World

(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:

Jun 13, 9:26 am
Bodies of tortured men exhumed in Bucha

Another mass grave has been dug up in Bucha, uncovering the bodies of seven men who authorities believe were tortured and killed during the bloody occupation of the city in March.

Police told ABC News their hands were tied with ropes behind their backs and they were shot in the knees and head.

“They were killed in a cruel way,” police spokesperson Iryna Pryanyshnykova said. “These were civilian victims. The people here were killed by Russian soldiers and later they were just put into a grave to try to hide this war crime.”

It’s not clear why the men were killed, Pryanyshnykova said.

She said experts will analyze DNA to identify the victims.

-ABC News’ Britt Clennett

Jun 13, 6:24 am
Zelenskyy: Ukraine fighting for ‘every meter’ of Severodonetsk

Russian forces have pushed the Armed Forces of Ukraine out of the center of Severodonetsk, Ukrainian officials said.

“They are pressing in Severodonetsk, where very fierce fighting is going on — literally for every meter,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address on Sunday evening.

Russian forces now control about 70% of the city, as intense shelling makes mass evacuation and the transportation of goods impossible, Sergiy Haidai, another Ukrainian official, said.

Around 500 people, including 40 children, are sheltering in the city’s Azot chemical plant, Haidai said.

While the Ukrainians try to organize their evacuation, authorities of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic have given an ultimatum to Ukrainian troops in the city.

“They have two options: either follow the example of their colleagues and give up, or die. They have no other option,” said Eduard Basurin, deputy head of the People’s Militia Department of the DPR.

-ABC News’ Yulia Drozd and Tanya Stukalova

Jun 12, 5:33 pm
Zelenskyy sends virtual message to Sean Penn’s CORE benefit

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the annual Hollywood fundraiser for actor Sean Penn’s nonprofit Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) Saturday night with a powerful video message urging people to continue to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.

“All of you have heard about the horrors that Ukraine is going through. Tens of thousands of explosions and shots, hundreds of thousands wounded and killed, millions who have lost their homes,” Zelenskyy said in his virtual speech. “All of this is not a logline for a horror film. All of this is our reality.”

Zelenskyy’s video message included footage showing missiles striking homes and apartment complexes in Ukraine, civilians dead in the streets of Ukrainian cities and children playing in parks amid the backdrop of bombed buildings.

Among those attending the CORE fundraiser, held at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angles, were Penn and CORE co-founder Ann Lee, former President Bill Clinton, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, singer John Legend, and actors Patrick Stewart and Sharon Stone.

The group said the event raised more than $2.5 million for CORE’s disaster relief and preparedness work, including its urgent humanitarian response in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy noted that Penn traveled to Ukraine at the start of the Russian invasion and witnessed the atrocities firsthand. He thanked Penn and his group for the continued support for Ukraine.

“We have been resisting it for 107 days in a row,” Zelenskyy said of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. “We can stop it together. Support Ukraine, because Ukraine is fighting for the whole world, for democracy, for freedom, for life.”

Jun 12, 4:17 pm
Russia’s firepower superiority 10 times that of Ukraine’s in Luhansk: Military chief

Ukraine’s Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhny said Sunday that he told his American counterpart, Gen. Mark Milley, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Russian firepower superiority in the Luhansk region is far greater than that of Ukrainian forces.

Zaluzhny said that during a briefing he told Milley that Russian forces are concentrating their efforts in the north of the Luhansk region, where they are using artillery “en masse” and their firepower superiority is 10 times that of Ukraine’s.

“Despite everything, we keep holding our positions,” Zaluzhny said.

Zaluzhny also said Russia has deployed up to seven battalion tactical groups in Severdonetsk, a city in the Luhansk region. He said Russian shelling of residential areas in Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine has resumed.

Russian forces destroyed a second bridge leading into Severodonetsk and are now targeting a third bridge in an effort to completely cut off the city, Luhansk region Gov. Sergiy Haidai said Sunday. Ukraine’s army still controls around one third of the city, he said.

Haidai said that Ukrainian forces are still holding onto the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk, where around 500 civilians are taking shelter.

If Severodonetsk falls, Lysychansk will be the only city in the Luhansk region that remains under Ukraine’s control.

Zaluzhny said that as of Sunday, the front line of the war stretched 1,522 miles and that active combat was taking place on at least 686 miles of the front line.

Zaluzhny said that during his briefing with Milley, he reiterated Ukraine’s urgent request for more 155 mm caliber artillery systems.

Jun 12, 12:48 pm
Russian cruise missile attack confirmed in western Ukraine

Russia claims a cruise missile strike destroyed a large warehouse in western Ukraine storing weapons supplied to the Ukrainians by the United States and European allies.

While police in the Ternopil region of Ukraine, where at least one cruise missile hit, told ABC News that no weapons were destroyed, the region’s governor said part of a military facility was damaged.

Ternopil’s governor Volodymyr Trush posted a video showing widespread damage from what he said were four Russian missiles launched Saturday from the Black Sea. Trush said 22 people were wounded, including a 12-year-old child, in the missile strikes.

In addition to the military facility, Trush said four five-story residential apartment buildings were damaged. One of the missiles hit a gas pipeline, he said.

Russia’s defense ministry said Kalibr high presicion sea-based, long-range missiles struck near Chortkiv in the Ternopil province and destroyed a large warehouse full of anti-tank missile systems, portable anti-aircraft missile systems and artillery shells supplied by the United States and European countries.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — International outcry continues over the disappearances of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous rights expert Bruno Araújo Pereira, who have been missing in a remote region of the Brazilian Amazon since Sunday.

The two men were last heard from by colleagues while travelling by boat in the Javari Valley region near the border with Peru.

Phillips was on one of his last reporting trips for an upcoming book he was writing as part of a 2021 fellowship awarded by the Alicia Patterson Foundation, according to Margaret Engel, the U.S. journalism foundation’s executive director.

As of Friday, authorities in Brazil said they were testing samples of blood on a possible suspect’s boat, but the two men remain missing.

Authorities have questioned five others since the investigation started, but no arrests related to the disappearances have been made, a source with the Brazilian federal police told ABC News.

At a vigil outside the Brazilian embassy in London on Thursday, Phillips’ family members urged Brazilian authorities to continue the search.

“We want to find out what is happening to them, and we want anyone responsible for any criminal acts to be brought to justice,” Sian Phillips, the sister of Dom Phillips, said. “We want a persistent, deep and open investigation.”

They were joined by environmentalist groups in appealing to Brazilian authorities, after accusations that responding agencies were slow to act. This adds to a growing chorus of activists, celebrities and news organizations who have expressed concern for the safety of Phillips and Pereira.

Legendary Brazilian soccer star Pele tweeted a video Wednesday of Phillips’ wife Alessandra Sampaio giving a tearful plea to intensify the search.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro initially appeared to cast blame on Phillips and Pereira saying they “were on an adventure that is not recommended.” He continued, “It could be an accident, it could be that they were executed, anything could have happened.”

Those comments were “obviously upsetting” to the family said Paul Sherwood, Sian Phillips’ partner.

People close to Phillips and Pereira refute that this was a reckless excursion. Engel, who was collaborating with Phillips on his upcoming book, said, “Nothing he did was off-the-cuff,” before adding, “He was not naïve about the dangers that were there.”

Soraya Zaiden, who works closely with Pereira at Indigenous rights organization Univaja, said he was unlikely to put anyone in danger.

“He loves what he does and never takes inconsiderate risks,” Zaiden said. “He is the one who is helping to create safety protocols for the monitoring.”

Violence has taken place in the past in this part of the Amazon where illegal mining activities, drug trafficking and deforestation is resisted by groups trying to preserve the rainforest and the culture of its Indigenous inhabitants. A member of the Brazilian government agency FUNAI, which is tasked with protecting Indigenous peoples’ interests, was shot and killed in the Javari Valley in 2019, advocates told ABC News.

Pereira also previously worked for FUNAI.

“When Bolsonaro took offices, FUNAI region directors including Bruno were replaced,” Antenor Vaz, a former FUNAI coordinator, said. “We also lost at least 40 % of our resources.”

ABC News obtained a letter sent to Pereira about a week before him and Phillips went missing. In it, the anonymous sender wrote, “Bruno from FUNAI sends the Indians to seize our engines and to take our fishes.” It continues, “I am just warning you this time that if you carry on this way it will be worst of all for you.”

The timing of Phillips and Pereira’s disappearances coincides with the Summit of the Americas, where many Latin American leaders, including Bolsonaro, convened in Los Angeles with President Joe Biden. Environmental organizations protested there too, urging Biden to not meet with Bolsonaro, who has previously downplayed the effects of deforestation in the Amazon and its impact on climate change.

The case of the missing men was raised by some environmental advocates who demanded answers from Bolsonaro on the whereabouts of the two men.

“Where are Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira?” demonstrators asked.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — While the world’s focus has been trained on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling over Ukraine, two other longstanding threats to U.S. national security have been not so quietly amplifying their ability to wreak international havoc.

In recent months, North Korea has test-launched an unprecedented number of ballistic missiles, and the U.S. assesses the country has imminent plans to resume nuclear testing after a five-year hiatus.

The U.N.’s atomic watchdog announced this week that Iran is mere weeks away from enriching enough uranium to potentially manufacture a nuclear explosive device and is blatantly blocking its surveillance efforts.

The threats posed by a Tehran or Pyongyang with weapons of mass destruction are vast, and the U.S. diplomatic approach to both countries is nuanced.

But the core question facing the Biden administration is straightforward: What — if anything — can it do to stop to prevent Iran and North Korea from becoming nuclear powers?

A cold shoulder from North Korea

The State Department has publicly messaged to Pyongyang that the door for diplomacy is open, but the U.S. Special Representative to North Korea says that sentiment has been communicated through “high-level personal messages from senior U.S. officials” via “private channels” as well.

Sung Kim revealed on Tuesday that in recent weeks, officials have even laid out specific proposals for humanitarian assistance in response to the Hermit Kingdom’s coronavirus outbreak.

But these offers have gone unanswered, Kim said, as the country continues “to show no indication that is interested in engaging.”

The silence of Pyongyang’s leadership is in direct contrast to the explosive missile launches that regularly light up the sky over the waters surrounding the Korean peninsula.

“North Korea has now launched 31 ballistic missiles in 2022. The most ballistic missiles it has ever launched in a single year, surpassing its previous record of 25 in 2019. And it’s only June,” Kim said, adding the country has “obviously done the preparations” to resume nuclear testing as well.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said earlier this week the response to any such test by North Korea would be “swift and forceful,” but so far, no official has publicly stated what exactly the reaction would be.

State Department Spokesperson Ned Price downplayed the extraordinary displays of force on Monday, calling them “cyclical.”

“We’ve seen periods of provocation; we’ve seen periods of engagement. It is very clear at the moment that we are in the former,” Price said.

But Bruce Bennett, a defense researcher at the RAND Corporation who has previously worked with Department of Defense, says it might be time for the U.S. to take a bolder approach.

Bennett argues that giving North Korea’s authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un the opportunity to rebuff an invitation from the U.S. plays into his hand.

“He’s just able to say no, makes him look superior, like he’s in control. So that’s not helping us on the deterrence issue,” he said.

US stresses allied cooperation in face of N. Korea threats
Similarly, Bennett argues that following up Kim Jong Un’s test launches by firing off short-range missiles with South Korea, as the U.S. did on Sunday, is unlikely to yield results. A better route, he says, would be directly punishing the dictator.

Some options? Bennett suggests threatening to fly reconnaissance aircraft along the country’s coast, playing off Kim’s abhorrence for spying. Or perhaps vowing to drop hard drives loaded with what he has called a “vicious cancer”: K-Pop.

“That’s where we’ve got to get creative — with what Kim hates himself,” Bennett said.

While those strategies might seem lighthearted, Bennett says the threat North Korea poses is anything but.

“The last North Korean nuclear test was of a 230 kiloton nuclear weapon. That size weapon detonated, focused on the Empire State Building will kill or seriously injure just under three million people,” he said. “We’re talking about massive damage that this North Korea threat can do if it’s ever really completed and made operational. And so the U.S. should be very anxious to stop and to rein it in. But we don’t seem to have figured out what we need to do to do that.”

Iran on the verge

As the top brass of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned of Iran’s stockpiling of enriched Uranium and failure to comply with U.N. inspectors this week, the U.S. and its allies successfully pushed for a censure.

The rebuke is largely symbolic, but it may be telling when it comes to the administration’s dimming hopes of returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the 2015 nuclear agreement former President Trump withdrew from in 2018.

When President Joe Biden entered the White House, top officials promised “a longer and stronger” deal. The administration loosened the enforcement of some sanctions and held back in forums like IAEA meetings in order to create space for negotiations. But after more than a year of indirect, stop-and-go talks, the odds of reviving the even the original JCPOA seem slim to none.

The Biden administration said in February it would soon be “impossible” to return to the deal given the pace of Iran’s nuclear advances. But Ali Vaez, the Iran Project Director at The International Crisis Group and former Senior Political Affairs Officer at the U.N., says there is still time—but not much.

“Iran has never been closer to the verge of nuclear weapons,” Vaez said. “And restoring the JCPOA is going to become more and more difficult as time passed.”

While Vaez notes that having the material to make an explosive isn’t the same as having the capability to manufacture a nuclear weapon, he says the U.S. and other agencies have little oversight of those next steps.

“The reality is that we have no visibility over the weaponization part of this,” he said.

Despite the diminishing sunset clauses—expiration dates of provisions in the nuclear agreement—Vaez argues the JCPOA still holds value and is the most straightforward path to curbing Iran.

“The break out time — if the original deal is restored with all of its thresholds — will be about six months. But six months is better than six days,” he said, adding that many key restrictions would remain in place until 2031. “It basically puts this issue on the back-burner for a long period of time.”

But because of the time needed to lock in an agreement, the approaching midterm elections, and the possibility that Democrats may lose control of one or both chambers of Congress, Vaez says if an agreement is going to be reached, it likely needs to happen this month or next.

Vaez also warns that failure could spell political disaster for the president if he is blamed for allowing Iran to develop weapons of mass destruction under his watch.

“Six months from now, that breakout time will be really near zero. And so the president will face an impossible choice of either acquiescing to a virtual nuclear weapons state in Iran or taking military action against Iran’s nuclear program,” he said. “So six months from now, it will be Biden’s war or Biden’s bomb.”

A more dangerous world

While the hazards posed by Iran and North Korea are separate from the nuclear threats posed by the Kremlin, Putin’s shadow extends far beyond Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The whole conflict has a nuclear dimension that is going to have an effect on how we deal with Iran and North Korea, with other proliferators” said John Erath, Senior Policy Director for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and a 30 year veteran of the State Department.

“We need to maintain this idea that Russia should not be allowed to benefit from using nuclear blackmail,” he added. “Because what happens when North Korea then says I’m going to nuke the South?”

Bennett adds that if adversaries are allowed to acquire functional nuclear weapons, other countries following suit, like South Korea and Japan. Although these countries are allies to the U.S., more nuclear powers means more opportunity for catastrophic wars and destruction unlike the world has ever seen.

“You have this dynamic going on in the region which is really not what the U.S. wants,” he said. “That’s a world which we’re reluctant to have happen, but we’re kind of letting happen.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(BUCHA, Ukraine) — Bucha, Ukraine is getting back to normal, but residents are still living with trauma from the war.

ABC News correspondents returned to Bucha to witness its rebirth.

In April, it took over two hours for the ABC News team to travel from Kyiv to Bucha, with bombed out bridges and checkpoints slowing their momentum. Now, the trip has returned to its swift 45-minute length.

Where charred tanks and burned out trucks littered Bucha’s streets a few weeks ago, flowers now color the city, and thick grass replaces mine-planted meadows.

The ABC News team headed to an apartment block that they remembered as bleak and frozen in April. There, they reunited with Mykola Pavlyuk, who had shared his story with ABC News in April. He had shown where he had buried his three friends in his backyard.

After being forced out of his home by Russian troops, Pavlyuk had lived underground with the other residents in his building.

One of his friends was killed by a grenade, and Pavlyuk had been in charge of picking up the pieces of his ruined body so that they could be buried.

Pavlyuk told ABC News that he left Bucha for a while after the April visit to live with his sister. Since then, doctors in the family have prescribed him medication and he has found help through his church.

“Eventually I had to get up and move on,” he said. “Thankfully I got a new job. I’m glad I have a job. I only just started. So life goes on. I try to think about the bad times as little as possible. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work out. Everything reminds me of the past.”

Despite hearing about the power Pavlyuk’s April interview had over people all over the world, Pavlyuk is still struggling with what he has endured.

“I don’t feel great,” Pavlyuk said. “I start remembering. And it’s hard. I try to calm myself down. I saw my friends, my family but I feel bad.”

Outside, standing by the homemade grave of his friends, Pavlyuk acknowledges the regrowth around him.

“It helps that it’s summer,” he said. “All the destruction is hidden by the greenery. It’s hiding the terrors of Bucha.”

Like many of Bucha’s residents, Pavlyuk can’t forget the mass graves, torture, execution and alleged human rights abuses that have now defined the city.

A mass grave site has reclaimed a churchyard in the city. Small memorials are the only markings seen, and dried flowers wrapped in Ukrainian colors sit sadly at its base.

Pavlyuk doubts there will be an investigation into the atrocities.

Bucha is not the only place which has had to endure alleged war crimes inflicted by Russian troops.

Last month, a 21-year-old Russian soldier pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed civilian in another town. It was the first war crimes trial since the war started.

As the war continues in Ukraine, citizens have no time to grieve. With Russian forces persevering in Donbas, the flowers of Bucha look frail.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — A fossil from a a carnivorous dinosaur that lived about 98 million years ago was unearthed by an Egyptian-led team of researchers in the country’s Western desert.

The well-preserved neck vertebra, discovered during a 2016 expedition to Bahariya Oasis in the vast desert, belongs to an Abelisaurid theropod, a species that lived during the Cretaceous period (about 145 to 66 million years ago), according to researchers.

The species were more common in parts of Europe and modern Southern Hemisphere continents, such as Africa and South America, in addition to the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar.

It’s the first time that remains of Abelisaurid, named after Argentinean Roberto Abel — who first discovered remains of the species decades ago — were found in Egypt. It is the oldest known fossil of the species in northeastern Africa.

In the early 20th century, fossils of other famous dinosaurs were discovered in the region, including Spinosaurus, but the samples were destroyed during the bombing in Munich during World War II.

The study was conducted by members of the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center (MUVP), Egypt’s Environmental Affairs Agency and U.S. researchers. The results were published in the scientific journal Royal Society Open Science.

Hesham Sallam, the founding director of the MUVP and a member of the research team, told ABC News that a meticulous operation was carried out to remove iron and sand from the vertebra’s surface.

“It’s the first time we discover here a meat-eating dinosaur in over a century… teams from Pennsylvania previously found fossils of plant-eating dinosaurs in the same area,” Sallam added.

“We found other things but we are not making further announcements for the time being,” he said.

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh describes Abelisaurid as a “kind of bulldog-faced, small-toothed, tiny-armed theropod that is estimated to have been roughly six meters (20 feet) in body length.”

“It has a big skull that resembles the shape of a bulldog … Its teeth look like knife blades, which enable it to grip its prey and tear off its flesh,” Belal Salem, a member of the MUVP and a graduate student at Ohio University who led the study, told ABC News.

In 2018, fossils of a plant-eating Cretaceous Period dinosaur were also uncovered in another oasis in western Egypt while remains of a 43-million-year-old semiaquatic whale were unearthed in the Fayoum province, south of Cairo, last year.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(CAIRO) — Egyptian officials said they plan to start legal proceedings to recover five Egyptian antiques seized from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as part of a wide-ranging investigation involving former Louvre museum President-Director Jean-Luc Martinez.

The five objects, which are said to be worth more than $3 million in total, were confiscated from the museum by the New York District Attorney’s Office under a May 19 court order from the Supreme Court of the State of New York, The Art Newspaper reported last week.

“Measures are being undertaken to recover those objects,” former Egyptian antiquities minister Zahi Hawass, a leading member of a committee the state had set up to repatriate stolen artifacts, told ABC News.

The Met bought the items between 2013 and 2015, the newspaper reported. They include a portrait of a woman painted during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero (54-69 AD) and linen fragments of the Book of Exodus that date back to “the fourth or fifth century.”

“Throughout this investigation, The Met has been fully cooperative, and will continue to be so,” a spokesperson for The Met told ABC News.

Martinez, who headed the Louvre from 2013 to 2021, was charged in May with complicity and fraud in concealing the origin of antiquities purchased by Met and Louvre Abu Dhabi, according to prosecutors in Paris.

The items in question also include a pink granite stele of 18th dynasty ruler and famous Boy King Tutankhamun, which Louvre Abu Dhabi had bought in 2016. It dates back to about 1327 B.C. according to the museum.

“Regarding the Louvre, we are awaiting the end of investigations to demand the artifacts’ return,” Hawass added, with other officials saying Egyptian authorities have been following up on the case with their French counterparts since 2020.

The prominent Egyptologist hit out at both museums for turning a blind eye towards the origin of the objects they bought. He said all such artifacts were “secretly excavated” and smuggled out of Egypt in 2011 when the country was gripped by the Arab Spring turmoil.

“The museums committed a mistake; they should have contacted Egypt’s antiquities ministry and inquired about the origins of those objects. They were fooled by the dealer,” Hawass said.

In 2019, U.S. authorities returned to Egypt the gilded sarcophagus of high-ranking priest Nedjemankh, after it was sold to The Met with fraudulent paperwork two years earlier.

Egypt said it had recovered 5,000 ancient pieces from the U.S. last year.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(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:

Jun 09, 1:59 pm
Ukraine’s defense chief pleads for more ‘heavy weapons’

Up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers are killed and another 500 are injured each day, according to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov.

Reznikov said in a Facebook post Thursday that Russia has “many more means in store to devour human lives in a bid to satisfy its imperial ego.”

“That is why we emphasize: Ukraine desperately needs heavy weapons, and very fast,” Reznikov said.

Among the weapons he’s requesting are “fighter jets, anti-aircraft and missile defence systems to protect our skies.”

-ABC News’ Will Gretsky

Jun 09, 8:55 am
Battle in key city to determine fate of eastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy says

The fight for the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk will determine the fate of the wider Donbas region, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“Severodonetsk remains the epicenter of the confrontation in Donbas. We defend our positions, inflict significant losses on the enemy,” Zelenskyy said late Wednesday in his nightly address. “This is a very fierce battle, very difficult. Probably one of the most difficult throughout this war. I am grateful to everyone who defends this direction. In many ways, the fate of our Donbas is being decided there.”

After launching an invasion of neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian forces failed to take control of the capital, Kyiv, and other major government centers as they faced tough resistance from Ukrainian troops. Russian forces then switched attention to Donbas, which comprises the self-proclaimed republics controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.

Severodonetsk, an industrial hub, is the largest city still held by Ukrainian troops in contested Donbas. In recent days, Russian forces have encircled the city as they advanced in the region, creating a pocket that could trap Ukrainian defenders there and in the neighboring city of Lysychansk.

Severodonetsk and Lysychansk are the last major cities in the Luhansk area still controlled by Ukraine. Last week, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update that Russian forces had seized most of Severodonetsk, but that the main road into the pocket likely remained under Ukrainian control.

Jun 09, 7:32 am
Mariupol residents face risk of cholera epidemic under Russian occupation

The port city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine is facing the risk of a cholera epidemic amid the destruction of water supplies and sanitation during the Russian invasion, city officials and health agencies warn.

“The risk of cholera is very high, like red, red level,” Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to Mariupol’s mayor, told ABC News, adding that the municipality could not provide an estimation of the number of infected cases due to lack of proper access to the occupants amid the occupation by Russian forces.

While the warnings have intensified in the past few days, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said on Telegram last month that due to problems with water supply, the Russian occupied city is threatened by an infectious catastrophe and more than 10,000 people may die by the end of the year.

The deteriorating water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure has set an alarmingly high risk of an outbreak, according to a report in April from the World Health Organization’s Health Cluster Ukraine agency.

The warming spring and summer weather will likely increase transmission, the report said.

“The weather is hot. There are still dead bodies on the streets of the city — especially under the debris of residential buildings. In some blocks, it is impossible to walk by — due to the stench of rotten human flesh. There was no rain for a while, and it is getting hotter,” a resident of Mariupol, who did not want to be named for security concerns, told ABC News.

Jun 08, 12:53 pm
Russian-occupied Mariupol faces ‘catastrophic lack of medical staff’

The Russian-occupied city of Mariupol, Ukraine, is facing a “catastrophic lack of medical staff,” Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said on the Telegram app.

He said Russians are trying to convince locals who are over 80 years old to go back to work at hospitals.

He warned, “In this state of medicine, any infectious disease turns into a deadly epidemic.”

Jun 08, 8:36 am
Putin-Zelenskyy meeting not possible, Kremlin says

A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not currently possible, the Kremlin said.

When asked about a recent comment from Zelenskyy that he’s willing to meet with Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “Our position is well-known here: good preparations need to be made for a top-level meeting. We know that the Ukrainian side has withdrawn from the negotiation track, and therefore it is currently not possible to prepare for this sort of top-level meeting.”

Jun 08, 5:06 am
Ukrainian defenses in key eastern city ‘holding,’ despite Russian attacks

Ukrainian troops defending the eastern city of Sieverodonetsk are “holding,” despite attacks in three directions from Russian forces, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Wednesday in an intelligence update.

“Russia continues to attempt assaults against the Sieverodonetsk pocket from three directions although Ukrainian defences are holding,” the ministry said. “It is unlikely that either side has gained significant ground in the last 24 hours.”

Sieverodonetsk, an industrial hub, is the largest city still held by Ukrainian troops in the contested Donbas region of Ukraine’s east, which comprises the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. In recent days, Russian forces have encircled the city as they advanced in Donbas, creating a pocket that could trap Ukrainian defenders there and in the neighboring city of Lysychansk.

Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk are the last major cities in the Luhansk area still controlled by Ukraine.

Last week, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Russian forces had seized most of Sieverodonetsk, but that the main road into the pocket likely remained under Ukrainian control.

With the frontage of the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine stretching for over 300 miles, “both Russia and Ukraine face similar challenges in maintaining a defensive line while freeing up capable combat units for offensive operations,” according to the ministry.

“While Russia is concentrating its offensive on the central Donbas sector, it has remained on the defensive on its flanks,” the ministry said in its intelligence update Wednesday. “Ukrainian forces have recently achieved some success by counter-attacking in the south-western Kherson region, including regaining a foothold on the eastern bank of the Ingulets River.”

Jun 07, 3:12 pm
At least 3 dead in shelling in Kharkiv

At least three people were killed and six others were injured in the Kharkiv area from ongoing shelling by Russian forces, according to the Kharkiv regional governor, Oleg Synegubov.

-ABC News’ Will Gretsky

Jun 07, 11:48 am
Ukraine official: Hard to win ‘without speeding up the supply of modern weapons’

Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, told ABC News that “it will be difficult for Ukraine to win this war without speeding up the supply of modern weapons.”

He added, “The country is ready for long-term resistance, because we are fighting for our freedom.”

This comes as the Donetsk People’s Republic claims an advance in territory.

DPR Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova told reporters, “We can say that the allied forces — the DPR militia and units of the Russian Defense Ministry — are in control of over 70% of the territory.”

Jun 07, 11:02 am
Ukrainian grain may be leaving ports — but on Russian ships

There is evidence of Russian vessels departing “from near Ukraine with their cargo holds full of grain,” a U.S. Department of State spokesperson told ABC News on Monday night.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reported that Russia seized at least 400,000 to 500,000 tons of grain worth over $100 million, according to the State Department spokesperson.

“Ukraine’s MFA also has numerous testimonies from Ukrainian farmers and documentary evidence showing Russia’s theft of Ukrainian grain,” the spokesperson said.

The news of Ukrainian grain aboard Russian ships partly confirms a recent report by The New York Times that Moscow is seeking to profit off of grain plundered from Ukraine by selling the product while subverting sanctions. Ukraine has already accused Russia of shipping the stolen grain to buyers in Syria and Turkey.

Russia and Ukraine — often referred to collectively as Europe’s breadbasket — produce a third of the global supply of wheat and barley, but Kyiv has been unable to ship exports due to Moscow’s offensive. A Russian blockade in the Black Sea, along with Ukrainian naval mines, have made exporting siloed grain virtually impossible and, as a result, millions of people around the world — particularly in Africa and the Middle East — are now on the brink of famine.

-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford

Jun 06, 12:26 pm
Two planes owned by Russian oligarch grounded by US prosecutors

Two planes — a Gulfstream G650 and a Boeing 787 — have been grounded after federal prosecutors said their owner, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, violated U.S. sanctions by flying the aircraft to Moscow in March.

The sanctions require a license for any U.S.-made aircraft to fly to Russia. The sanctions also prohibit an aircraft that is owned, controlled or under charter or lease by a Russian national from being flown to Russia.

“No licenses were applied for or issued. Nor was any license exception available, including because the Boeing and the Gulfstream were each owned and/or controlled by a Russian national: Roman Abramovich,” said the affidavit supporting a seizure warrant.

The Boeing plane is believed to be among the most expensive private aircraft in the world, worth $350 million, the affidavit said.

Jun 06, 9:05 am
Russia beefs up air defense on Snake Island

Russia has likely moved multiple air defense assets, including SA-15 and SA-22 missile systems, to Snake Island in the western Black Sea, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Monday in an intelligence update.

The move follows the loss of the Russian warship Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

“It is likely these weapons are intended to provide air defence for Russian naval vessels operating around Snake Island,” the ministry added. “Russia’s activity on Snake Island contributes to its blockade of the Ukrainian coast and hinders the resumption of maritime trade, including exports of Ukrainian grain.”

Russian forces captured Ukraine’s Snake Island in the early days of the invasion, memorably when Ukrainian soldiers defending the tiny islet told an attacking Russian warship to “go f— yourself.” Ukrainian troops have failed in their attempts to retake the previously inconsequential territory.

Meanwhile, in eastern Ukraine’s contested Donbas region, heavy fighting continues in the war-torn city of Sieverodonetsk, according to the ministry.

“Russian forces continue to push towards Sloviansk as part of their attempted encirclement of Ukrainian force,” the ministry said.

And in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, Russian air-launched cruise missiles struck rail infrastructure Sunday in the early morning hours, “likely in an attempt [to] disrupt the supply of Western military equipment to frontline Ukrainian units,” according to the ministry.

Jun 05, 3:39 pm
Russian missiles target Kyiv

After five weeks of relative calm in Kyiv, Russian rockets hit Ukraine’s capital city on Sunday as Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of strikes on “new targets” if the United States goes through with plans to supply Ukraine with longer-range missiles.

Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Maliar said the war is still in its “hot phase” and “capturing Kyiv is still Russia’s main goal.”

An ABC News crew visited Kyiv’s Darnytskyy district, where several Russian cruise missiles slammed into a railway repair plant. One building was still on fire when the ABC News crew arrived. Nearby, another missile strike left a creater on a cement path.

It took hours before Ukrainian authorities permitted media access to the site, saying the area needed to be cleared for safety first.

The Russians claimed the attack in Darnystskyy destroyed military vehicles and armaments. Ukrainian officials said the missiles hit a railway repair plant where no tanks were stored.

Speaking on Russian TV on Sunday, Putin issued a warning to the West on supplying the Ukrainians with high-powered rocket systems. He said if the West carried through with it, Russia would hit “new targets they had not attacked before.”

Jun 05, 7:05 am
Putin warns of strikes if West supplies longer-range missiles

President Vladimir Putin warned that Russian forces would strike new targets if the West began supplying Ukraine with longer-range missiles.

“But if they [missiles] are actually delivered, we will draw appropriate conclusions and apply our own weapons, which we have in sufficient quantities to carry out strikes on targets we aren’t striking yet,” Putin told Rossyia 1 TV Channel in an interview on Sunday.

-ABC News’ Tanya Stukalova and Tomek Rolski

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — More than 80 people are feared to have died in Sunday’s attack on a church in southwestern Nigeria, sources told ABC News on Wednesday.

A source with direct knowledge of the investigation said the bodies of 82 victims were in a local morgue. Another source briefed on the latest U.S. intelligence assessment said the estimate was over 80. Both sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they didn’t have authorization to speak to the press about the ongoing probe.

A spokesperson for the Nigeria Police Force, which is leading the investigation, told ABC News on Wednesday that the probe is ongoing and they can not confirm the death toll at this time.

Richard Olatunde, a spokesperson for the Ondo state governor, told ABC News on Wednesday that the casualty count was 40 people dead and 86 wounded, including 61 who were still hospitalized. However, those numbers are likely an underestimate.

The bloodshed occurred at St. Francis Catholic Church in the town of Owo in Ondo state, more than 200 miles northwest of Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, and over 200 miles southwest of Abuja, the Nigerian capital. The church was holding a service for Pentecost Sunday, a Christian holiday celebrated on the 50th day after Easter, when suddenly explosives detonated and gunshots rang out at around 11:30 a.m. local time, according to police

Several gunmen who were disguised as congregants were inside the church and opened fire at worshippers, police said, while other armed men who had positioned themselves around the church fired into the building from different directions and at worshippers as they tried to escape.

The assailants fled the scene in a stolen Nissan and remain at large, according to police, who said the vehicle has since been recovered.

Police said they have also recovered three undetonated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from the scene, along with fragments of detonated IEDs and pellets of expended AK-47 ammunition.

The exact number of perpetrators was unknown and police have yet to identify them. A motive for the massacre was also not immediately clear, as no group has claimed responsibility.

The Catholic Laity Council of Nigeria said in a statement on Monday that the gunmen were “suspected to be bandits.”

Meanwhile, health workers at the Federal Medical Center in Owo, which was treating victims of the attack, told ABC News on Monday that there was an urgent need for blood donations for the wounded.

Nigerian Inspector-General of Police Usman Alkali Baba has ordered a “full-scale” and “comprehensive” investigation into the incident and has deployed specialized police units to help track down the assailants, according to police.

Sunday’s attack was largely unprecedented in Ondo, which has been considered one of Nigeria’s most peaceful states. Violent attacks and kidnappings for ransom have become rife in other parts of the West African country.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(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:

Jun 09, 8:55 am
Battle in key city to determine fate of eastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy says

The fight for the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk will determine the fate of the wider Donbas region, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“Severodonetsk remains the epicenter of the confrontation in Donbas. We defend our positions, inflict significant losses on the enemy,” Zelenskyy said late Wednesday in his nightly address. “This is a very fierce battle, very difficult. Probably one of the most difficult throughout this war. I am grateful to everyone who defends this direction. In many ways, the fate of our Donbas is being decided there.”

After launching an invasion of neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian forces failed to take control of the capital, Kyiv, and other major government centers as they faced tough resistance from Ukrainian troops. Russian forces then switched attention to Donbas, which comprises the self-proclaimed republics controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.

Severodonetsk, an industrial hub, is the largest city still held by Ukrainian troops in contested Donbas. In recent days, Russian forces have encircled the city as they advanced in the region, creating a pocket that could trap Ukrainian defenders there and in the neighboring city of Lysychansk.

Severodonetsk and Lysychansk are the last major cities in the Luhansk area still controlled by Ukraine. Last week, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update that Russian forces had seized most of Severodonetsk, but that the main road into the pocket likely remained under Ukrainian control.

Jun 09, 7:32 am
Mariupol residents face risk of cholera epidemic under Russian occupation

The port city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine is facing the risk of a cholera epidemic amid the destruction of water supplies and sanitation during the Russian invasion, city officials and health agencies warn.

“The risk of cholera is very high, like red, red level,” Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to Mariupol’s mayor, told ABC News, adding that the municipality could not provide an estimation of the number of infected cases due to lack of proper access to the occupants amid the occupation by Russian forces.

While the warnings have intensified in the past few days, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said on Telegram last month that due to problems with water supply, the Russian occupied city is threatened by an infectious catastrophe and more than 10,000 people may die by the end of the year.

The deteriorating water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure has set an alarmingly high risk of an outbreak, according to a report in April from the World Health Organization’s Health Cluster Ukraine agency.

The warming spring and summer weather will likely increase transmission, the report said.

“The weather is hot. There are still dead bodies on the streets of the city — especially under the debris of residential buildings. In some blocks, it is impossible to walk by — due to the stench of rotten human flesh. There was no rain for a while, and it is getting hotter,” a resident of Mariupol, who did not want to be named for security concerns, told ABC News.

Jun 08, 12:53 pm
Russian-occupied Mariupol faces ‘catastrophic lack of medical staff’

The Russian-occupied city of Mariupol, Ukraine, is facing a “catastrophic lack of medical staff,” Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said on the Telegram app.

He said Russians are trying to convince locals who are over 80 years old to go back to work at hospitals.

He warned, “In this state of medicine, any infectious disease turns into a deadly epidemic.”

Jun 08, 8:36 am
Putin-Zelenskyy meeting not possible, Kremlin says

A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not currently possible, the Kremlin said.

When asked about a recent comment from Zelenskyy that he’s willing to meet with Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “Our position is well-known here: good preparations need to be made for a top-level meeting. We know that the Ukrainian side has withdrawn from the negotiation track, and therefore it is currently not possible to prepare for this sort of top-level meeting.”

Jun 08, 5:06 am
Ukrainian defenses in key eastern city ‘holding,’ despite Russian attacks

Ukrainian troops defending the eastern city of Sieverodonetsk are “holding,” despite attacks in three directions from Russian forces, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Wednesday in an intelligence update.

“Russia continues to attempt assaults against the Sieverodonetsk pocket from three directions although Ukrainian defences are holding,” the ministry said. “It is unlikely that either side has gained significant ground in the last 24 hours.”

Sieverodonetsk, an industrial hub, is the largest city still held by Ukrainian troops in the contested Donbas region of Ukraine’s east, which comprises the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. In recent days, Russian forces have encircled the city as they advanced in Donbas, creating a pocket that could trap Ukrainian defenders there and in the neighboring city of Lysychansk.

Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk are the last major cities in the Luhansk area still controlled by Ukraine.

Last week, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Russian forces had seized most of Sieverodonetsk, but that the main road into the pocket likely remained under Ukrainian control.

With the frontage of the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine stretching for over 300 miles, “both Russia and Ukraine face similar challenges in maintaining a defensive line while freeing up capable combat units for offensive operations,” according to the ministry.

“While Russia is concentrating its offensive on the central Donbas sector, it has remained on the defensive on its flanks,” the ministry said in its intelligence update Wednesday. “Ukrainian forces have recently achieved some success by counter-attacking in the south-western Kherson region, including regaining a foothold on the eastern bank of the Ingulets River.”

Jun 07, 3:12 pm
At least 3 dead in shelling in Kharkiv

At least three people were killed and six others were injured in the Kharkiv area from ongoing shelling by Russian forces, according to the Kharkiv regional governor, Oleg Synegubov.

-ABC News’ Will Gretsky

Jun 07, 11:48 am
Ukraine official: Hard to win ‘without speeding up the supply of modern weapons’

Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, told ABC News that “it will be difficult for Ukraine to win this war without speeding up the supply of modern weapons.”

He added, “The country is ready for long-term resistance, because we are fighting for our freedom.”

This comes as the Donetsk People’s Republic claims an advance in territory.

DPR Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova told reporters, “We can say that the allied forces — the DPR militia and units of the Russian Defense Ministry — are in control of over 70% of the territory.”

Jun 07, 11:02 am
Ukrainian grain may be leaving ports — but on Russian ships

There is evidence of Russian vessels departing “from near Ukraine with their cargo holds full of grain,” a U.S. Department of State spokesperson told ABC News on Monday night.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reported that Russia seized at least 400,000 to 500,000 tons of grain worth over $100 million, according to the State Department spokesperson.

“Ukraine’s MFA also has numerous testimonies from Ukrainian farmers and documentary evidence showing Russia’s theft of Ukrainian grain,” the spokesperson said.

The news of Ukrainian grain aboard Russian ships partly confirms a recent report by The New York Times that Moscow is seeking to profit off of grain plundered from Ukraine by selling the product while subverting sanctions. Ukraine has already accused Russia of shipping the stolen grain to buyers in Syria and Turkey.

Russia and Ukraine — often referred to collectively as Europe’s breadbasket — produce a third of the global supply of wheat and barley, but Kyiv has been unable to ship exports due to Moscow’s offensive. A Russian blockade in the Black Sea, along with Ukrainian naval mines, have made exporting siloed grain virtually impossible and, as a result, millions of people around the world — particularly in Africa and the Middle East — are now on the brink of famine.

-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford

Jun 06, 12:26 pm
Two planes owned by Russian oligarch grounded by US prosecutors

Two planes — a Gulfstream G650 and a Boeing 787 — have been grounded after federal prosecutors said their owner, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, violated U.S. sanctions by flying the aircraft to Moscow in March.

The sanctions require a license for any U.S.-made aircraft to fly to Russia. The sanctions also prohibit an aircraft that is owned, controlled or under charter or lease by a Russian national from being flown to Russia.

“No licenses were applied for or issued. Nor was any license exception available, including because the Boeing and the Gulfstream were each owned and/or controlled by a Russian national: Roman Abramovich,” said the affidavit supporting a seizure warrant.

The Boeing plane is believed to be among the most expensive private aircraft in the world, worth $350 million, the affidavit said.

Jun 06, 9:05 am
Russia beefs up air defense on Snake Island

Russia has likely moved multiple air defense assets, including SA-15 and SA-22 missile systems, to Snake Island in the western Black Sea, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Monday in an intelligence update.

The move follows the loss of the Russian warship Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

“It is likely these weapons are intended to provide air defence for Russian naval vessels operating around Snake Island,” the ministry added. “Russia’s activity on Snake Island contributes to its blockade of the Ukrainian coast and hinders the resumption of maritime trade, including exports of Ukrainian grain.”

Russian forces captured Ukraine’s Snake Island in the early days of the invasion, memorably when Ukrainian soldiers defending the tiny islet told an attacking Russian warship to “go f— yourself.” Ukrainian troops have failed in their attempts to retake the previously inconsequential territory.

Meanwhile, in eastern Ukraine’s contested Donbas region, heavy fighting continues in the war-torn city of Sieverodonetsk, according to the ministry.

“Russian forces continue to push towards Sloviansk as part of their attempted encirclement of Ukrainian force,” the ministry said.

And in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, Russian air-launched cruise missiles struck rail infrastructure Sunday in the early morning hours, “likely in an attempt [to] disrupt the supply of Western military equipment to frontline Ukrainian units,” according to the ministry.

Jun 05, 3:39 pm
Russian missiles target Kyiv

After five weeks of relative calm in Kyiv, Russian rockets hit Ukraine’s capital city on Sunday as Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of strikes on “new targets” if the United States goes through with plans to supply Ukraine with longer-range missiles.

Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Maliar said the war is still in its “hot phase” and “capturing Kyiv is still Russia’s main goal.”

An ABC News crew visited Kyiv’s Darnytskyy district, where several Russian cruise missiles slammed into a railway repair plant. One building was still on fire when the ABC News crew arrived. Nearby, another missile strike left a creater on a cement path.

It took hours before Ukrainian authorities permitted media access to the site, saying the area needed to be cleared for safety first.

The Russians claimed the attack in Darnystskyy destroyed military vehicles and armaments. Ukrainian officials said the missiles hit a railway repair plant where no tanks were stored.

Speaking on Russian TV on Sunday, Putin issued a warning to the West on supplying the Ukrainians with high-powered rocket systems. He said if the West carried through with it, Russia would hit “new targets they had not attacked before.”

Jun 05, 7:05 am
Putin warns of strikes if West supplies longer-range missiles

President Vladimir Putin warned that Russian forces would strike new targets if the West began supplying Ukraine with longer-range missiles.

“But if they [missiles] are actually delivered, we will draw appropriate conclusions and apply our own weapons, which we have in sufficient quantities to carry out strikes on targets we aren’t striking yet,” Putin told Rossyia 1 TV Channel in an interview on Sunday.

-ABC News’ Tanya Stukalova and Tomek Rolski

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — The port city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine is facing the risk of a cholera epidemic amid the destruction of water supplies and sanitation during the Russian invasion, city officials and health agencies warn.

“The risk of cholera is very high, like red, red level,” Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to Mariupol’s mayor, told ABC News, adding that the municipality could not provide an estimation of the number of infected cases due to lack of proper access to the occupants amid the occupation by Russian forces.

While the warnings have intensified in the past few days, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said on Telegram last month that due to problems with water supply, the city is threatened by an infectious catastrophe and more than 10,000 people may die by the end of the year.

The deteriorating water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure has set an alarmingly high risk of an outbreak, according to a report in April from the World Health Organization’s Health Cluster Ukraine agency.

The warming spring and summer weather will likely increase transmission, the report said.

“The weather is hot. There are still dead bodies on the streets of the city — especially under the debris of residential buildings. In some blocks, it is impossible to walk by — due to the stench of rotten human flesh. There was no rain for a while, and it is getting hotter,” a resident of Mariupol, who did not want to be named for security concerns, told ABC News.

The condition of hospital staffing is also “catastrophic,” Andriushchenko wrote on his official Telegram channel on Wednesday.

“Visual demonstration of complete paralysis and collapse of medical system… In this state of medicine, any infectious disease turns into a deadly epidemic,” he said.

Andryushchenko told ABC News that swimming has been banned in the sea [of Azov] as a means to control the spread of the disease. Russian occupation authorities were beginning to quarantine the captured city of Mariupol, he said.

Dorit Nitzan, the WHO’s Ukraine incident manager, told reporters last month the international agency’s partners on the ground in Mariupol are observing “actual swamps in the streets.”

Sewage water and drinking water are getting mixed, Nitzan said at a press briefing in Kyiv.

“This is a huge hazard for many infections, including cholera,” she said.

“Accessing Mariupol is an issue, but we are looking for opportunities via partners on the ground,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told ABC News.

To take necessary measures in controlling the risk of spreading the disease, the international body “has provided Ukraine with guidance on prevention, preparedness, case definitions, detection — including in wastewater monitoring– [and] standards of care and case management,” Harris added.

Due to the lack of water, the city’s residents have drawn untreated water from rivers and lakes, the April report warns, saying Ukraine was also the last European country to declare a cholera epidemic, with 33 cases in Mariupol in 2011.

“There is still no water supply – it is delivered by trucks, and people on the streets are staying in the lines to fill some bottles,” the Mariupol resident who spoke to ABC News said, adding that people in the city have no information about possible affected cases.

Besides facilitating readiness for the use of cholera vaccines in Ukraine, the WHO says it is working with the Ministry of Health to provide risk communication materials advising people on “how to protect themselves, on prevention, but also on treatment, including on what to do at-home.”

The international body has also offered medical supplies, including WHO cholera kits with rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs), Harris said.

The city was reportedly home to over 400,000 people before Russia invaded Ukraine in February. While there are no accurate statistics on the number of current residents, Ukrainian officials estimate that 100,000 to 150,000 people are still living in the occupied city, many in hiding in the basements and bomb shelters.

Harris underlined the critical psychological condition of the people left in the city and how it would contribute to the likely outbreak.

“The fact that people have to be on the move, the fact that they often have close together, that they’re huddling in basements, in bomb shelters, and the incredible trauma, psychological pressure they are under has got to be having a severe effect on their immune systems, weakening their immune system,” she said.

“So even what’s normally just a mild infection for you or me is a much more serious infection in somebody under those conditions,” she added.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.