The Latest Breaking News from Iryna Vereshchuk

Ukraine and Russia have exchanged prisoners for the first time since the invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had banked on NATO being split when he launched an invasion of Ukraine last month, but Putin actually sparked the exact opposite, with the alliance now being “more united than ever”, US President Joe Biden said at a NATO-G7 summit in Brussels on Thursday. Read FRANCE…

Ukraine's president said on Tuesday there was "nothing left" of the city of Mariupol after weeks of Russian bombardment, and Kyiv appealed to Moscow to allow the evacuation of at least 100,000 people who want to leave. Ukraine has issued increasingly dire warnings about the situation in the encircled southern…

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Tuesday at least 100,000 civilians wanted to escape from Mariupol in southern Ukraine but could not because of a lack of safe corridors out of the besieged port city.

Ukraine made a new appeal to Russia on Tuesday to allow humanitarian supplies into the besieged southern city of Mariupol and to let civilians leave.

Mariupol continues to be bombarded by Russian forces, who also reportedly attacked Odesa for the first time.

Ukraine described the situation in Mariupol on Monday as "very difficult" and said it had been unable to establish a new safe corridor to evacuate civilians from the besieged city after it defied a Russian ultimatum to surrender.

Ukraine rejected a Russian ultimatum to surrender the besieged southern city of Mariupol Monday, as renewed overnight shelling killed six in the capital Kyiv. The move came as US President Joe Biden announced a trip to Poland for crisis talks over the Russian invasion, AFP said. Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister…

Agreement has been reached on creating eight humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from besieged towns and cities on Monday but the city of Mariupol is not among them, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.