Ukrainian forces have launched a counteroffensive near the Russian-held town of Izium in eastern Ukraine, a regional governor said, in what could prove a serious setback for Moscow's plans to capture the entire Donbas region.
Ukraine has begun the trial of a captured Russian soldier accused of killing a Ukrainian civilian in the early days of the war — the first of dozens of war crimes cases that the country's top prosecutor is pursuing.
Swedish membership of NATO would boost national security and help to stabilise the Nordic and Baltic regions, Foreign Minister Ann Linde says, a day after neighbour Finland said it would seek to join the US-led alliance without delay.
Finland says it will apply to join NATO "without delay", with Sweden expected to follow suit, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine brings about the very expansion of the Western military alliance that Vladimir Putin aimed to prevent.
Sweden's ruling Social Democrats will decide on May 15 whether to overturn decades of opposition to NATO membership, the party says, a move that would almost certainly lead to Sweden asking to join the 30-nation alliance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told his armed forces they are fighting for their country at a parade of Russian firepower in Moscow while his troops stepped up their 10-week-old assault on Ukraine.
As many as 60 people are feared to have been killed in the Russian bombing of a village school in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, the regional governor says.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says diplomatic efforts are under way to save the remaining fighters holed up inside the Azovstal steelworks in the city of Mariupol, as more civilians were evacuated from the bombed-out plant.
Dozens more civilians have been rescued from the tunnels under a besieged steel mill in Mariupol where Ukrainian fighters have been making their last stand to prevent Russia's complete takeover of the strategically important port city.
The Italian government has ordered the seizure of a luxury yacht worth some $700 million that has been linked in the media to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Israel has denounced Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for suggesting the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins, saying his comments were anti-Semitic and dangerous.
