The latest developments on the Russia-Ukraine war:
BELGRADE, Serbia — Dozens of cars drove through the Serbian capital of Belgrade on Sunday in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The occupants waved Russian and Serbian flags, honked horns and chanted pro-Putin slogans. Some cars had the letter Z painted on them — a symbol of support for the Russian president.
The protest was organized by a small far-right group.
Serbia has refused to join international sanctions against its ally Russia despite formally seeking EU membership and voting in favor of the U.N. resolution condemning Moscow’s aggression.
Serbia’s dominant state-controlled media are daily carrying Moscow’s war propaganda, creating a strong pro-Putin mood among Serbia’s ultranationalists and far-right groups.
___
BERLIN — Three U.N. agencies are calling for an immediate end to attacks on health care facilities in Ukraine, calling them “an act of unconscionable cruelty.”
In a joint statement Sunday, the U.N. Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization and the U.N. Population Fund said that “horrific attacks are killing and causing serious injuries to patients and health workers, destroying vital health infrastructure and forcing thousands to forgo accessing health services despite catastrophic needs.”
“To attack the most vulnerable — babies, children, pregnant women, and those already suffering from illness and disease, and health workers risking their own lives to save lives — is an act of unconscionable cruelty,” they said.
Since the start of the war at least 12 people were killed and 34 were injured, while 24 facilities and five ambulances were damaged or destroyed, the agencies said.
They said that some 4,300 children have been born since the conflict began and 80,000 Ukrainian women are expected to give birth in the next three months, with oxygen and other medical supplies running dangerously low.
“The health care system in Ukraine is clearly under significant strain, and its collapse would be a catastrophe. Every effort must be made to prevent this from happening,” they said.
___
BERLIN — The head of a group providing humanitarian aid in Ukraine says the international community needs to start making plans for how to help the country when the war ends.
Pavlo Titko, who heads the Ukraine branch of the Germany-based Malteser aid group, says the conflict could worsen the already difficult demographic situation in Ukraine where many educated young people have moved abroad, leaving the poor and elderly behind.
Titko told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Sunday from Ukraine’s eastern city of Lviv that the country needs a “long-term perspective.”
He urged Western nations to create partnerships between cities and institutions such as those established with Ukraine during the 1990s that helped prevent some of the worst impacts of the economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Titko said Malteser Ukraine, which provides thousands of warm meals at train stations and border crossings each day, has also begun offering psychological help to those traumatized by the war. That need will dramatically increase in future, he predicted.
___
LIMASSOL, Cyprus — Dozens of Russian nationals joined Ukrainians in the coastal resort town of Limassol, home to a sizeable Russian expatriate community, to protest the war in Ukraine.
About 50 Russians converged on Limassol’s promenade prior to joining with other protesters Sunday to chant slogans including “Stop the war, stop Putin” and “
Protester Evgeniya Shlikava, who has been living and working in Cyprus for five years, told The Associated Press that despite Russian propaganda, Ukraine “didn’t deserve this action from our government” and that protesters are demanding an immediate end to the war “that we don’t support.”
“I do believe that the person who did the most to make Russia weak and not united is Putin himself,” said Shlikava, who faulted the Russian president and his supporters for bringing the world’s wrath on Russia that is proud of its humanistic values and culture.
“But now Russia is the aggressor for the whole world, and we protest it,” Shlikava said.
___
A U.S. journalist being treated at a hospital in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv says that he and a U.S. colleague were shot after they were stopped at a checkpoint just after a bridge in Irpin, a town near Kyiv.
Juan Arredondo told Italian journalist Annalisa Camilli in an interview from the hospital before being taken for surgery that the colleague who was with him was hit in the neck and remained on the ground earlier on Sunday.
Camilli told The Associated Press that she was at the hospital when Arredondo arrived and that Arredondo had himself had been wounded, hit in the lower back when stopped at a Russian checkpoint.
Arredondo told Camilli he didn’t have further information on the fellow U.S. journalist, whom he identified as Brent Renaud, a friend. He told Camilli they were filming refugees fleeing the area when they were shot at while in a car approaching a checkpoint. The driver turned around but the firing at them continued, Arredondo added.
A statement from Kyiv regional police said that Russian troops opened fire on the car, and that one journalist died. Arredondo said that an ambulance brought him to the hospital and that Renaud was “left behind.”
___
LVIV, Ukraine — Kyiv Region police say a U.S. video journalist has died and another journalist was injured when they were attacked by Russian forces in Ukraine.
The police force said Sunday on its official website that Russian troops opened fire on the car of Brent Renaud and another journalist in Irpin near the capital. It said the injured journalist was being taken to a hospital in Kyiv.
A New York Times spokesperson said Renaud, 50, was a “talented filmmaker who had contributed to The New York Times over the years.” It said he was not working for the publication at the time of his death.
The police force said: “Of course, the profession of journalism carries risks. Nonetheless, U.S. citizen Brent Renaud paid with his life trying to highlight the deceit, cruelty and ruthlessness of the aggressor.”
Asked about the reports, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News that the U.S. government would be consulting with the Ukrainians to determine how this happened and would then “execute appropriate consequences.”
“This is part and parcel of what has been a brazen aggression on the part of the Russians, where they have targeted civilians, they have targeted hospitals, they have targeted places of worship, and they have targeted journalists,” Sullivan said.
___
WASHINGTON — White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan says Russia will face a response from NATO should any of its attacks in Ukraine cross borders and hit members of the security alliance.
Russian missiles on Sunday struck a military training base close to Ukraine’s western border with NATO member Poland and killed 35 people.
Sullivan tells CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that President Joe Biden “has been clear repeatedly that the United States will work with our allies to defend every inch of NATO territory and that means every inch.”
Sullivan says a military attack on NATO territory would cause the invocation of Article 5. That requires other countries in NATO to come to the defense of the attacked nation. Sullivan says “We will bring the full force of the NATO alliance to bear in responding.”
Sullivan says NATO would respond even if a shot by Russia that hit NATO territory was accidental.
___
LVIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s president says nearly 125,000 civilians have been evacuated through safe-passage corridors so far, and a convoy with humanitarian aid is headed to the besieged city of Mariupol.
“We have already evacuated almost 125,000 people to the safe territory through humanitarian corridors,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address released Sunday. “The main task today is Mariupol. Our convoy with humanitarian aid is two hours away from Mariupol. Only 80km (left).”
“We’re doing everything to counter occupiers who are even blocking Orthodox priests accompanying this aid, food, water and medicine. There are 100 tons of the most necessary things that Ukraine sent to its citizens,” Zelenskyy said.
___
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has decried the “barbarianism” of the killing of children and other defenseless civilians in Ukraine and pleaded for a stop to the attacks “before cities are reduced to cemeteries.”
In some of his strongest denunciations yet of the war in Ukraine, and in apparent reference to Russia, which invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the pontiff said that “there are no strategic reasons that hold up” in the face of such armed aggression.
Francis told about 25,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his customary Sunday noon appearance that Mariupol, the southern Ukrainian city which “bears the name” of the Virgin Mary, has “become a city martyred by the heartbreaking war that is devastating Ukraine.”
“In the name of God, I ask: ‘Stop this massacre,’” Francis said, sparking applause from the pilgrims, tourists and Romans, some of whom held Ukrainian flags, in the square.
Francis prayed for an end of the bombings and other attacks and for ensuring that humanitarian corridors “are safe and secure.”
___
ANTALYA, Turkey— Turkey’s foreign minister says his country is trying to evacuate Turkish citizens who were sheltering in a mosque in Mariupol.
Russian shells hit near the Sultan Suleiman Mosque Saturday. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the mosque had not been damaged and they had made contact with the Turkish nationals through satellite phones. He did not specify the number of people sheltering there. The Ukrainian Embassy in Ankara said Saturday 89 Turks, including 34 children, were at the mosque.
The minister said he spoke with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to ask for his support for a humanitarian evacuation corridor in Mariupol. Buses were ready for their evacuation Saturday but had not been able to enter the city because of clashes. Efforts continued Sunday.
Cavusoglu said 489 Turkish citizens had been evacuated Saturday from places where clashes continued, including Kherson and Kharkiv.
___
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s foreign minister is condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling on Moscow to halt its attacks and end the conflict.
Yair Lapid’s criticism Sunday is among the strongest that has come from Israeli officials since the war began. His remarks set him apart from Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has stopped short of condemning Russia.
Israel has walked a fine line in its response to the crisis. Bennett has voiced support for the Ukrainian people and the country has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine. But Israel relies on Russia for security coordination in Syria, where Russia has a military presence and where Israeli aircraft have frequently struck enemy targets over recent years. Bennett has been attempting to mediate between the Kremlin and Ukraine.
Lapid made his remarks in Bucharest, Romania, where he met his Romanian counterpart.
___
LVIV, Ukraine — The office of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General says a total of 85 children have been killed since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
More than 100 more have been wounded, the office said. Officials also said that bombings and shelling have damaged 369 educational facilities in the country, 57 of which have been completely destroyed.
___
LVIV, Ukraine — At least nine people were killed and 57 wounded when a Russian airstrike hit a military training base in western Ukraine close to the Polish border, a local official said Sunday.
The governor of the Lviv region, Maksym Kozytskyi, said Russian forces fired more than 30 cruise missiles at the Yavoriv military range, located 30 kilometers (19 miles) northwest of the city of Lviv and 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Ukraine’s border with Poland.
The assault brought the war closer to the border with Poland. A senior Russian diplomat has warned that Moscow considered foreign shipments of military equipment to Ukraine “legitimate targets.”
The United States and NATO have regularly sent instructors to the range, also known as the International Peacekeeping and Security Center, to train Ukrainian military personnel. The facility has also hosted international NATO drills.
Russian fighters also fired at the airport in Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western Ukraine located 250 kilometers (155.34 miles) from Ukraine’s border with Slovakia and Hungary.
___
SUCEAVA, Romania — A widow fleeing the war in Ukraine with her teenage son has described the harrowing scenes they witnessed during their days-long journey from their bombed hometown of Chernihiv in north Ukraine.
The 44-year-old Elena Yurchuk worked as a nurse at a local hospital she says no longer exists. She says, “Our city is under siege and we barely escaped.”
She says, “People in cars are blown up by mines, a car with children and a young family was blown up … literally behind us.”
Yurchuk described Chernihiv as a “ghost town” with no electricity when they left. After reaching Suceava in north Romania, she’s unsure where they’ll go next. They have earmarked Germany as a final destination, where she hopes to find work caring for the elderly.
She says, “I don’t know the language, it will be difficult for me.” She added that a lot of refugees have already arrived, saying, “I understand that no one needs us. “
She says her house was in the center next to a hotel that was bombed in an airstrike, adding, “I don’t know if I have a home or not.”
___
ROME — Italian state radio says a bus carrying about 50 refugees from Ukraine has overturned on a major highway in northern Italy, killing a passenger and injuring several others, none of them seriously.
RAI radio said one woman died and the rest of those aboard the bus were safely evacuated after the accident early Sunday near the town of Forli’. It wasn’t immediately clear where the bus was headed.
Some 35,000 Ukrainians refugees who fled the war have entered Italy, most of them through its northeastern border with Slovenia. Forli’ is in the region of Emilia-Romagna, which borders the Adriatic Sea and which so far has taken in some 7,000 refugees.
The accident is under investigation.
___
LVIV, Ukraine — Russian forces carried out an air strike on a military range near Lviv in western Ukraine, expanding its offensive closer to the border with Poland.
The Russian military on Sunday morning fired eight rockets at the Yavoriv military range 30 kilometers northwest of Lviv, the Lviv regional administration said, without offering any details about possible casualties.
The Yavoriv military range, also known as the Yavoriv International Peacekeeping and Security Center, is located 35 kilometers from Ukraine’s border with Poland.
Since 2015, the U.S. has regularly sent instructors to the Yavoriv military range to train Ukraine’s military. The range has also hosted international NATO drills.
On Friday, Russian forces shelled two airfields in the western cities of Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, firing more than 10 cruise missiles from Tu-95MS strategic bombers, the Ukrainian General Staff said.
___
LVIV, Ukraine – Russia is trying to create new “pseudo-republics” in Ukraine to break his country apart, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation Saturday.
Zelenskyy called on Ukraine’s regions, including Kherson, which was captured by Russian forces, not to repeat the experience of Donetsk and Luhansk. Pro-Russian separatists began fighting Ukrainian forces in those eastern regions in 2014.
“The occupiers on the territory of the Kherson region are trying to repeat the sad experience of the formation of pseudo-republics,” Zelenskyy said. “They are blackmailing local leaders, putting pressure on deputies, looking for someone to bribe.”
City council members in Kherson, a southern city of 290,000, on Saturday rejected plans for a new pseudo-republic, Zelenskyy said.
Russia recognized the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic before invading Ukraine in February. Moscow said it had to protect the separatist regions, and is demanding that Ukraine recognize their independence too.
“Ukraine will stand this test. We need time and strength to break the war machine that has come to our land,” Zelenskyy said.
___
ZAHONY, Hungary — Klara Uliganich is returning home to Ukraine after spending nearly three weeks in Hungary as a refugee.
The pensioner says she will go back to her home in Uzhhorod, a city in western Ukraine.
“I got a feeling, it’s hard to put it into words,” she said of her decision while waiting at the railway station in the Hungarian border town of Zahony. “I was born there, that’s my home.”
Her family didn’t want her to return, but she said she was determined to go back.
“I can’t live my life shaking in fear just because the Russians are coming,” she said. “If they come, I’ll be a refugee again, that’s it.”
Hungary, a country of around 10 million people, has taken in around 235,000 refugees from Ukraine as of Saturday, the second-highest number of any other country after Poland, which has received more than 1.5 million refugees.
___
KYIV, Ukraine — Seven Ukrainian civilians, including a child, died when Russia shelled a humanitarian convoy of refugees and forced them to turn back, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said.
The seven were among hundreds of people who tried to flee the village of Peremoha, 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Kyiv. An unknown number of people were wounded in the shelling, the report added.
Moscow has said it would establish humanitarian corridors out of conflict zones, but Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of disrupting those paths and firing on civilians.
On Saturday, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said just nine of 14 agreed-upon corridors were open on Saturday, and that about 13,000 people were evacuated on them around the country.
At least 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion 17 days ago, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.
___
WARSAW, Poland – Yulia Kalachemkov is staying at a refugee center in Warsaw with her children. They are among the people fleeing Ukraine, which the United Nations refugee agency says numbers at least 2.5 million.
Her young daughter has epilepsy and her 11-year-old autistic son Nikita is recovering from an operation on his feet that were deformed at birth.
She said it was a struggle to flee her home country and get to Poland’s capital.
“It was just so hard trying to hold my children’s hands in case they fell and try to carry the luggage,” Kalachemkov told Sky News.
At a nearby bus station, a Ukrainian woman who fled her home in Kyiv briefly crossed paths with her parents, who were heading back into Ukraine after a vacation in Cuba.
“It’s the most horrible thing,” said Katarina, identified only by her first name in Sky News video. “Anything could happen. It could be the last time I see my parents.”
___
Sergiy Stakhovsky is a recently retired professional tennis player from Ukraine who has left his wife and three young children at home in Hungary to go back to his birthplace to help how he can during Russia’s invasion.
Stakhovsky said in a video interview with the AP that he would never have imagined he would be in his home city with a gun in his hands.
He earned more than $5 million in prize money in tennis and upset Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2013. Stakhovsky’s last match came in Australian Open qualifying in January.
Russia began attacking Ukraine on Feb. 24, and a few days later, he arrived in Kyiv.
___
MEDYKA, Poland — About 60 child cancer patients from Ukraine boarded a medical train in a Polish town Saturday, bound for hospitals in Warsaw and elsewhere.
Medical workers carried some young patients in their arms, on stretchers and in a wheelchair at a station in Medyka, near the Ukrainian border.
“Some of them will require oxygen, will require some form of intensive care,” and some have COVID-19 and have to be kept separate from others,” said Dominik Daszuta, an anesthesiologist from Warsaw Hospital. He said the train has transported 120 children with cancer so far.
The United Nations refugee agency says at least 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine in the two weeks since Russia invaded it.
