UkraineWar

With Ukraine’s counter-offensive imminent or already underway, Russia launched massive drone and missile strikes on the war-torn country with air raid sirens sounding nationwide.

The United States is planning to send Ukraine around $1.2 billion in long-term military aid to help the country defend itself against a barrage of drone, rocket, and surface-to-air missile attacks from Russia, according to U.S. officials.

The boss of Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries says Moscow has agreed to his demands for more ammunition days after threatening to withdraw his men from the eastern city of Bakhmut. Sunday’s announcement came as Kyiv claimed to have shot down one of Russia’s most supersonic weapons following deadly Russian shelling and allegedly carried out attacks inside Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea, prompting nuclear threats by a former Russian deputy prime minister.

The leader of Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenaries says he will withdraw his troops from Bakhmut two long months after he claimed the capture of the eastern Ukrainian city was near.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a war crimes tribunal to prosecute Russia for alleged atrocities. Zelensky made the appeal in the Dutch city of The Hague, where he also denied being responsible for an alleged drone strike targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Moscow on Tuesday rejected a U.S. assessment of massive Russian military casualties in Ukraine but declined to give its own estimates. The United States said Monday that Russia’s military had sustained 100,000 casualties in the past five months, including tens of thousands of dead. Many soldiers are killed and injured in the battle for Bakhmut, Ukraine’s devastated eastern city that has become of symbolic importance for both sides of so far Europe’s bloodiest conflict in the 21st century.

Authorities say dozens of people have been injured in a series of Russian missile strikes at Ukrainian cities ahead of an expected counteroffensive by Ukraine’s military. The most devastating attacks hit the eastern Ukrainian town of Pavlohrad, wounding 34 people, including five children, officials said. Two women were said to be in intensive care.

The president of war-torn Ukraine said Wednesday he had held a meaningful dialogue with China’s leader after Beijing unveiled a peace plan to end the armed conflict between Kyiv and Moscow. Yet despite the talks between President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, there were no signs of peace returning to the frontline of an armed conflict in which hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and injured.

Soldier by soldier, trench by trench, street by street, Russian and Ukrainian forces enter their final bloody battle for Bakhmut, the symbolically important eastern Ukrainian city, in an otherwise devastating war. Ukrainian and Russian soldiers suffer massive casualties.

Kyiv says Russia has shelled a block of flats in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, killing nine people, including a toddler. However, Russia said later that Ukrainian forces also attacked a town in Russian-controlled Donetsk, killing at least four and injuring 10 people. The clashes have overshadowed the Orthodox Easter many in Ukraine and Russia celebrated.

More details have emerged about Western special forces inside Ukraine after Worthy News initially reported that troops from the NATO military alliance were in the wartorn nation.

Ukraine has admitted that Russia is concentrating all its efforts on capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut by Easter. The announcement came as Moscow announced that any peace talks on ending its invasion of Ukraine should focus on creating a “new world order.”

Kyiv says Russia has launched massive attacks on provinces that Moscow annexed but not yet fully controls, killing at least four people and injuring seven, including at least two children. The strikes came before Easter after authorities warned Christians not to gather in large groups.

The people in Ukraine are preparing for a sad Easter as there are no signs of a ceasefire. However, as Christian residents in Ukraine prepared to celebrate the Biblical victory over death in the resurrection of Christ on Sunday, there was a reminder that war is never far away.

The U.S. will send Ukraine about $500 million in ammunition and equipment and will spend more than $2 billion to buy an array of munitions, radar and other weapons in the future, U.S. officials said, as the Ukrainian troops prepare for a spring offensive against Russian forces.

Palm Sunday was far from peaceful in Ukraine, with Kyiv saying at least three civilians were killed and six wounded in Russian shelling of the town of Kostiantynivka. The reported destruction came as Ukrainian forces desperately tried to push back Russian forces in Ukraine’s volatile east.

European Union leaders began meeting in Brussels on Thursday to discuss Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and how to continue to support the war-torn nation, including with massive military aid.