"A ceasefire was declared at the moment when it was necessary to evacuate civilians from the territory of Azovstal. Azov fighters, Ukrainian armed forces that are located on the territory of the plant took advantage of this regime. They came out of the basements, they took up firing positions on the territory and in the buildings of the plant," Russian defence ministry spokesman Vadim Astafyev said in a statement.

🎥Artillery fire is heard at Azovstal, smoke is seen over the plant's grounds, Sputnik correspondent reports

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❗️ UK PM Johnson announces £300mln military aid package to Ukraine

🎞 📹 A man from Mariupol told how Ukrainian forces killed people. He saw how they were firing shells from tanks at civilians’ apartments. “Neither DPR nor Russia was here at that time, no one”, he says

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❗Macron-Putin phone conversation lasted more than 2 hours - reports

Ukrainian forces have equipped trenches in the residential areas of Rubezhny. They left foreign weapons and even the bodies of their comrades into these trenches

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⚡Putin tells Macron EU ignores war crimes committed by Ukrainian forces - Kremlin

Putin tells Macron Russia ready for talks with Ukraine despite Kiev’s ‘unpreparedness’ - Kremlin

❗️ Biden pledges to work to 'codify' abortion rights into law amid Roe v Wade leak

Children from liberated Volnovakha are continuing their studies at school, sharing their attitudes about the Ukrainian language. Among other things, pupils remember how someone was once scolded for speaking in Russian

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A Mariupol resident has told a heart breaking story about how she was only able to bury a piece of her daughter and a cross necklace, as she had been killed during shelling

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❗Interior Ministry of Transnistria says drone with explosives launched from Ukraine

Pro-life and pro-choice activists are gathering next to the US Supreme Court after media reported on the leak of a draft opinion distributed by Supreme Court justices in favour of ending the federal constitutional right to abortion

❗Borrell says sixth package of EU sanctions against Russia will ‘de-SWIFT’ more banks, list ‘disinformation actors’ and tackle imports of oil

⚡NASA chief says Russia is not pulling out of ISS program, calls headlines to the contrary 'misleading'

⚡NATO “barking” at Russia’s door may have led to the conflict in Ukraine, Pope Francis said

Pope Francis has given an interview to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera:

▪The situation in Ukraine is a giant opportunity for a “trade in arms”, he says;

▪The Pope doesn't know "whether it is right to supply the Ukrainians";

▪He is ready to meet Putin in Moscow: "We need the leader of the Kremlin to allocate a window of time"

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"You, b*tches, where are you going?": Mariupol resident Elena on the reaction of Azov neo-Nazis and the Ukrainian military when she and her family were leaving the city

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⚡Scholz: Germany standing ready to back Sweden, Finland in joining NATO

❗Greece poised to replace Russian gas in 20 months, PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis says