ATHENS, Greece — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that half a million Ukrainians have been “illegally taken to Russia, or other places, against their will.”
Speaking to Greek state TV ERT, Zelenskyy said the remaining civilians in the Azovstal factory in the city of Mariupol are afraid to board buses because they believe they will be taken to Russia.
The United Nations has begun evacuating civilians from the factory.
Zelenskyy said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres assured him that those evacuated would end up in an area controlled by the government of Ukraine.
"We want to believe this,” the Ukrainian leader said.
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WARSAW, Poland — A top-level U.S. congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in Warsaw on Monday to express gratitude to Poland for its humanitarian and other support for Ukraine.
Pelosi and a half dozen U.S. lawmakers met with President Andrzej Duda and Polish lawmakers in Warsaw. The visit followed a weekend visit to Kyiv where they met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pledging to support his country until it defeats Russia.
In a statement after the meeting with Duda, Pelosi called him “a valued partner in supporting the people of Ukraine in the face of Putin’s brutal and unprovoked war.”
She said that during their meeting the members of her delegation “expressed America’s deep gratitude to the Polish government and Polish people for opening their hearts and homes to Ukrainian refugees, and we reaffirmed our nation’s pledge to continue supporting Poland’s humanitarian efforts.”
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A Finnish nuclear energy company said Monday it has decided to terminate with immediate effect a contract with Russian state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom for the delivery of a nuclear power plant, in part due to the war in Ukraine “which has worsened the risks for the project.”
The company, Fennovoima, also cited “significant delays and inability to deliver the project” for terminating the deal to build the northern Finland Hanhikivi Nuclear Power Plant.
It was proposed to house a Russian-designed pressurized water reactor, with a capacity of 1200 MW and the nuclear power plant was to generate approximately 10% of Finland’s electricity needs, the company said.
In April 2021, the company announced that construction was to begin in 2023 and commercial operation would start in 2029.
In a statement, Fennovoimas’s CEO Joachim Specht said the decision “is estimated to have a significant employee impact in Fennovoima and is expected to impact also the supply chain companies.”
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MOSCOW — The Russian military says its forces have struck dozens of Ukrainian military targets in the east.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Monday that Russian warplanes fired precision guided missiles to hit 38 Ukrainian targets, including concentrations of troops and weapons, over the last 24 hours. He said that a Russian air strike also destroyed an ammunition depot near Chervone in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Konashenkov said that a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet was downed near the eastern town of Slovyansk.
The announcements couldn’t be independently confirmed.
In recent weeks, the Russian military has focused is efforts on Ukraine’ industrial heartland called Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014.
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KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military says that Russia has redeployed some of its forces from the port of Mariupol to join its offensive in the east.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said Monday that several Russian battalions had been sent from Mariupol to the town of Popasna in the eastern Luhansk region. Popasna has been one of the epicenters of fighting in the east as the Russian military has sought to break through the Ukrainian defenses there in a bid to encircle Ukrainian forces in the east.
The Ukrainian General Staff also said that the Russians were also trying to press their attacks from Izyum to the towns of Slovyansk and Barvinkove. Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov told The Associated Press that the redeployment of forces from Mariupol to the frontline in the east reflect their failure to make any gains there.
The Russian military is still struggling to uproot the last remaining Ukrainian pocket of resistance at the giant Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol. The U.N. is set to coordinate an effort Monday to evacuate civilians sheltering at the plant.
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KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian authorities say several civilians have been killed in the latest Russian bombardment.
The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that at least three people were killed and another three, including a child, were wounded in the eastern Luhansk region over the last 24 hours. It said that four people were wounded in the shelling in another eastern region of Donetsk.
The regional administration in the Zaporizhzhia region further west said that at least two people died and another four were wounded in the Russian shelling of the town of Orikhiv.
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BERLIN — Germany says it would be able to cope if supplies of Russian oil were cut off due to an embargo or a decision by Moscow.
Economy Minister Robert Habeck said that Russian oil now accounts for 12% of total imports, down from 35% before the war, and most of it goes to the Schwedt refinery near Berlin.
Habeck acknowledged that losing those supplies could result in a “bumpy” situation for the capital and surrounding region, with price hikes and shortages, but that wouldn’t result in Germany “slipping into an oil crisis.”
He said the issue of an oil embargo would be discussed at an EU energy ministers meeting in Brussels, attended by also India. Still, he added that “other countries aren’t so far yet and I think that needs to be respected.”
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Denmark has summoned Russia’s Ambassador in Copenhagen Monday to explain the violation by a Russian military reconnaissance plane of Danish airspace last week.
The plane, an AN-30 propeller plane, first briefly entered the Danish airspace late April 29 east of the Danish Baltic Island of Bornholm before flying into Swedish airspace.
Denmark’s Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said Monday on Twitter that it was “extremely worrying in the current situation.”
Over the weekend, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said the violation was “unacceptable” and “unprofessional.”
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BRUSSELS — European Union energy ministers are meeting later Monday to discuss Russia’s decision to cut gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland, and debate planned new sanctions over Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
The 27-nation EU has imposed five rounds of sanctions on Russian officials, oligarchs, banks, companies and other organizations since Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February.
The European Commission is working on a sixth round of measures which could include oil restrictions, but Russia-dependent countries like Hungary and Slovakia are wary of taking tough action.
The EU’s executive branch could announce new sanction proposals later this week. The measures would have to be approved by the member countries — a process that can take several days.
The energy ministers will also look at what steps to take should Russia ramp up its pressure by cutting gas supplies to other countries.
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TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel has summoned the Russian ambassador over comments made by the Russian foreign minister about Nazism and antisemitism.
In an interview with an Italian news channel, Sergey Lavrov explained that Ukraine could still have Nazi elements even if some figures, including the country’s president, were Jewish.
“Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean anything,” he said, according to an Italian translation.
In a statement Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called the remarks “unforgivable and scandalous and a horrible historical error.”
“The Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust,” Lapid said. “The lowest level of racism against Jews is to blame Jews themselves for antisemitism.”
Israel’s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem called the remarks “absurd, delusional, dangerous and deserving of condemnation.”
The stern reaction stands in contrast to Israel’s position on the war in Ukraine, where it has tried to maintain a semblance of neutrality. It relies on Russia for security coordination in Syria and has been measured in its criticism of Russia’s invasion. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has also tried mediating between the two countries, though the efforts appear to have stalled.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Denmark will become the first Nordic country to reopen its diplomatic mission in Kyiv, meaning Danes “can have a direct cooperation by having our embassy and ambassador in the heart of the Ukrainian capital,” Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said Monday.
Kofod said the improved security situation meant that Ambassador Ole Egberg Mikkelsen and his staff can return to Kyiv, where their embassy reopens Monday.
However, Kofod who had traveled to the Ukrainian capital for the reopening of the embassy, told Danish media that “this is not a normal situation” as he spoke of the overall circumstances in Ukraine. Denmark, he added, still advises against all travel to the country where there “is a fierce war.”
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ISTANBUL — Turkey’s president says the war in Ukraine shouldn’t negatively affect the tourism season.
After prayers marking the beginning of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “very sensitive” about Turkey’s need for tourism revenue and has already pledged to give his support.
Turkey suffers from skyrocketing inflation and needs tourists’ foreign currencies. Erdogan added Saudi tourists would also be arriving following his visit to Saudi Arabia last week.
In an interview with Greek state broadcaster ERT, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian tourism brought revenue to neighboring Greece and Turkey and called this “blood money.” Zelenskyy pointed to a double standard where Turkey acted as a meditator between Ukraine and Russia while preparing destinations for Russian tourists.
Erdogan said he’ll speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week to discuss speeding up evacuations from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol and to find a way for grain exports from Ukraine and Russia.
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LVIV, Ukraine — The British military believes more than a quarter of all troops Russia deployed for its war in Ukraine are now “combat ineffective.”
The comment Monday came as part of a daily briefing on Twitter the British Defense Ministry has offered about the ongoing war in Ukraine. The British military believes Russia committed over 120 so-called “battalion tactical groups” into the war since February, which represents 65% of all of Moscow’s combat strength.
The ministry said, “It is likely that more than a quarter of these units have now been rendered combat ineffective.”
Combat ineffective is a term that refers to a military’s ability to wage war. Losing soldiers to wounds and death, as well as having equipment damaged or destroyed, affects that.
The British military said that some of Russia’s most elite forces, like the VDV Airborne, “have suffered the highest levels of attrition.”
It added: “It will probably take years for Russia to reconstitute these forces.”
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KYIV, Ukraine — Sviastoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, which is helping defend the last section of Mariupol not occupied by the Russians, said he was glad evacuations had begun.
Palamar hoped the evacuations from the Azovstal steel mill continue until everyone in the plant, civilians and soldiers, had gotten out. It’s been difficult even to reach some of the wounded inside the plant, he told The Associated Press in an interview from Mariupol on Sunday.
“There’s rubble. We have no special equipment. It`s hard for soldiers to pick up slabs weighing tons only with their arms,” he said.
The Azovstal plant is strewn with mines, rockets, artillery shells and unexploded cluster ordnance, he said.
Along with the Azov regiment, Palamar said, the plant is being defended by the 36th Marine Brigade, police officers, border guards, coast guard and more. “Some of them guard the territory, some of them prevent attempted attacks, some of them are responsible for a ceasefire, some of them help to clear the rubble under shelling.”
He said the presence of children and civilians makes it harder to fight, and there are many injured people in the plant. There’s not enough water, he said, and the air smells of decomposing bodies.
The fighters in the plant will continue to resist until they receive an order not to, Palamar said.
“The best solution in this situation is our evacuation. Does it make a sense to continue carrying this massacre?” he asked.
The standoff at the steel plant saved many lives, he believes. “Because if we hadn’t done this, the front line would be much bigger. The front line would be in another area.”
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An explosive device damaged a railway bridge Sunday in the Kursk region of Russia, which borders Ukraine, and a criminal investigation has been started. The region’s government reported the blast in a post on Telegram.
Recent weeks have seen a number of fires and explosions in Russian regions near the border, including Kursk. An ammunition depot in the Belgorod region burned after explosions were heard, and authorities in the Voronezh region said an air defense system shot down a drone. An oil storage facility in Bryansk was engulfed by fire a week ago.
The explosion Sunday caused a partial collapse of the bridge near the village of Konopelka, on the Sudzha-Sosnovy Bor railway, the report from Kursk said.
“It was a sabotage, a criminal case has been opened,” said the region’s governor, Roman Starovoit, according to TASS. He said there were no casualties, and no effect on the movement of trains.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Four civilians were reported killed and 11 more were injured by Russian shelling in the Donetsk region on Sunday, the Ukrainian regional governor said that evening.
The deaths and seven of the injuries were in the northern city of Lyman, governor Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote in a Telegram post. One person also died in the city of Bakhmut from injuries received in the Luhansk region, he said.
In the same post, Kyrylenko said that it was impossible to determine the number of victims in the bombed-out port city of Mariupol and the town of Volnovakha, which is controlled by pro-Kremlin separatists.
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LVIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Moscow of waging “a war of extermination,” citing strikes against non-military targets on Sunday.
Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that Russian shelling had hit food, grain and fertilizer warehouses, and residential neighborhoods in the Kharkiv, Donbas and other regions.
“The targets they choose prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army,” he said.
He said Russia will gain nothing from the damage but will further isolate itself from the rest of the world.
“What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war?" Zelenskyy said. "Honestly, I do not know.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s president is describing his hourslong weekend meeting with U.S. 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.
Pelosi and a half dozen U.S. lawmakers met with Zelenskyy and his top aides for about three hours late Saturday to voice American solidarity with the besieged nation and get a first-hand assessment as she works to steer a massive new Ukraine aid package through Congress.
Zelenskyy says Ukrainians “are grateful to all partners who send such important and powerful signals of support by visiting our capital at such a difficult time.”
Additionally, Zelenskyy estimated that more than 350,000 people had been evacuated from combat zones thanks to humanitarian corridors pre-arranged with Moscow since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February. Many civilians were evacuated Sunday from at a steel plant in the bombed-out city of Mariupol.
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KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian military officer says that Russian forces have resumed their shelling of a steel plant in the war-torn port city Mariupol immediately after the partial evacuation of civilians.
Ukrainian National Guard brigade commander Denys Shlega said Sunday in a televised interview that the shelling began as soon as rescue crews ceased evacuating civilians at the Azovstal steel mill.
Shlega says that at least one more round of evacuations is needed to clear civilians from the plant. He says dozens of small children remain in bunkers below the industrial facilities.
The commander estimates that several hundred civilians still are trapped at the site alongside nearly 500 wounded soldiers and numerous dead bodies. The plant is the only part of the city not occupied by the Russians.
A video published earlier on Sunday by the Russian defense ministry showed people walking out of the steel plant, including a small group of women accompanied by two pet dogs.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Sunday’s evacuations from Mariupol marked the initiation of a vitally need humanitarian corridor.
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BERLIN — Germany says it’s making progress on weaning itself off Russian fossil fuels and expects to be fully independent of crude oil imports from Russia by late summer.
Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck said Sunday that Europe’s largest economy has reduced its share of Russian energy imports to 12% for oil, 8% for coal and 35% for natural gas.
Habeck says those steps mean increased costs for the economy and for consumers. But he says the changes are necessary if Germany no longer wants to be “blackmailed by Russia.”
The announcement comes as the European Union considers an embargo on Russian oil. The bloc has already decided to ban Russian coal imports starting in August.
Weaning German off Russian natural gas is a far bigger challenge. Before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Germany got more than half of its natural gas imports from Russia.
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KYIV, Ukraine — The city council in the bombed-out southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol says Monday is the scheduled start date for a broad, U.N.-backed evacuation of its civilians, other than those sheltering at a steel plant.
The city council also confirmed Sunday in a social media post on Telegram that some civilians were being evacuated Sunday from the Azovstal steelworks that is the last Ukrainian defense stronghold in Mariupol. City officials note the support of the Red Cross and say the wider evacuation of the strategic port city was delayed by security concerns.
As many as 100,000 people are believed to still be in blockaded Mariupol, including up to 1,000 civilians who were hunkered down with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters beneath the Soviet-era steel plant. The plant is the only part of the city not occupied by the Russians.
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KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian army says that a Russian offensive along a broad front in the country’s east has been stalling amid human and material losses inflicted by Kyiv’s forces.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Sunday in a Facebook post that Russian troops were trying to advance in the Sloboda, Donetsk and Tauride regions, but were being held back by Ukrainian forces that continue to fight village by village.
Separately, Ukrainian intelligence officials accused Russian forces of destroying medical infrastructure, taking equipment and denying medical care to residents in several occupied cities and towns.
In a Facebook post Sunday, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense claims that ventilators and other equipment provided since 2014 by international donors and the government of Ukraine were removed from a hospital at Starobilsk in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region.
The same post alleges that tuberculosis patients were denied medical care in the Kharkiv region at Volchansk while several facilities were used to treat wounded Russian troops.
The accuracy of the claims could not be immediately verified.
Ukrainian officials also said Sunday that internet and cellular communications were cut in a large area in the Russian-occupied Kherson region and part of the Zaporizhzhia region and blamed Russian forces. The London-based internet monitor Netblocks said the Kherson region lost 75% of internet connectivity beginning Saturday evening.