(KYIV, Ukraine) — Jalal Noory, an Afghan refugee in Ukraine who serves in the Ukrainian armed forces, defended the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv from being captured by Russian troops at the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. Noory and his fellow soldiers succeeded, repelling all Russian attacks on the capital.
A Ukrainian citizen since 2005, Noory first went to the frontline in 2014 as a volunteer following Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the Donbas region. Noory said he was called to the front by a sense of patriotism.
“I simply could not stay away,” he added.
“I wanted to share my combat experience with my Ukrainian comrades,” Noory said, adding that “war is part of every Afghan’s nature.”
Noory was born in Afghanistan in the mid 1970s. He still recalls the Soviet invasion of his native country in 1979.
“I remember the Soviet army crossing through my city when I was a child. We bought cigarettes and gave them to the Soviet soldiers. They gave us bullets in return to play with,” Noory said.
The conflict morphed into a full-scale war that lasted 10 years and cost the Soviets around 15,000 troops, according to official estimates. More than 3,000 men lost in the war were from Ukraine.
Up to two million Afghan civilians died in the fighting — or about 10% of Afghanistan’s population in 1979. Millions of others became refugees, including Noory.
Russian military tactics witnessed today in Ukraine are identical to those used in Afghanistan, Noory said.
“At the time, the Russians claimed their Afghan friends were calling for help. Just like now in Ukraine,” he said.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February this year under the pretext of protecting the Russian speaking population in the country, among other justifications proclaimed by Russian officials as the invasion unfolded.
“But it’s a lie. I’ve lived in Ukraine for 23 years and I’ve only spoken Russian. I never had a problem with the language,” Noory said.
Frightening and terrorizing the civilian population is another staple of Russian warfare that stood the test of time, according to Noory.
“Absolutely nothing has changed. They are hiding behind women, children, houses, and villages. They destroy them by rockets, bombs and tanks,” he said.
Noory, having grown up in the middle of a war, absorbed military knowledge from his early childhood. But after fleeing to Ukraine in 1999, he led a peaceful life.
Noory became a successful athlete, winning several titles in martial arts competitions. He also got married and had children.
Yet he did not hesitate for a second when Russia invaded Ukraine both in 2014 and this year.
“Someone must stop the Russians. Now it is the Ukrainians, but Poland or Lithuania could be next,” Noory said.
Noory said he did not only fight for his life, family, friends, or Ukraine. He’s protecting something much bigger, he added.
“I fight for every human. Not just an Afghan, Ukrainian or American, but for every human,” he said.
The most important thing in life is freedom, Noory said.
“If you don’t have freedom, you have nothing. So I must be free and my children have to be free,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — A report released Tuesday by Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee says that China targeted the Federal Reserve for nearly 10 years, working to recruit and influence employees in an effort to obtain information and monetary benefit and to influence U.S. monetary policy.
The report zeroes in on what it describes as Chinese efforts to recruit American talent using programs that targeted individuals at the Fed — offering job prospects, academic positions and economic and research opportunities in an effort to gain access to sensitive data and information.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell refuted many aspects of the report. In a letter on Monday to Sen. Rob Portman, the committee’s ranking Republican, Powell wrote that he had “strong concerns” about the findings, including allegations that the Fed had failed to work with law enforcement to ward off outside influence.
The report’s conclusions are based off of counterintelligence data from the Fed and detail a variety of actions by the central banking system’s employees that the report describes as putting the institution at risk. It identifies 13 persons of interest, representing eight regional Fed banks, who have connections to known Chinese talent recruiters or “similar patterns of activity.”
The report details the interactions that some of these individuals had with China’s government — some of which were aggressive on the part of the Chinese.
In one series of events, the report says, a Fed employee was detained on four separate occasions during a trip to Shanghai in 2019. Chinese officials threatened the employee’s family, tapped their electronics and tried to force them to sign a letter stating they would not discuss the interactions, according to the report.
Another employee provided modeling code to a Chinese university with ties to a Chinese talent recruitment agency.
Still another individual, with “continuous contacts with Chinese nationals and universities,” tried twice to transfer Fed data to an external site.
One of the reasons Fed employees were vulnerable, the report asserts, is due to China “taking advantage” of America’s openness to participating in academic and research-based work.
Republicans on the Senate committee said the Fed remains poorly positioned to counter such overtures from China, citing a “lack of internal counterintelligence competency” at the bank and failure to sufficiently cooperate with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The result, the report says, is an institution unable to identify threats quickly or to investigate potential efforts by China to recruit U.S. talent.
Powell, the Fed chairman, pushed back in his letter.
“We value our interactions with the law enforcement community and would not hesitate to refer a matter to them or otherwise seek their counsel where appropriate. We would be concerned about any supportable allegation of wrongdoing, whatever the source,” he wrote to Portman. “In contrast, we are deeply troubled by what we believe to be the report’s unfair, unsubstantiated and unverified insinuations about particular individual staff members.”
Portman, who previously led investigations of China’s recruiting efforts in the tech and science fields, urged the Fed to “do more” to protect itself.
“I am concerned by the threat to the Fed and hope our investigation, which is based on the Fed’s own documents and corresponds with assessments and recommendations made by the FBI, wakes the Fed up to the broad threat from China to our monetary policy,” he said in a statement. “The risk is clear, I urge the Fed to do more, working with the FBI, to counter this threat from one of our foremost foreign adversaries.”
Powell insisted the Fed was already being proactive.
“Because we understand that some actors aim to exploit any vulnerabilities, our processes, controls and technology are robust and updated regularly,” he wrote. “We respectfully reject any suggestions to the contrary.”
But the report recommends that Congress act to institute safeguards for federally funded research at the Fed and other academic institutions. Portman is leading an effort to include these protections in a soon-to-pass bill on science and microchips.
(NEW YORK) — Pope Francis offered a long-sought apology to the Indigenous community in Canada on Monday over the Catholic church’s role in the generational abuse they suffered at Indigenous residential schools for nearly 150 years.
The schools were operated for decades by churches and the federal government of Canada to force assimilation.
“I am here because the first step of my penitential pilgrimage among you is that of again asking forgiveness, of telling you once more that I am deeply sorry,” Francis said. “Sorry for the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the Indigenous peoples.”
“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” he added.
Beginning in the 1800s, thousands of Indigenous children from Canada were taken from their homes and families and placed into so-called residential schools aimed at ridding the children from ties to their Native communities, language and culture. Some of the schools were run by the Catholic church, where missionaries participated in the policies of forced assimilation and abuse.
Upon his arrival in Edmonton, the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta, Pope Francis was greeted on Sunday at the airport by First Nations, Metis and Inuit leaders, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mary Simon, who is Canada’s first Indigenous governor general.
Francis met with residential school survivors on Monday near the site of a former residential school in Maskwacis in central Alberta.
Francis said that an apology is only a “starting point” and acknowledged that some in the Indigenous community have called for further action to address the injustice of the boarding school legacy.
“Dear brothers and sisters, many of you and your representatives have stated that begging pardon is not the end of the matter. I fully agree: that is only the first step, the starting point,” Francis said. “An important part of this process will be to conduct a serious investigation into the facts of what took place in the past and to assist the survivors of the residential schools to experience healing from the traumas they suffered.”
Chief Tony Alexis of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, who had called for Pope Francis to deliver an in-person apology on behalf of the church, told ABC News’ Marcus Moore that Francis’ visit is “a validation of what has happened with the church and how they’ve hurt and abused our people.”
Ahead of his historic seven-day trip to Canada, Pope Francis asked for prayers to accompany him on what he called a “penitential pilgrimage” and offered an apology to Native communities for the Catholic church’s role in the abuse.
“Unfortunately, in Canada, many Christians, including some members of religious institutions, contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation, that, in the past, gravely damaged, in various ways, the Native communities,” Francis said in a July 17 address delivered from the Apostolic Palace to the public in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, according to The Associated Press.
“For this reason, recently, at the Vatican, I received several groups, representatives of Indigenous peoples, to whom I manifested by sorrow and my solidarity for the evil they have suffered,″ Francis added.
According to a 2015 report released by Canada’s National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous residential schools were an integral part of the Canadian government’s “conscious policy of cultural genocide,” where children were disconnected from their families, punished for speaking their Native languages and some faced physical and sexual abuse.
“The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources. If every Aboriginal person had been ‘absorbed into the body politic,’ there would be no reserves, no Treaties, and no Aboriginal rights,” according to the report.
Reflecting on the generational trauma that was inflicted on Indigenous communities, Alexis recalled a conversation with a survivor who told him, “The only thing I learned in the residential school was how to hate myself.”
The pope’s visit comes a year after nearly 1,000 sets of human remains were found at the cemetery of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan in western Canada and at the former St. Eugene’s Mission School for Indigenous children in Aqam, a community in British Colombia. It is unclear how many total students died at residential boarding schools and what their causes of death were.
After the graves were discovered in Canada, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Native American to hold a Cabinet position — launched a probe in June 2021 into the U.S. government’s own role in funding Indian boarding schools as part of an effort to dispossess Indigenous people of their land to expand the United States.
The probe’s initial findings were outlined in a May report that found more than 500 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died over the course of 150 years in Indigenous boarding schools run by the American government and churches.
Native Nations scholars estimate that almost 40,000 children have died at Indigenous boarding schools. According to the federal report, the Interior Department “expects that continued investigation will reveal the approximate number of Indian children who died at Federal Indian boarding schools to be in the thousands or tens of thousands.”
Haaland, whose grandparents attended Indian boarding schools, now oversees the government agency that historically played a major role in the forced relocation and oppression of Indigenous people and said that her work is a chance to bring some healing to the community.
“I have a great obligation, but I was taught by my mother and my grandfather and my grandmother that when you are asked to do something for your people that you step up,” Haaland told “Nightline” in an interview earlier this year.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou, Kiara Alfonseca and Tenzin Shakya contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Pope Francis is set to deliver a long-sought apology to the Indigenous community in Canada over the Catholic church’s role in the generational abuse they suffered at Indigenous residential schools for nearly 150 years.
The schools were operated for decades by churches and the federal government of Canada to force assimilation.
Beginning in the 1800s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children from Canada and the United States were taken from their homes and families and placed into so-called residential schools aimed at ridding the children from ties to their Native communities, language and culture. Some of the schools were run by the Catholic church, where missionaries participated in the policies of forced assimilation and abuse.
Upon his arrival in Edmonton, the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta, Pope Francis was greeted on Sunday at the airport by First Nations, Metis and Inuit leaders, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mary Simon, who is Canada’s first Indigenous governor general.
“[Pope Francis] is visiting Canada to deliver the Roman Catholic Church’s apology to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Survivors and their descendants – for its role in operating residential schools, and for causing pain and suffering that continues to this very day,” Trudeau tweeted on Sunday.
Francis is set to meet with residential school survivors on Monday near the site of a former residential school in Maskwacis in central Alberta, where he is expected to pray and deliver an apology.
“Dear brothers and sisters of [Canada], I come among you to meet the indigenous peoples. I hope, with God’s grace, that my penitential pilgrimage might contribute to the journey of reconciliation already undertaken. Please accompany me with [prayer],” Francis tweeted on Sunday.
Chief Tony Alexis of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, who had called for Pope Francis to deliver an in-person apology on behalf of the church, told ABC News’ Marcus Moore that Francis’ visit is “a validation of what has happened with the church and how they’ve hurt and abused our people.”
Ahead of his historic seven-day trip to Canada, Pope Francis asked for prayers to accompany him on what he called a “penitential pilgrimage” and offered an apology to Native communities for the Catholic church’s role in the abuse.
According to a 2015 report released by Canada’s National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous residential schools were an integral part of the Canadian government’s “conscious policy of cultural genocide,” where children were disconnected from their families, punished for speaking their Native languages and some faced physical and sexual abuse.
“The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources. If every Aboriginal person had been ‘absorbed into the body politic,’ there would be no reserves, no Treaties, and no Aboriginal rights,” according to the report.
Reflecting on the generational trauma that was inflicted on Indigenous communities, Alexis recalled a conversation with a survivor who told him, “The only thing I learned in the residential school was how to hate myself.”
The pope’s visit comes a year after nearly 1,000 sets of human remains were found at the cemetery of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan in western Canada and at the former St. Eugene’s Mission School for Indigenous children in Aqam, a community in British Colombia. It is unclear how many total students died at residential boarding schools and what their causes of death were.
After the graves were discovered in Canada, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Native American to hold a Cabinet position — launched a probe in June 2021 into the U.S. government’s own role in funding Indian boarding schools as part of an effort to dispossess Indigenous people of their land to expand the United States.
The probe’s initial findings were outlined in a May report that found more than 500 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died over the course of 150 years in Indigenous boarding schools run by the American government and churches.
Native Nations scholars estimate that almost 40,000 children have died at Indigenous boarding schools. According to the federal report, the Interior Department “expects that continued investigation will reveal the approximate number of Indian children who died at Federal Indian boarding schools to be in the thousands or tens of thousands.”
Haaland, whose grandparents attended Indian boarding schools, now oversees the government agency that historically played a major role in the forced relocation and oppression of Indigenous people and said that her work is a chance to bring some healing to the community.
“I have a great obligation, but I was taught by my mother and my grandfather and my grandmother that when you are asked to do something for your people that you step up,” Haaland told ABC’s Nightline in an interview earlier this year.
(LONDON) — Prince Harry has scored an early victory in his legal battle to ensure he and his family are protected by security when they are in the U.K.
A judge in London ruled Friday that the uke of Sussex’s case can go to the High Court in London, meaning Harry, sixth in line to the British throne, will face off with the Home Office, which oversees immigration and security, in court.
Harry is fighting back against a 2020 decision by the government that denied his family police protection while in Britain after he and his wife Meghan, the duchess of Sussex, stepped down from roles as senior working roles.
At the time, the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures made a decision that security would be granted on a case-by-case basis.
Harry, who now lives in California with Meghan and their children Archie and Lilibet, has said he wants police protection for his family while on British soil and is willing to pay for the cost himself.
“He says that since birth, he’s been born into a world that requires a level security,” said Omid Scobie, ABC News royal contributor and the author of Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of A Modern Royal Family. “Not just to keep himself safe, but also his extended family, the people he marries, the children he has.”
Harry has only returned to the U.K. a handful of times since moving in 2020.
He and Meghan made their first joint return to the U.K. in April, where they met briefly with Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, on their way to the Invictus Games.
The couple then returned with their children in June to celebrate the queen’s Platinum Jubilee, their first known trip to the U.K. as a family of four.
Archie, 3, was born in the U.K. but had not traveled back publicly with his parents since they moved to California in 2020.
Lilibet was born last June in Santa Barbara, California, making her the first senior royal baby born in the U.S., and the first great-grandchild of the queen to be born outside of the U.K.
Since moving to California, the Sussexes have relied on a privately-funded security team, but Harry’s legal team has said they hope to expand that soon.
The family’s current security situation is similar to that of Harry’s late mother Princess Diana who had to rely on private security protection after her divorce from Harry’s father Prince Charles in 1996.
One year later, in 1997, Diana died in a car crash in Paris after the car she was riding in was pursued by paparazzi.
“When Diana died, she didn’t have police protection. She had a private security team at that point,” said Victoria Murphy, ABC News royal contributor. “And I think it’s very clear that Prince Harry feels that the police protection is superior and that that is what he wants for his family.”
(NEW YORK) — An eruption of the Sakurajima volcano in Japan has raised emergency alerts of their highest levels and prompted evacuations for residents nearby.
The volcano, located in Japan’s southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima on the western island of Kyushu, erupted at 8:05 p.m. local time on Sunday, according to Japan’s Meteorological Agency.
The emergency alert in the region has been raised to level 5, the highest, and evacuations were ordered for residents living within a 2-mile range of the crater, including parts of Arimura-cho, Furusato-cho and Kagoshima City, where about 600,000 people live.
The volcano is still “very active,” and windows can break due to the vibrations from the continuous explosions and falling debris, including large rocks and ash, according to the agency.
The ash and smaller rocks can also be carried on by winds, NHK, the Japan Broadcast Corporation and a partner of ABC News, reported.
Frequent explosive activity has been occurring at Sakurajima for centuries, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. There has been persistent activity at the Minamidake summit cone and crater since 1955, and the Showa crater has also been intermittently active since 2006.
Activity decreased significantly in May 2021 and throughout the rest of the year, when the number of monthly explosions and ash emissions were both much lower compared with the first half of the year, according to the Smithsonian.
A task force has been set up at the prime minister’s office, which has called up a team of officials from various agencies to assess the extent of the emergency, NHK reported.
Additional information on the severity of the eruption was not immediately available.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — At least 17 people believed to be Haitian migrants were killed early Sunday when an alleged human-smuggling speedboat they were on capsized in the Bahamas, authorities said.
Another 25 aboard the vessel were rescued and a search was continuing Sunday afternoon for others still unaccounted for, Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis said at a news conference.
Davis said there were about 60 people on the boat when it capsized. He said the vessel’s destination was Miami.
The Royal Bahamas Defense Force responded to calls of the capsized boat around 1:30 a.m., officials said. Search and rescue crews found the vessel about seven miles off the coast of New Providence, the most populated island in the Bahamas, authorities said.
Davis said the passengers aboard the boat are believed to be Haitian migrants. The vessel capsized along a popular route for Haitian migrants attempting to enter the United States.
Bahamian Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander said two people suspected of being human smugglers were taken into custody.
“We take this opportunity to strongly condemn the organization of smuggling operations, which risk human life and compromise our national security,” Davis said, “Those found to be involved will face prosecution.”
Fernander said a preliminary investigation suggests the twin-engine speedboat left a docking facility in New Providence around 1 a.m. and capsized a short time later.
He said one passenger was found alive under the boat’s hull and officials believe he survived by finding an air pocket.
The Royal Bahamas Defense Force released a photo showing the hull of the capsized vessel partially sticking out of the water.
The cause of the incident is under investigation. It was unclear if anyone aboard the vessel was wearing a life jacket.
The tragedy comes after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and the Miami-Dade Police Department intercepted a sailboat on Thursday packed with 150 migrants that ran aground in Boca Chita Key near Key Biscayne and the Biscayne National Park, officials said. Authorities said several children were among those rescued.
U.S. Coast Guard crews also responded to the incident in Boca Chita Key and passed out life jackets to the migrants before they were transferred to cutters and those needing treatment were taken to Homestead Hospital, according to the Coast Guard.
Since October, the U.S. Coast Guard reports it has intercepted and returned more than 6,100 Haitian migrants attempting to reach the United States.
In January, 34 Haitian migrants died when a human smuggling boat they were on capsized in the Straits of Florida. The only person to survive was found clinging to the vessel’s hull, the Coast Guard said in a statement. The survivor, according to the Coast Guard, told investigators that no one on the overturned vessel was wearing a life jacket.
Many Haitian migrants have fled their country due to the devastating impacts of natural disasters and political instability that have resulted in economic struggles.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jul 24, 5:18 PM EDT
Russian missiles destroy schools in Donetsk region
Russian forces launched a series of missile strikes on Sunday that destroyed two schools in the Donetsk region of Ukraine and damaged a kindergarten in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, according to local officials.
No one was reported injured when missiles hit schools in Kostyantynivka and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, according to Donetsk region Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. Officials said that a kindergarten in Novo Dmytrivka in the Kharkiv region was also damaged.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Russian forces also launched three Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea targeting the Khmelnytskyi region of western Ukraine. All three missiles were shot down before reaching targets, the defense ministry said.
Several powerful explosions were heard in Mykolaiv near the Black Sea in southern Ukraine and in Melitopol in southeastern Ukraine Saturday night. More explosions were heard in Mykolaiv Sunday morning, officials said.
The mayor of Melitopol posted photos on Telegram showing damage to railroad tracks in his city.
Oleksandr Sienkevych, the mayor of Mykolaiv, said in a statement that officials were collecting information on the explosions and conducting a damage assessment. According to the preliminary data, Sienkevych said there were no casualties.
-ABC News Christine Theodorou
Jul 24, 11:13 AM EDT
Russia missile strike on Odesa jeopardizes agreement to lift grain blockade
Russia’s missile strike on the Ukrainian port of Odesa Saturday cast doubt on its commitment to a U.N.-backed agreement to lift the blockade that has trapped millions of tons of grain in Ukraine and has led to a global hunger crisis.
Ukrainian officials said they still hope the deal will continue and that ships are scheduled to begin leaving next week.
Vyacheslav, a Ukrainian farmer, told ABC News Sunday that his grain harvest from last year is still being held in storage and he showed ABC News 250 tons of it sitting in a pile across from this year’s crop.
Vyacheslav said he witnessed Saturday’s missile strike from his fields as he was harvesting. Part of his land contains trenches dug by Ukraine’s military in preparation for an attack.
He said the missile strike made him skeptical of Russia following through on the agreement to lift the grain embargo.
“Russia will only start to agree once we punch it in the teeth,” Vyacheslav said.
For now, he said he doesn’t know when his grain will move. Even if the deal does hold, he’s unsure that it will solve the problem for Ukraine’s farmers since price speculation, he said, is making it unprofitable for him to move it.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Jul 23, 10:51 AM EDT
2 Americans killed in eastern Ukraine
Two Americans thought to have been fighting for Ukraine have died in the eastern reach of the country, according to officials.
“We can confirm the recent deaths of two U.S. citizens in the Donbas region of Ukraine,” a State Department spokesperson said. “We are in touch with the families and providing all possible consular assistance.”
One of the Americans killed has been identified as Luke Lucyszyn, his mother confirmed to ABC News.
-ABC News Shannon Crawford, Patrick Reevell and Rashid Haddou
Jul 23, 10:11 AM EDT
Russian missile strikes Odesa port, after grain deal to let ships leave
A Russian missile struck the Ukrainian port of Odesa on Saturday, just one day after Russia signed an agreement to allow grain ships to begin leaving the port.
The deal between Russia and Ukraine was mediated by Turkey and the United Nations. Fears of a global famine loomed as Russian ships had imposed a blockade on Ukraine exporting grain.
“It took less than 24 hours for the Russian Federation to launch a missile strike on the territory of the city of Odesa to question the agreement and promises made by it to the UN and Turkey in the document signed yesterday in Istanbul,” the Ukrainian Embassy of Turkey said in a statement. “The Russian rocket is a spit of Vladimir Putin in the face of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who made a huge effort to reach the deal, and to which Ukraine is grateful.”
The embassy added: “Ukraine stresses the need for persistent implementation of agreements to restore safe export of Ukrainian agricultural goods by the Black Sea from three ports: Odessa, Black Sea and South.”
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell and Rashid Haddou
Jul 22, 3:12 PM EDT
Biden administration making ‘preliminary explorations’ into sending fighter jets
The Biden administration announced a new $270 million weapons package for Ukraine, which includes more HIMARS and drones. The administration is also in the very early stages of considering whether to send Ukraine fighter jets to counter Russia’s military, John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications at the White House, said Friday
Kirby stressed that this is “not going to be something that they’re going to be able to execute immediately or even in the short term,” because these are advanced U.S. aircrafts and not ex-Soviet aircrafts.
“You’ve got to think about things like training, sustainment, maintenance that these aircraft would be required, you know, spare parts. There’s a whole supply chain that goes with keeping any airframe in the air and all that has to be factored in,” he said.
For now, Kirby said, the U.S. will continue to provide weapons and equipment through security packages like the new one announced Friday.
This package includes four more HIMARS advanced rocket systems, additional ammunition for those systems, anti-armor systems, vehicles and 36,000 rounds of artillery ammunition to go with the howitzers Ukrainians are using.
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Jul 22, 11:12 AM EDT
Both nations sign agreement to end blockade on Ukraine grain
Russia and Ukraine have signed agreements to restart grain exports from Ukraine, said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
The agreement between the two countries was mediated with Turkey and the United Nations.
The blockade on exporting grain from Ukraine had triggered fears of global famine.
The agreement “opens a path for commercial food exports from Ukraine in the Black Sea. It will help avoid a food shortage catastrophe for millions worldwide,” Guterres tweeted. “It is a beacon of hope, possibility & relief.”
The deal will allow for the transport of grain from three Ukrainian ports. Under the deal Ukraine will not de-mine its ports; instead there will be safe channels for cargo ships to sail through.
The agreement lasts for 120 days with the possibility of an extension.
According to Russian media, in exchange for agreeing to sign the deal, Russia received a guarantee from the U.N. to work on lifting sanctions on Russian agricultural and fertilizer exports.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Jul 22, 10:33 AM EDT
Russia signs agreement to end blockade on Ukraine grain
Russia has signed an agreement to restart grain exports from Ukraine, according to Russia’s defense ministry. Ukraine is expected to sign a separate but identical agreement.
The blockade on exporting grain from Ukraine had triggered fears of global famine.
The agreement between the two countries was mediated with Turkey and the United Nations.
Jul 20, 11:42 AM EDT
Zelenska shares photos of killed civilians in her address to Congress
Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska spoke to members of Congress on Capitol Hill Wednesday, saying, “Usually the wives of president are exclusively engaged in peaceful affairs: education, human rights, equality, accessibility. And maybe you expected for me to speak on those topics. But how can I talk about them when an unprovoked invasive terrorist war is being waged against my country?”
Zelenska said this marks the first time the wife of a president of a foreign county addressed members of Congress on the Hill.
Zelenska showed members of Congress several images and stories of carnage impacting civilians, including a photo of 4-year-old Liza who was killed by a Russian missile attack last week.
Liza’s mother was seriously hurt, and “for several days, nobody dared to tell her that Liza has died,” Zelenska said.
She highlighted an Odesa family who lost three generations of women to one missile, and a 96-year-old who survived Nazi concentration camps only to be killed in Kharkiv.
The first lady asked Congress to supply more air defense systems.
“Will my son be able to return to school in the fall? I don’t know, like millions of mothers in Ukraine. Will my daughter will be able to go to university at the beginning of the academic year and experience normal student life? I cannot answer,” she said. “We will have answers if we had air defense systems.”
“America, unfortunately, knows from its own experience what terrorist attacks are and has always sought to defeat terrorists. Help us to stop this terror against Ukrainians,” she said.
Zelenska received a standing ovation after her remarks.
Jul 20, 9:05 AM EDT
US announces four new HIMARS and more ammo for Ukraine
The U.S. will send four more HIMARS advanced rocket systems to Ukraine as part of the new presidential drawdown package coming later this week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Wednesday.
Once these four long-range rocket artillery systems arrive, Ukraine will have a total of 16 HIMARS at its disposal.
Austin said these advanced rocket systems “have made such a difference on the battlefield.”
The new package will also include more ammunition for the HIMARS and for the 155 mm artillery weapons the U.S. and other countries have sent to Ukraine, Austin said at the fourth Ukraine defense contact group meeting, with leaders from roughly 50 nations in virtual attendance.
Austin praised the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland in particular for helping Ukraine boost its ability to hit faraway targets.
Jul 19, 2:28 PM EDT
Ukrainian first lady visits White House
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden greeted Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska at the White House Tuesday afternoon.
Zelenska was presented with a bouquet of flowers in Ukrainian colors: yellow sunflowers, blue hydrangeas and white orchids.
Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., arrived with Zelenska.
Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff then held a bilateral meeting with the Ukrainian delegation. Jill Biden said they’ll discuss mental health issues for mothers and children who have “suffered such tragedy and the atrocities” during the war.
Zelenska will address Congress on Wednesday.
-ABC News’ John Parkinson
Jul 19, 8:25 AM EDT
US weapons help stabilize frontline, Ukrainian official says
Ukrainian forces have “stabilized” the situation along the frontline in the eastern and south-eastern regions of the country, in large part thanks to U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers, the Ukrainian military said on Monday.
“We managed to stabilize the situation. It is complex, intense, but completely controlled,” Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said.
An important factor contributing to Ukraine’s retention of its defensive lines and positions is the timely arrival of U.S. supplied M142 HIMARS — High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — rocket launchers, Zaluzhny added. These highly precise and modern weapons have been delivering “targeted strikes” on Russian “control points, ammunition and fuel storage depots,” the top commander added.
Ukrainian troops struck a Russian military facility in the area of an asphalt plant in the eastern town of Nova Kakhovka on Monday, Ukrainian military officials said. Ukrainian forces also hit an administrative building and a hangar filled with Russian fuel tankers in the southern town of Beryslav, killing more than 100 Russian soldiers, the Ukrainian military said on Monday.
Russian forces shelled the town of Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region about 40 times on Monday night, local authorities said. Explosions were also reported in the Odesa region, injuring several civilians. Russian troops also fired cluster shells at the city of Mykolaiv late on Monday.
Russia’s stated immediate objective is to seize all of the Donetsk region, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday. Even if Russian troops make further territorial gains, the tempo of their advance is likely to be very slow, the ministry added.
Russian units, severely under-manned, face a dilemma between deploying more forces to the Donbas or defending against Ukrainian counter-attacks in the Kherson area, the observers said.
Jul 18, 4:20 PM EDT
Ukraine’s first lady to meet with Jill Biden
Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska will meet with first lady Jill Biden in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Biden’s office said, one day before Zelenska addresses Congress.
Jul 18, 1:45 PM EDT
Ukraine’s first lady to address Congress on Wednesday
Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska will make remarks Wednesday before members of Congress on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced.
All members of the House and Senate are invited to the event, which is set for 11 a.m ET.
Jul 18, 8:56 AM EDT
Russia orders troops to eliminate Ukraine’s long-range missiles
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has visited the East group of Russian forces involved in the fighting in Ukraine and ordered his troops to eliminate the Ukrainian army’s long-range missiles and artillery ammunition it uses to shell targets in the Donbas region, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.
Shoigu instructed the group’s commander to give priority to the use of precision-guided weapons to destroy Ukraine’s long-range missile and artillery assets, the ministry added. Russia has accused Ukraine of using its long-range weapons to shell residential neighborhoods in Donbas communities and set fire to wheat fields and grain storage facilities.
Ukrainian officials said Russian missiles struck targets across much of eastern Ukraine on Sunday and early Monday.
Six people were killed in the town of Toretsk in the Donetsk region after Russian shelling, the state emergency service said. Missiles also struck civilian infrastructure, including a school in the Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa regions.
Russia also carried out 55 strikes on the Sumy region on Sunday. Around 60 projectiles landed in Nikopol, a dozen residential buildings were damaged and one elderly woman was wounded, local officials said.
The southern city of Mykolaiv was subjected to a massive missile strike in the early hours of Sunday as 10 missiles, presumably launched by an S-300 system, hit various parts of town.
Russian officials said on Monday that no clear timeframes have been set for the war in Ukraine, and priority should be given to its efficiency.
“We have no doubts that the special military operation will be completed after all of its objectives are attained. There are no clear timeframes, what counts most is this operation’s efficiency,” Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said as quoted by Russian media.
Officials from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic claimed on Monday that DPR territory will be liberated from the Ukrainian military this year.
“The liberation of Donbas will be completed this year,” Eduard Basurin, deputy head of the police department of the DPR, said according to Russian media.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, and Max Uzol
Jul 17, 6:20 PM EDT
Number of Ukrainian public officials accused of treason, collaborating with Russia: Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, in Crimea, who was dismissed in the beginning of the Russian invasion, has been notified he is being charged with treason.
“Everyone who together with him was part of a criminal group that worked in the interests of the Russian Federation will also be held accountable,” Zelenskyy said during his evening address Sunday. “It is about the transfer of secret information to the enemy and other facts of cooperation with the Russian special services.”
A number of Ukrainian public officials have been notified they will be charged for treason and for collaborating with Russia.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Jul 17, 2:20 PM EDT
‘Evil cannot win’: Priest breaks down at funeral for 4-year-old Ukrainian girl
A funeral service was held Sunday for a 4-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was among two dozen Ukrainian civilian’s killed last week in a Russian missile attack in the west-central Ukrainian town of Vinnytsia.
During the open-casket funeral for Liza Dmytrieva, a Ukrainian Orthodox priest broke down in tears as he told the little girl’s father and other relatives, “evil cannot win,” according to The Associated Press.
Liza was pushing a stroller in a park as she and her mother were headed to a speech therapist appointment when the attack unfolded Thursday afternoon in Vinnytsia, a city close to the front lines in west-central Ukraine, officials said.
The girl and 23 others Ukrainian civilians were killed, including two boys ages 7 and 8. At least 200 other civilians, including Liza’s mother, were injured, officials said.
“Look, my flower! Look how many people came to you,” Liza’s grandmother, Larysa Dmytryshyna, said, as she caressed the child lying in an open casket filled with teddy bears and flowers.
Orthodox priest Vitalii Holoskevych gave the eulogy at Liza’s funeral struggling through tears.
“I didn’t know Liza, but no person can go through this with calm because every burial is grief for each of us,” Holoskevych said. “We are losing our brothers and sisters.”
Jul 15, 10:01 AM EDT
Grandma of 4-year-old girl killed in missile strike: ‘I hate them all’
The grandmother of a 4-year-old girl killed in Thursday’s Russian missile attack in Vinnytsia told ABC News, “They took the most precious [person] I had in my life.”
Four-year-old Liza was among 23 people, including three children, killed in the strike.
Liza’s grandmother, Larysa Dmytryshyna, called her a “wonderfully sunny child.”
“She was the most wonderful girl in the world and it is so painful that her mother cannot even bury her,” she said.
Asked how she feels about Russia, Dmytryshyna, replied, “I hate them all.”
“We did not ask them to come here. They have caused so much sorrow,” she said of the Russians. “I would give my own life to extinguish the entire country.”
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge, Ibtissem Guenfoud and Natalya Kushnir
Jul 15, 9:04 AM EDT
Demand for artificial limbs surges in Ukraine
One of Ukraine’s leading medical experts on developing prosthetic limbs for amputees says there has been a dramatic surge in demand for artificial arms and legs since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Dr. Oleksandr Stetsenko told ABC News that financial support or donations of prosthetic parts are needed from abroad to meet the increased demand.
External support, he said, is vital so that people have the chance to continue with their lives.
“With good prosthetics people can come back to life again,” Stetsenko told ABC News.
There is currently no official figure for how many people in Ukraine have undergone surgery to remove limbs because of injuries sustained from the war but Dr. Stetsenko estimates that around 500 people have had limbs amputated since the end of February with the majority of those cases being soldiers and around a fifth being civilians.
While the number of patients in Ukraine needing artificial limbs has increased, the domestic supply of components to make prosthetic arms and legs has reduced.
That is because a third of the companies which were previously producing components in Ukraine are now located in territory which has recently been occupied by Russian forces or in areas near to the frontline, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health.
A director at the health ministry, Oleksandra Mashkevych, confirmed that Ukraine is no longer able “to cover all of the demand relating to artificial limbs.”
Mashkevych told ABC News that children who need artificial limbs are sent abroad to Europe or to the United States and that around 20 children in Ukraine are thought to have had limbs amputated since the start of the war in February.
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge, Ibtissem Guenfoud, Natalya Kushnir and Kuba Kaminski
Jul 15, 6:49 AM EDT
Unprecedented rescue operation underway in Vinnytsia
At least 18 people are still missing after a deadly missile strike on downtown Vinnytsia in central Ukraine on Thursday, the Ukrainian National Police said.
Three Russian Kalibr missiles launched from a submarine struck an office building and damaged nearby residential buildings in Vinnytsia, located about 155 miles southwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Thursday morning.
At least 23 people — including 3 children — died in the attack, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said, and more than a 100 were wounded, some critically. The bodies of 2 children and 11 adults were yet to be identified on Friday morning, local authorities said.
The strike in the heart of Vinnytsia is “part of a systematic Russian campaign of attacks on residential areas of cities in Ukraine”, the Institute for the Study of War said.
The search continued on Friday morning for at least 18 people who were still missing after the attack. The ongoing rescue operation has been unprecedented in its scale, local officials said, with more than 1,000 rescuers and 200 pieces of equipment being involved in clearing the rubble and searching for those still missing.
Several dozen people were reportedly detained in Vinnytsia on Thursday for questioning under the suspicion of acting as local spotters or aimers on the ground for the Russian strikes.
The eastern city of Mykolaiv also reported 10 powerful explosions on Friday morning. The city’s two biggest universities were hit in the attack, wounding at least four people, local authorities said. Russia also struck a hotel and a shopping mall in Mykolaiv on Thursday.
Russian shelling also targeted Kharkiv, another eastern city, on Thursday night. Local officials claimed 2 schools were damaged in the attack.
The European Union and the United Nations strongly condemned Russia for what the EU called a “long series of brutal attacks against civilians.”
Russia’s missile strikes hit more than 17,000 facilities of civilian infrastructure as opposed to around 300 military facilities since the start of the war, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, Fidel Pavlenko and Yuriy Zaliznyak
Jul 14, 4:02 PM EDT
Russian missile strike kills at least 23 in Vinnytsia
Russian missiles hit the heart of the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Thursday morning, killing at least 23 people and wounding dozens, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.
Three children were among the dead, the agency said.
The missiles struck an office building and damaged nearby residential buildings in Vinnytsia, located about 155 miles southwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The strike also ignited a massive fire that engulfed 50 cars in an adjacent parking lot, according to the National Police of Ukraine. Burned-out vehicles are peppered with holes from the missiles.
The State Emergency Service said about 115 victims in Vinnytsia needed medical attention, with 64 people hospitalized — including 34 in severe condition and five in critical.
Forty-two people are listed as missing, the agency said.
Many Ukrainians moved to Vinnytsia, a city southwest of Kyiv, to get away from the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Until now, Vinnytsia had been seen as a city of relative safety.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “an open act of terrorism” on civilians.
“Every day Russia is destroying the civilian population, killing Ukrainian children, directing missiles at civilian objects. Where there is no military (targets). What is it if not an open act of terrorism?” Zelenskyy said in a statement via Telegram on Thursday.
War crimes investigators are at the scene studying missile fragments.
Russian missile strikes targeted several other Ukrainian cities on Wednesday and early Thursday, including Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Mykolaiv.
At least 12 people died in the Zaporizhia strike, which hit two industrial workshops on Wednesday, according to local authorities.
At least five civilians were killed and 30 others injured in Mykolaiv on Wednesday after Russian missiles destroyed a hotel and a shopping mall, the local mayor said. The southern Ukrainian city was shelled again on Thursday morning, but no casualties were immediately reported.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Fidel Pavlenko, Max Uzol, and Yulia Drozd
Jul 14, 1:49 PM EDT
At least 18 Russian filtration camps along Russia-Ukraine border
Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, is calling the forcible relocation of Ukrainians to Russian filtration camps is “a war crime.”
In an interview with ABC News Live on Thursday, Carpenter said the Russians are “trying to take away Ukrainians who might have Ukrainian civic impulses, who are patriots, who want to defend their country.” Carpenter said the Russians want to “erase Ukrainian identity” and “the Ukrainian nation state, as the entity that governs people’s lives in these regions.”
Carpenter said there are at least 18 filtration camps along the Russia-Ukraine border, adding that it’s impossible to get an exact total because many are located in Russia’s far east.
-ABC News’ Malka Abramoff
Jul 14, 12:04 PM EDT
Russian missile strike kills at least 17 in Vinnytsia
Russian missiles hit the heart of the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Thursday morning, killing at least 17 people and wounding more than 30 others, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine.
Two children were among the dead, the prosecutor’s office said.
The missiles struck an office building and damaged nearby residential buildings in Vinnytsia, located about 155 miles southwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The strike also ignited a massive fire that engulfed 50 cars in an adjacent parking lot, according to the National Police of Ukraine. Burned-out vehicles are peppered with holes from the missiles.
The national police said about 90 victims in Vinnytsia sought medical attention, and 50 of them are in serious condition.
Many Ukrainians moved to Vinnytsia, a city southwest of Kyiv, to get away from the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Until now, Vinnytsia had been seen as a city of relative safety.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “an open act of terrorism” on civilians.
“Every day Russia is destroying the civilian population, killing Ukrainian children, directing missiles at civilian objects. Where there is no military (targets). What is it if not an open act of terrorism?” Zelenskyy said in a statement via Telegram on Thursday.
War crimes investigators are at the scene studying missile fragments.
Russian missile strikes targeted several other Ukrainian cities on Wednesday and early Thursday, including Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Mykolaiv.
At least 12 people died in the Zaporizhia strike, which hit two industrial workshops on Wednesday, according to local authorities.
At least five civilians were killed and 30 others injured in Mykolaiv on Wednesday after Russian missiles destroyed a hotel and a shopping mall, the local mayor said. The southern Ukrainian city was shelled again on Thursday morning, but no casualties were immediately reported.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Fidel Pavlenko, Max Uzol, and Yulia Drozd
Jul 13, 6:30 PM EDT
State Department aware of reports on another American detained by Russian proxies
The State Department said Wednesday it is aware of unconfirmed reports that another American has been detained by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.
The statement follows a [report from the Guardian] () on 35-year-old Suedi Murekezi, who is believed to have gone missing in Ukraine in early June.
According to the Guardian, Murekezi was able to make contact with a family member on July 7 and told them he was being held in the same prison as Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, two American veterans captured while volunteering for Ukrainian forces. Murekezi has lived in Ukraine since 2020 and was falsely accused of participating in pro-Ukraine protests, according to the report.
“We have been in contact with the Ukrainian and Russian authorities regarding U.S. citizens who may have been captured by Russia’s forces or proxies while fighting in Ukraine,” a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday. “We call on Russia to live up to its international obligations to treat all individuals captured fighting with Ukraine’s armed forces as prisoners of war.”
Another American — Grady Kurpasi — is also missing in Ukraine. A family spokesperson said the veteran was last seen fighting with Ukrainian forces in late April and is feared to have been either killed or captured.
-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford
Jul 13, 8:27 AM EDT
Shelling continues throughout Donbas region
Shelling from both Russian and Ukrainian forces caused damage to the landscape and destroyed structures throughout the Donbas region on Tuesday and Wednesday, local officials said.
Russian strikes reportedly targeted the eastern town of Bakhmut, killing one person and wounding 5 others, the local governor said. Explosions were heard in several nearby towns too, with one missile falling near a kindergarten.
Shelling also continued in Izyum, Mykolayiv and Kharkiv on Tuesday. Russian troops reportedly conducted unsuccessful attacks north of Slovyansk and the town of Siversk on Tuesday, despite repeated rhetoric of an “operational pause” that Russia allegedly maintains, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest report.
Russian forces continue to bomb critical areas in preparation for future ground offensive, with air and artillery strikes reported along the majority of the frontline, the experts added.
Ukrainian forces on Tuesday responded to the Russian attacks and claimed to have destroyed six Russian military facilities on occupied Ukrainian territories. Ukrainian officials claimed to have destroyed several ammunition depots, as well as a larger military unit.
Russian media reported on Tuesday that Ukrainian troops launched a “massive attack” on an air defense unit in the Luhansk region.
Ukrainian military officials also claimed to have killed at least 30 Russian troops on Tuesday, along with destroying a howitzer and a multiple rocket launcher, among other weaponry.
But the U.K. Defense Ministry in its latest intelligence update said it still expects Russian forces to “focus on taking several small towns during the coming weeks” in the Donbas region.
These towns are on the approaches to the larger cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk that likely remain the principal objectives for this phase of the Russian military operation, the ministry said.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Yulia Drozd and Yuriy Zaliznyak
Jul 12, 10:27 PM EDT
US transfers $1.7 billion in economic assistance to Ukrainian government
The United States transferred $1.7 billion to Ukraine’s government Tuesday, the Treasury Department announced.
It’s the second tranche of money the Treasury transferred to Ukraine’s government as part of $7.5 billion approved for this purpose in the $40 billion Ukraine aid package Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law in May.
It’ll go, in part, to helping Ukraine’s government provide “essential health care services” and health care workers’ salaries, the Treasury Department said.
The U.S. transferred the first tranche, $1.3 billion, to Ukraine’s government two weeks ago.
-ABC News Benjamin Gittleson
Jul 12, 1:59 AM EDT
Ukraine destroys Russian ammo depot in occupied Kherson region
Ukrainian forces hit and likely destroyed a Russian ammunition depot in the Russian-occupied town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region on Monday night, local officials said.
The strike resulted in a massive blast, videos of which soon circulated online. According to local reports, more than 40 trucks filled with gasoline were destroyed. Russian media didn’t verify the claims, saying instead that pro-Russian forces had destroyed a series of saltpeter warehouses.
“People’s windows are blown out, but they are still happy … because this means that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are close,” Sergey Khlan, from the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said in the aftermath of the attack.
Monday’s strike marked at least the fourth time Ukrainian forces destroyed ammunition depots in Nova Kakhovka, local media reported.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Tatiana Rymarenko, Max Uzol and Yulia Drozd
(NEW YORK) — Two Americans thought to have been fighting for Ukraine have died in the eastern reach of the country, according to officials.
“We can confirm the recent deaths of two U.S. citizens in the Donbas region of Ukraine,” a State Department spokesperson said. “We are in touch with the families and providing all possible consular assistance.”
They added: “Out of respect to the families during this difficult time, we have nothing further.”
One of the Americans killed was Luke Lucyszyn, his mother, Kathy Lucyszyn, confirmed to ABC News.
A former U.S. soldier who served with the two Americans told “Good Morning America” they faced overwhelming Russian firepower.
“There was artillery basically 24-7,” the soldier said. “They could shoot at us but we couldn’t even see them.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jul 22, 11:12 AM EDT
Both nations sign agreement to end blockade on Ukraine grain
Russia and Ukraine have signed agreements to restart grain exports from Ukraine, said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
The agreement between the two countries was mediated with Turkey and the United Nations.
The blockade on exporting grain from Ukraine had triggered fears of global famine.
The agreement “opens a path for commercial food exports from Ukraine in the Black Sea. It will help avoid a food shortage catastrophe for millions worldwide,” Guterres tweeted. “It is a beacon of hope, possibility & relief.”
The deal will allow for the transport of grain from three Ukrainian ports. Under the deal Ukraine will not de-mine its ports; instead there will be safe channels for cargo ships to sail through.
The agreement lasts for 120 days with the possibility of an extension.
According to Russian media, in exchange for agreeing to sign the deal, Russia received a guarantee from the U.N. to work on lifting sanctions on Russian agricultural and fertilizer exports.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Jul 22, 10:33 AM EDT
Russia signs agreement to end blockade on Ukraine grain
Russia has signed an agreement to restart grain exports from Ukraine, according to Russia’s defense ministry. Ukraine is expected to sign a separate but identical agreement.
The blockade on exporting grain from Ukraine had triggered fears of global famine.
The agreement between the two countries was mediated with Turkey and the United Nations.
Jul 20, 11:42 AM EDT
Zelenska shares photos of killed civilians in her address to Congress
Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska spoke to members of Congress on Capitol Hill Wednesday, saying, “Usually the wives of president are exclusively engaged in peaceful affairs: education, human rights, equality, accessibility. And maybe you expected for me to speak on those topics. But how can I talk about them when an unprovoked invasive terrorist war is being waged against my country?”
Zelenska said this marks the first time the wife of a president of a foreign county addressed members of Congress on the Hill.
Zelenska showed members of Congress several images and stories of carnage impacting civilians, including a photo of 4-year-old Liza who was killed by a Russian missile attack last week.
Liza’s mother was seriously hurt, and “for several days, nobody dared to tell her that Liza has died,” Zelenska said.
She highlighted an Odesa family who lost three generations of women to one missile, and a 96-year-old who survived Nazi concentration camps only to be killed in Kharkiv.
The first lady asked Congress to supply more air defense systems.
“Will my son be able to return to school in the fall? I don’t know, like millions of mothers in Ukraine. Will my daughter will be able to go to university at the beginning of the academic year and experience normal student life? I cannot answer,” she said. “We will have answers if we had air defense systems.”
“America, unfortunately, knows from its own experience what terrorist attacks are and has always sought to defeat terrorists. Help us to stop this terror against Ukrainians,” she said.
Zelenska received a standing ovation after her remarks.
Jul 20, 9:05 AM EDT
US announces four new HIMARS and more ammo for Ukraine
The U.S. will send four more HIMARS advanced rocket systems to Ukraine as part of the new presidential drawdown package coming later this week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Wednesday.
Once these four long-range rocket artillery systems arrive, Ukraine will have a total of 16 HIMARS at its disposal.
Austin said these advanced rocket systems “have made such a difference on the battlefield.”
The new package will also include more ammunition for the HIMARS and for the 155 mm artillery weapons the U.S. and other countries have sent to Ukraine, Austin said at the fourth Ukraine defense contact group meeting, with leaders from roughly 50 nations in virtual attendance.
Austin praised the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland in particular for helping Ukraine boost its ability to hit faraway targets.
Jul 19, 2:28 PM EDT
Ukrainian first lady visits White House
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden greeted Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska at the White House Tuesday afternoon.
Zelenska was presented with a bouquet of flowers in Ukrainian colors: yellow sunflowers, blue hydrangeas and white orchids.
Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., arrived with Zelenska.
Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff then held a bilateral meeting with the Ukrainian delegation. Jill Biden said they’ll discuss mental health issues for mothers and children who have “suffered such tragedy and the atrocities” during the war.
Zelenska will address Congress on Wednesday.
-ABC News’ John Parkinson
Jul 19, 8:25 AM EDT
US weapons help stabilize frontline, Ukrainian official says
Ukrainian forces have “stabilized” the situation along the frontline in the eastern and south-eastern regions of the country, in large part thanks to U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers, the Ukrainian military said on Monday.
“We managed to stabilize the situation. It is complex, intense, but completely controlled,” Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said.
An important factor contributing to Ukraine’s retention of its defensive lines and positions is the timely arrival of U.S. supplied M142 HIMARS — High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — rocket launchers, Zaluzhny added. These highly precise and modern weapons have been delivering “targeted strikes” on Russian “control points, ammunition and fuel storage depots,” the top commander added.
Ukrainian troops struck a Russian military facility in the area of an asphalt plant in the eastern town of Nova Kakhovka on Monday, Ukrainian military officials said. Ukrainian forces also hit an administrative building and a hangar filled with Russian fuel tankers in the southern town of Beryslav, killing more than 100 Russian soldiers, the Ukrainian military said on Monday.
Russian forces shelled the town of Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region about 40 times on Monday night, local authorities said. Explosions were also reported in the Odesa region, injuring several civilians. Russian troops also fired cluster shells at the city of Mykolaiv late on Monday.
Russia’s stated immediate objective is to seize all of the Donetsk region, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday. Even if Russian troops make further territorial gains, the tempo of their advance is likely to be very slow, the ministry added.
Russian units, severely under-manned, face a dilemma between deploying more forces to the Donbas or defending against Ukrainian counter-attacks in the Kherson area, the observers said.
Jul 18, 4:20 PM EDT
Ukraine’s first lady to meet with Jill Biden
Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska will meet with first lady Jill Biden in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Biden’s office said, one day before Zelenska addresses Congress.
Jul 18, 1:45 PM EDT
Ukraine’s first lady to address Congress on Wednesday
Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska will make remarks Wednesday before members of Congress on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced.
All members of the House and Senate are invited to the event, which is set for 11 a.m ET.
Jul 18, 8:56 AM EDT
Russia orders troops to eliminate Ukraine’s long-range missiles
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has visited the East group of Russian forces involved in the fighting in Ukraine and ordered his troops to eliminate the Ukrainian army’s long-range missiles and artillery ammunition it uses to shell targets in the Donbas region, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.
Shoigu instructed the group’s commander to give priority to the use of precision-guided weapons to destroy Ukraine’s long-range missile and artillery assets, the ministry added. Russia has accused Ukraine of using its long-range weapons to shell residential neighborhoods in Donbas communities and set fire to wheat fields and grain storage facilities.
Ukrainian officials said Russian missiles struck targets across much of eastern Ukraine on Sunday and early Monday.
Six people were killed in the town of Toretsk in the Donetsk region after Russian shelling, the state emergency service said. Missiles also struck civilian infrastructure, including a school in the Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa regions.
Russia also carried out 55 strikes on the Sumy region on Sunday. Around 60 projectiles landed in Nikopol, a dozen residential buildings were damaged and one elderly woman was wounded, local officials said.
The southern city of Mykolaiv was subjected to a massive missile strike in the early hours of Sunday as 10 missiles, presumably launched by an S-300 system, hit various parts of town.
Russian officials said on Monday that no clear timeframes have been set for the war in Ukraine, and priority should be given to its efficiency.
“We have no doubts that the special military operation will be completed after all of its objectives are attained. There are no clear timeframes, what counts most is this operation’s efficiency,” Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said as quoted by Russian media.
Officials from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic claimed on Monday that DPR territory will be liberated from the Ukrainian military this year.
“The liberation of Donbas will be completed this year,” Eduard Basurin, deputy head of the police department of the DPR, said according to Russian media.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, and Max Uzol
Jul 17, 6:20 PM EDT
Number of Ukrainian public officials accused of treason, collaborating with Russia: Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, in Crimea, who was dismissed in the beginning of the Russian invasion, has been notified he is being charged with treason.
“Everyone who together with him was part of a criminal group that worked in the interests of the Russian Federation will also be held accountable,” Zelenskyy said during his evening address Sunday. “It is about the transfer of secret information to the enemy and other facts of cooperation with the Russian special services.”
A number of Ukrainian public officials have been notified they will be charged for treason and for collaborating with Russia.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Jul 17, 2:20 PM EDT
‘Evil cannot win’: Priest breaks down at funeral for 4-year-old Ukrainian girl
A funeral service was held Sunday for a 4-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was among two dozen Ukrainian civilian’s killed last week in a Russian missile attack in the west-central Ukrainian town of Vinnytsia.
During the open-casket funeral for Liza Dmytrieva, a Ukrainian Orthodox priest broke down in tears as he told the little girl’s father and other relatives, “evil cannot win,” according to The Associated Press.
Liza was pushing a stroller in a park as she and her mother were headed to a speech therapist appointment when the attack unfolded Thursday afternoon in Vinnytsia, a city close to the front lines in west-central Ukraine, officials said.
The girl and 23 others Ukrainian civilians were killed, including two boys ages 7 and 8. At least 200 other civilians, including Liza’s mother, were injured, officials said.
“Look, my flower! Look how many people came to you,” Liza’s grandmother, Larysa Dmytryshyna, said, as she caressed the child lying in an open casket filled with teddy bears and flowers.
Orthodox priest Vitalii Holoskevych gave the eulogy at Liza’s funeral struggling through tears.
“I didn’t know Liza, but no person can go through this with calm because every burial is grief for each of us,” Holoskevych said. “We are losing our brothers and sisters.”
Jul 15, 10:01 AM EDT
Grandma of 4-year-old girl killed in missile strike: ‘I hate them all’
The grandmother of a 4-year-old girl killed in Thursday’s Russian missile attack in Vinnytsia told ABC News, “They took the most precious [person] I had in my life.”
Four-year-old Liza was among 23 people, including three children, killed in the strike.
Liza’s grandmother, Larysa Dmytryshyna, called her a “wonderfully sunny child.”
“She was the most wonderful girl in the world and it is so painful that her mother cannot even bury her,” she said.
Asked how she feels about Russia, Dmytryshyna, replied, “I hate them all.”
“We did not ask them to come here. They have caused so much sorrow,” she said of the Russians. “I would give my own life to extinguish the entire country.”
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge, Ibtissem Guenfoud and Natalya Kushnir
Jul 15, 9:04 AM EDT
Demand for artificial limbs surges in Ukraine
One of Ukraine’s leading medical experts on developing prosthetic limbs for amputees says there has been a dramatic surge in demand for artificial arms and legs since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Dr. Oleksandr Stetsenko told ABC News that financial support or donations of prosthetic parts are needed from abroad to meet the increased demand.
External support, he said, is vital so that people have the chance to continue with their lives.
“With good prosthetics people can come back to life again,” Stetsenko told ABC News.
There is currently no official figure for how many people in Ukraine have undergone surgery to remove limbs because of injuries sustained from the war but Dr. Stetsenko estimates that around 500 people have had limbs amputated since the end of February with the majority of those cases being soldiers and around a fifth being civilians.
While the number of patients in Ukraine needing artificial limbs has increased, the domestic supply of components to make prosthetic arms and legs has reduced.
That is because a third of the companies which were previously producing components in Ukraine are now located in territory which has recently been occupied by Russian forces or in areas near to the frontline, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health.
A director at the health ministry, Oleksandra Mashkevych, confirmed that Ukraine is no longer able “to cover all of the demand relating to artificial limbs.”
Mashkevych told ABC News that children who need artificial limbs are sent abroad to Europe or to the United States and that around 20 children in Ukraine are thought to have had limbs amputated since the start of the war in February.
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge, Ibtissem Guenfoud, Natalya Kushnir and Kuba Kaminski
Jul 15, 6:49 AM EDT
Unprecedented rescue operation underway in Vinnytsia
At least 18 people are still missing after a deadly missile strike on downtown Vinnytsia in central Ukraine on Thursday, the Ukrainian National Police said.
Three Russian Kalibr missiles launched from a submarine struck an office building and damaged nearby residential buildings in Vinnytsia, located about 155 miles southwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Thursday morning.
At least 23 people — including 3 children — died in the attack, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said, and more than a 100 were wounded, some critically. The bodies of 2 children and 11 adults were yet to be identified on Friday morning, local authorities said.
The strike in the heart of Vinnytsia is “part of a systematic Russian campaign of attacks on residential areas of cities in Ukraine”, the Institute for the Study of War said.
The search continued on Friday morning for at least 18 people who were still missing after the attack. The ongoing rescue operation has been unprecedented in its scale, local officials said, with more than 1,000 rescuers and 200 pieces of equipment being involved in clearing the rubble and searching for those still missing.
Several dozen people were reportedly detained in Vinnytsia on Thursday for questioning under the suspicion of acting as local spotters or aimers on the ground for the Russian strikes.
The eastern city of Mykolaiv also reported 10 powerful explosions on Friday morning. The city’s two biggest universities were hit in the attack, wounding at least four people, local authorities said. Russia also struck a hotel and a shopping mall in Mykolaiv on Thursday.
Russian shelling also targeted Kharkiv, another eastern city, on Thursday night. Local officials claimed 2 schools were damaged in the attack.
The European Union and the United Nations strongly condemned Russia for what the EU called a “long series of brutal attacks against civilians.”
Russia’s missile strikes hit more than 17,000 facilities of civilian infrastructure as opposed to around 300 military facilities since the start of the war, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, Fidel Pavlenko and Yuriy Zaliznyak
Jul 14, 4:02 PM EDT
Russian missile strike kills at least 23 in Vinnytsia
Russian missiles hit the heart of the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Thursday morning, killing at least 23 people and wounding dozens, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.
Three children were among the dead, the agency said.
The missiles struck an office building and damaged nearby residential buildings in Vinnytsia, located about 155 miles southwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The strike also ignited a massive fire that engulfed 50 cars in an adjacent parking lot, according to the National Police of Ukraine. Burned-out vehicles are peppered with holes from the missiles.
The State Emergency Service said about 115 victims in Vinnytsia needed medical attention, with 64 people hospitalized — including 34 in severe condition and five in critical.
Forty-two people are listed as missing, the agency said.
Many Ukrainians moved to Vinnytsia, a city southwest of Kyiv, to get away from the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Until now, Vinnytsia had been seen as a city of relative safety.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “an open act of terrorism” on civilians.
“Every day Russia is destroying the civilian population, killing Ukrainian children, directing missiles at civilian objects. Where there is no military (targets). What is it if not an open act of terrorism?” Zelenskyy said in a statement via Telegram on Thursday.
War crimes investigators are at the scene studying missile fragments.
Russian missile strikes targeted several other Ukrainian cities on Wednesday and early Thursday, including Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Mykolaiv.
At least 12 people died in the Zaporizhia strike, which hit two industrial workshops on Wednesday, according to local authorities.
At least five civilians were killed and 30 others injured in Mykolaiv on Wednesday after Russian missiles destroyed a hotel and a shopping mall, the local mayor said. The southern Ukrainian city was shelled again on Thursday morning, but no casualties were immediately reported.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Fidel Pavlenko, Max Uzol, and Yulia Drozd
Jul 14, 1:49 PM EDT
At least 18 Russian filtration camps along Russia-Ukraine border
Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, is calling the forcible relocation of Ukrainians to Russian filtration camps is “a war crime.”
In an interview with ABC News Live on Thursday, Carpenter said the Russians are “trying to take away Ukrainians who might have Ukrainian civic impulses, who are patriots, who want to defend their country.” Carpenter said the Russians want to “erase Ukrainian identity” and “the Ukrainian nation state, as the entity that governs people’s lives in these regions.”
Carpenter said there are at least 18 filtration camps along the Russia-Ukraine border, adding that it’s impossible to get an exact total because many are located in Russia’s far east.
-ABC News’ Malka Abramoff
Jul 14, 12:04 PM EDT
Russian missile strike kills at least 17 in Vinnytsia
Russian missiles hit the heart of the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Thursday morning, killing at least 17 people and wounding more than 30 others, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine.
Two children were among the dead, the prosecutor’s office said.
The missiles struck an office building and damaged nearby residential buildings in Vinnytsia, located about 155 miles southwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The strike also ignited a massive fire that engulfed 50 cars in an adjacent parking lot, according to the National Police of Ukraine. Burned-out vehicles are peppered with holes from the missiles.
The national police said about 90 victims in Vinnytsia sought medical attention, and 50 of them are in serious condition.
Many Ukrainians moved to Vinnytsia, a city southwest of Kyiv, to get away from the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Until now, Vinnytsia had been seen as a city of relative safety.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “an open act of terrorism” on civilians.
“Every day Russia is destroying the civilian population, killing Ukrainian children, directing missiles at civilian objects. Where there is no military (targets). What is it if not an open act of terrorism?” Zelenskyy said in a statement via Telegram on Thursday.
War crimes investigators are at the scene studying missile fragments.
Russian missile strikes targeted several other Ukrainian cities on Wednesday and early Thursday, including Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Mykolaiv.
At least 12 people died in the Zaporizhia strike, which hit two industrial workshops on Wednesday, according to local authorities.
At least five civilians were killed and 30 others injured in Mykolaiv on Wednesday after Russian missiles destroyed a hotel and a shopping mall, the local mayor said. The southern Ukrainian city was shelled again on Thursday morning, but no casualties were immediately reported.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Fidel Pavlenko, Max Uzol, and Yulia Drozd
Jul 13, 6:30 PM EDT
State Department aware of reports on another American detained by Russian proxies
The State Department said Wednesday it is aware of unconfirmed reports that another American has been detained by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.
The statement follows a [report from the Guardian] () on 35-year-old Suedi Murekezi, who is believed to have gone missing in Ukraine in early June.
According to the Guardian, Murekezi was able to make contact with a family member on July 7 and told them he was being held in the same prison as Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, two American veterans captured while volunteering for Ukrainian forces. Murekezi has lived in Ukraine since 2020 and was falsely accused of participating in pro-Ukraine protests, according to the report.
“We have been in contact with the Ukrainian and Russian authorities regarding U.S. citizens who may have been captured by Russia’s forces or proxies while fighting in Ukraine,” a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday. “We call on Russia to live up to its international obligations to treat all individuals captured fighting with Ukraine’s armed forces as prisoners of war.”
Another American — Grady Kurpasi — is also missing in Ukraine. A family spokesperson said the veteran was last seen fighting with Ukrainian forces in late April and is feared to have been either killed or captured.
-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford
Jul 13, 8:27 AM EDT
Shelling continues throughout Donbas region
Shelling from both Russian and Ukrainian forces caused damage to the landscape and destroyed structures throughout the Donbas region on Tuesday and Wednesday, local officials said.
Russian strikes reportedly targeted the eastern town of Bakhmut, killing one person and wounding 5 others, the local governor said. Explosions were heard in several nearby towns too, with one missile falling near a kindergarten.
Shelling also continued in Izyum, Mykolayiv and Kharkiv on Tuesday. Russian troops reportedly conducted unsuccessful attacks north of Slovyansk and the town of Siversk on Tuesday, despite repeated rhetoric of an “operational pause” that Russia allegedly maintains, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest report.
Russian forces continue to bomb critical areas in preparation for future ground offensive, with air and artillery strikes reported along the majority of the frontline, the experts added.
Ukrainian forces on Tuesday responded to the Russian attacks and claimed to have destroyed six Russian military facilities on occupied Ukrainian territories. Ukrainian officials claimed to have destroyed several ammunition depots, as well as a larger military unit.
Russian media reported on Tuesday that Ukrainian troops launched a “massive attack” on an air defense unit in the Luhansk region.
Ukrainian military officials also claimed to have killed at least 30 Russian troops on Tuesday, along with destroying a howitzer and a multiple rocket launcher, among other weaponry.
But the U.K. Defense Ministry in its latest intelligence update said it still expects Russian forces to “focus on taking several small towns during the coming weeks” in the Donbas region.
These towns are on the approaches to the larger cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk that likely remain the principal objectives for this phase of the Russian military operation, the ministry said.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Yulia Drozd and Yuriy Zaliznyak
Jul 12, 10:27 PM EDT
US transfers $1.7 billion in economic assistance to Ukrainian government
The United States transferred $1.7 billion to Ukraine’s government Tuesday, the Treasury Department announced.
It’s the second tranche of money the Treasury transferred to Ukraine’s government as part of $7.5 billion approved for this purpose in the $40 billion Ukraine aid package Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law in May.
It’ll go, in part, to helping Ukraine’s government provide “essential health care services” and health care workers’ salaries, the Treasury Department said.
The U.S. transferred the first tranche, $1.3 billion, to Ukraine’s government two weeks ago.
-ABC News Benjamin Gittleson
Jul 12, 1:59 AM EDT
Ukraine destroys Russian ammo depot in occupied Kherson region
Ukrainian forces hit and likely destroyed a Russian ammunition depot in the Russian-occupied town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region on Monday night, local officials said.
The strike resulted in a massive blast, videos of which soon circulated online. According to local reports, more than 40 trucks filled with gasoline were destroyed. Russian media didn’t verify the claims, saying instead that pro-Russian forces had destroyed a series of saltpeter warehouses.
“People’s windows are blown out, but they are still happy … because this means that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are close,” Sergey Khlan, from the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said in the aftermath of the attack.
Monday’s strike marked at least the fourth time Ukrainian forces destroyed ammunition depots in Nova Kakhovka, local media reported.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Tatiana Rymarenko, Max Uzol and Yulia Drozd
