Russia yesterday said it had full control of the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka after Ukraine withdrew though Moscow said that some Ukrainian troops were still holed up in a vast Soviet-era coke plant after one of the most intense battles of the war.

Events on the battlefield in Ukraine are a matter of "life and death" for Russia that could determine its fate, President Vladimir Putin said in remarks aired Sunday

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged allies at a global security conference yesterday to plug an “artificial” shortage of weapons that is giving Russia’s forces the upper hand on the battlefield.

Outnumbered Ukrainian defenders were fighting fierce battles inside the small eastern city of Avdiivka yesterday, commanders said, as Russian forces closed in on the strategic location.

Ukraine destroyed a Russian landing warship off the coast of occupied Crimea in an operation with naval drones that breached the vessel’s port side yesterday and caused it to sink, Kyiv’s military spy agency and armed forces said.

Russian strikes killed five people across Ukraine yesterday, Ukrainian officials said, as the second anniversary of Moscow’s invasion approaches.

A Ukrainian couple and their three small children were killed in a fire after a Russian drone attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv hit an oil depot, triggering blazes and damaging residential houses, officials said yesterday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview that aired on Thursday that Russia will fight for its interests “to the end” but has no interest in expanding its war in Ukraine to other countries such as Poland and Latvia.

Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson killed four people and injured one other person yesterday, a local official said.

The United Nations’ top court said Friday a case brought by Ukraine against Russia over the brutal 2022 invasion could go ahead after ruling it had jurisdiction over most of the points made by Kyiv.

Judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) yesterday ruled that the case Ukraine started accusing Russia of violating international law by accusing Ukraine of genocide can move forward.

Ukraine said yesterday it had destroyed a Russian warship in the Black Sea off the Crimean peninsula, which has come under increasing Ukrainian attacks.

Ukraine yesterday rejected Russia’s claim that it had captured a tiny village in the east, as battles grind on nearly two years into Moscow’s invasion.

Russia accused Ukraine today of deliberately shooting down a Russian military transport plane carrying 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers to a prisoner exchange

At least 25 people were killed and 20 injured after Ukrainian forces shelled the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, Alexei Kulemzin, the city’s Russian-installed mayor, said yesterday.

The European Union said Friday it will drastically increase ammunition production this year in response to Ukraine’s growing pleas for support in its war against Russia, which summoned the French ambassador to protest at the country’s “growing involvement” in the conflict.

Ukraine said it was behind a drone strike that sparked a huge inferno at an oil depot in western Russia yesterday, the latest in a series of escalating cross-border attacks.

Russia yesterday said it destroyed all targets in a barrage of strikes on facilities producing ammunition and drones in Ukraine.

A woman was killed in Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s Kursk region and drones struck a fuel facility in the neighbouring region of Orlyov, the two regions’ governors said yesterday, amid an escalation of cross-border attacks.

Russia sent dozens of missiles across Ukraine early yesterday, killing at least four civilians and hitting residential areas and commercial sites in its latest combined air attack, Ukrainian authorities said.