Ukraine
Just been listening to the UN Secretary General on the radio, he has announced that Putin has order vehicles into combat with East Ukraine but has told them to put their fire arms down and go home.
How sad this is.
Officials said more than 20 missiles were fired from the Caspian Sea in the devastating barrage which hit electrical substations (top right) close to railways and residential areas, plunging hundreds of thousands of frightened civilians into darkness. The Russian military said yesterday it had used sea and air-launched guided weapons, including Kalibr cruise missiles fired from submarines, to destroy power facilities at five railway stations across Ukraine, while artillery and aircraft also struck troop strongholds and fuel and ammunition depots. Strikes in the frontline Donbas area, where an oil depot (bottom right) was hit, killed 21, according to the governor of the eastern Donetsk region. The flurry of attacks came as Russia prepares to celebrate Victory Day on May 9, marking the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany. It is feared Putin will use the occasion to declare an 'all-out war' on Ukraine rather than what he currently calls a 'special military operation'.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last night appealed to the head of the United Nations to help 'save' the lives of the remaining wounded Ukrainians under siege at the Azovstal steel plant in the decimated city of Mariupol. He was speaking ahead of a new ceasefire in the area, starting at 6am UK time this morning, which the Kremlin said would allow civilians to be evacuated. Zelensky made his call while speaking to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres yesterday. 'The lives of the people who remain there are in danger. Everyone is important to us. We ask for your help in saving them,' Zelensky told Guterres by phone, after thanking him for the successful evacuations earlier this week led by the UN and Red Cross
A white-coloured Raptor-class patrol vessel was reportedly obliterated by a laser-guided bomb dropped from a Ukraine-operated Bayraktar TB2 drone near Snake Island in the Black Sea. The Russian leader has used such a boat with the designation 001 for fleet inspections in Sevastopol and St Petersburg. He also uses the patrol boat to deliver speeches and conduct military parades. Ukraine's navy shared drone footage of the alleged strike on their official Facebook channel, although it has not been independently verified.
[they could have waited till he was on it!]
Volodymyr Zelensky (left) urged EU leaders on Monday to put aside 'quarrels [and] internal arguments' which he said were encouraging Putin, just before the bloc failed to agree a promised ban on oil imports. Zelensky told the 27-member alliance that Russia must be made to feel 'the price for what it is doing in Ukraine' before it will 'start seeking peace', though his entreaty failed to yield the desired result - as European leaders were only able to agree an embargo on Russian oil imports by sea, which account for around 70 per cent of annual trade. Unilateral moves by Germany and Poland to ban pipeline oil will mean an effective 90 per cent embargo by the year-end, the EU said, but Hungary will still be allowed to continue importing via the Druzhba pipeline which also supplies Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Ursula von der Leyen (inset) - who had pledged a complete ban just four weeks ago - insisted the Druzhba exemption would be 'temporary', though refused to give a firm end date. The EU has already banned Russian coal imports but will continue to spend tens of billions of pound annually on natural gas (right) upon which economies such as Germany are heavily reliant.
Ukraine's southern operational command said it had 'aimed strikes with the use of various forces' on the island, causing major losses to Kremlin troops. Satellite images show the damage wrought by the defending forces, with burning vegetation and a tower destroyed in the fight for the island. The Russian Pantsir anti-aircraft system, a radar station and vehicles were all damaged in the attacks on the island which has been a major battleground throughout the war. The 100-acre outpost has proved to be a valuable strategic position, sitting some 80 miles off Ukraine's southern coastline in the Black Sea. Russia seized the island early in the war and has largely managed to maintain control of it, but its forces there have been subject to bombing raids ever since.
You WILL be executed and time is running out, Putin's men in eastern Ukraine tell condemned Brit 
Aslin, 28, was captured alongside fellow Brit Shaun Pinner by Russian forces while fighting as part of the Ukrainian army in Mariupol last month and the pair were handed a death sentence
US announces $713m for Ukraine but won't reopen Kyiv embassy yet - unlike the UK - after Blinken and Austin hold talks with Zelensky in Kyiv and hail country's strategy against Putin's war aims saying: 'Russia has already failed'
The US is proving $713million in assistance to war-ravaged Ukraine. The nation will also start its gradual returns of US diplomats to Kyiv, however the US Embassy will remain closed for now.