Highlights: Over 100 civilians leave bombed-out Mariupol steel plant in Ukraine, while several remain

More than 100 civilians, including elderly women and mothers with small kids, left the bombed-out steel plant in Mariupol, The Associated Press reported on Monday. They left on the place on buses on Sunday.

A rocket strike hit the Black Sea port city of Odesa in southwestern Ukraine on Monday evening, local governor, Maksym Marchenko, said on the Telegram messaging app. Multiple deaths and injuries are expected to have happened due to the attack, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, Ukraine's public broadcaster Suspilne quoted the southern military command as saying that the strike had damaged a religious building.

European Union ministers met Monday to respond to Russia cutting gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria -- and discuss plans for a possible oil embargo to punish Moscow for invading Ukraine, AFP reported.

Efforts to evacuate more civilians from the devastated Ukrainian port city of Mariupol ran into delays on Monday and hundreds of people remained trapped in the Azovstal steel works, the last stronghold of resistance to the Russian siege, Reuters reported.

Kyiv said Monday that its drones sank two Russian patrol boats near the Black Sea's Snake Island where Ukrainian soldiers rebuffed Moscow's demands to surrender at the start of its invasion, AFP reported.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says his Russian counterpart's recent remarks about Adolf Hitler and Jews demonstrate “the deeply-rooted antisemitism of the Russian elites.”

People fleeing besieged Mariupol described weeks of bombardments and deprivations as they arrived Monday in Ukrainian-held territory, where relief workers awaited the first group of civilians freed from a steel plant that is last redoubt of Ukrainian fighters in the devastated port city.

A Russian rocket strike hit a strategically important bridge across the Dniester estuary in the Odesa region of southwest Ukraine on Monday, local authorities said, Reuters reported.

The Ukrainian authorities say several civilians have been killed in the latest Russian bombardment, AP reported.

Ukrainian civilians holed up inside a steel plant in Mariupol under siege by Russian forces nearly two months began evacuating over the weekend and people sheltering elsewhere in the city were to leave Monday, local officials said, AP reported.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic lawmakers met Zelenskyy in a previously unannounced visit to Kyiv to express ongoing support for the war effort and a push by Congress to finalize a $33 billion aid package.

Jill Biden will spend Mother's Day meeting with Ukrainian mothers and children who fled for their lives after Russian President Vladimir Putin opened war against Ukraine, the White House announced late Sunday.

On social media, the “Ghost of Kyiv” was a military hero, an ace fighter pilot hailed for supposedly shooting down multiple Russian planes. The tales began just days into the war and circulated for months, bolstered by official Ukrainian accounts. But on Saturday, Ukrainian authorities admitted that the legendary pilot was a myth. Read More

Russia is not looking to end its war in Ukraine by Victory Day on May 9, its foreign minister said, as the country looks set to mark the key anniversary under the cloud of a deadly conflict, AFP reported. Speaking with Italian outlet Mediaset, Sergei Lavrov insisted Moscow would not rush to wrap up its so-called "special military operation" in time for the anniversary, which celebrates Nazi Germany's surrender to allied forces -- including the then Soviet Union -- in 1945.

Ukraine's president described his hourslong weekend meeting with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Kyiv as a powerful signal of support in a difficult time. In a televised address on Sunday evening, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his meeting with Pelosi included discussions of defense supplies to Ukraine, financial support and sanctions against Russia.

Russia is not ready to relent just yet to the pressure from the West on ending the Ukraine war, and the latest remarks from the country’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday made it clear. Moscow has developed ‘ultrasonic weapons’ to counter a possible attack from the West, he was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters while he simultaneously downplayed the threat of a nuclear war. Full report

The United Nations has said that Russian blockade prevented export of 4.5 million tons of Ukrainian wheat, the Kyiv Independent reported. As a result of Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports, sea routes cannot be accessed to export Ukrainian grains.

Energy ministers from European Union countries hold emergency talks on Monday, as the bloc strives for a united response to Moscow's demand that European buyers pay for Russian gas in roubles or face their supply being cut off, Reuters reported. Full report