the ministry said.

• 3 May 2022, 11:20:55 AM IST

  EU looks to Africa as potential supplier of gas

  The European Union will seek to step up cooperation with African countries to help replace imports of Russian natural gas and reduce dependence on Moscow by almost two-thirds this year, Bloomberg reported.

  Countries in Africa, in particular in the western part of the continent, such as Nigeria, Senegal, and Angola, offer largely untapped potential for liquefied natural gas, according to a draft EU document seen by Bloomberg News.

• 3 May 2022, 10:33:40 AM IST

  Boris Johnson to address Ukraine parliament

  UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will deliver an address to Ukraine's parliament - the first by a foreign leader since Russia invaded on February 24 - where he is set to hail the country's resistance as its "finest hour".

  He will also announce another 300 million pounds ($376 million, 358 million euros) in military aid for Kyiv, his office says as per news agency AFP.

• 3 May 2022, 10:11:58 AM IST

  US official: Russia plans to annex parts of eastern Ukraine

  A senior US official warned that Russia plans to annex large portions of eastern Ukraine later this month, and the Mariupol steel mill that has become the city’s last stronghold of resistance came under renewed assault a day after the first evacuation of civilians from the plant, news agency Reuters reported.

• 3 May 2022, 09:36:03 AM IST

  One teenager dead, one wounded as missile hits Ukraine's Odesa: Zelensky

   

  A 14-year-old boy was killed and a 17-year-old girl was wounded in a missile strike in the southern port of Odesa, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday as per news agency Reuters. Zelensky said the missile hit a dormitory.

• 3 May 2022, 09:23:17 AM IST

  "Question of principles, interests": Foreign Secy on India's position on Ukraine

  Addressing a press briefing at the conclusion of the first leg of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Europe visit on Monday (local time), newly appointed Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said that India's position on the ongoing war in Ukraine "amply takes care of our principles as also our interests".

  The Foreign Secretary made the remarks, in response to a question asking "what India's value space considerations are in this conflict (in Ukraine)?"

  "We have consistently right from the onset of the conflict talked about an immediate and early cessation of hostilities and the resolution path which goes through diplomacy and dialogue. I think these have been the central pillars in terms of our position which we have explained many times," Foreign Secretary Kwatra said.

• 3 May 2022, 07:41:29 AM IST

  Moscow says 1,847 children among thousands transported from Ukraine to Russia

  More than 11,500 people, including 1,847 children, were transported from Ukraine into Russia on Monday without the participation of Kyiv's authorities, Russia's defence ministry said as per news agency Reuters.

  That number includes evacuations from Russian-backed breakaway regions of Ukraine, the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's republics, which Russia recognised as independent just before launching its Feb. 24th invasion.

• 3 May 2022, 07:13:43 AM IST

  Will (and when) Biden visit Ukraine? Here’s what White House said

  Spokesperson Psaki said the White House would continue to assess the situation, and underscored the Biden administration's objective to reopen the US Embassy and have US diplomats on site. The statement from the White House comes just two days after US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday.

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• 3 May 2022, 05:45:58 AM IST

  EU prepares next Russia sanctions including oil ban

  The European Commission is expected to hit a new package of EU sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine today. It would include a ban on buying Russian oil. Exports of oil are a major source of Moscow's revenue.

  Hungary, heavily dependent on Russian oil, has repeatedly said it would not sign up to sanctions involving energy. Slovakia is also among the EU countries most reliant on Russian fossil fuels.

  To keep the 27-nation bloc united, the Commission might offer Slovakia and Hungary "an exemption or a long transition period", one of the officials said as per news agency Reuters.