IBT Staff Reporter

Air raid sirens blared across most Ukrainian cities on Saturday morning urging people to seek shelters, local media reported, after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the war had reached a "strategic turning point".

Fighting raged northwest of Kyiv on Saturday, with the bulk of Russian ground forces 25 km (16 miles) from the centre of the Ukrainian capital, while several other cities were encircled and under heavy shelling, the UK Defence Ministry said.

Conflict raged near Kyiv on Saturday and Ukrainian officials said heavy shelling and threats of Russian air attacks were endangering attempted evacuations of desperate civilians from encircled towns and cities elsewhere.

Conflict raged near Kyiv on Saturday and Ukrainian officials said heavy shelling and threats of Russian air attacks were endangering attempted evacuations of desperate civilians from encircled towns and cities elsewhere.

Fighting raged near Kyiv on Saturday and heavy shelling in other areas threatened new attempts to evacuate trapped civilians as France said Russian President Vladimir Putin showed no readiness to end the war in Ukraine.

Fighting raged near Kyiv on Saturday and heavy shelling in other areas threatened new attempts to evacuate trapped civilians as France said Russian President Vladimir Putin showed no readiness to end the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine accused Russian forces on Saturday of killing seven civilians in an attack on women and children trying to flee fighting near Kyiv, and France said Russian President Vladimir Putin had shown he was not ready to make peace.

Eastern Europe embraces Ukraine refugees as workforce

Mainland China reported more than 1,500 new local COVID-19 infections on Saturday, the most since the first nationwide outbreak in early 2020, as the Omicron variant prompted Beijing to introduce self-testing kits for the first time.

In Greece, Russia sympathies die hard despite Ukraine war

'All we have is our talent': Ukraine violinists find peace in Denmark

Clouds over Merkel's legacy as Russian invasion lays flaws bare

Turkmenistan votes for father-son transition

NATO trains to help its own, as Ukraine war rumbles

In Ukraine ghost city, florist stays open to 'cheer people up'

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi released after 10 years in prison

The United States on Friday accused Russia of violating nuclear safety principles in Ukraine and demanded its invading forces stop firing on nuclear power plants, but added that there were no signs detected yet of any radiological release.

Russia squeezes Kyiv as 'unimaginable' tragedy looms in Ukraine

The United States and NATO are shipping weapons into Ukraine at break-neck speed, including highly sensitive items such as shoulder-fired missiles called Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems (MANPADS) that can take down aircraft.

The United States, European Union and other allies on Friday escalated their economic pressure on Russia, moving to strip Moscow of privileged trade and economic treatment among other steps to punish it for its invasion of Ukraine.

Chile's tax reform, a key plank of new President Gabriel Boric's economic plan, will focus on individuals, natural resources and environmental levies more than corporations, Finance Minister Mario Marcel told Reuters in his first interview in office.

Speculators' net long bets on the U.S. dollar edged higher in the latest week, according to calculations by Reuters and U.S.

The head of a nuclear research facility in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv said on Friday that the grounds of the institute had been struck by Russian shells during recent fighting, but the core housing nuclear fuel remains intact.

In Ukraine hospital, war-wounded children make slow recovery

Huge spiders to colonize US East Coast, but maybe it's a good thing

Hassan Al-Khalaf, 11, clung to hope when he trekked across Ukraine by himself, safely reaching Slovakia after joining the masses of refugees escaping Russia's invasion of their country.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte was sworn in on Friday as a member of the Riflemen's Union, a paramilitary volunteer force that supports the police and the army and has seen a surge in applications since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Venezuela unlikely to make up for banned Russian crude: experts

The United Nations on Friday said it had no evidence Ukraine had a biological weapons program while Washington and its allies accused Russia of spreading the unproven claim as a possible prelude to launching its own biological or chemical attacks.