The Latest Breaking News from Gleb Garanich

Gazprombank’s Igor Volobuyev and diplomat Boris Bondarev are among the Russian elite to oppose Putin’s invasion of Ukraine

A large convoy of cars and vans carrying refugees from the ruins of Mariupol arrived in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday after waiting days for Russian troops to allow them to leave.

Children in Kyiv, including evacuees from other parts of the country, decorated traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs on Friday - but this year they have taken on a more patriotic tone.

The United States and European countries pledged on Monday to punish Moscow over civilian killings in northern Ukraine, where a mass grave and tied bodies of people shot at close range were found in a town seized back from Russian forces.

(Adds Russia calling for UN meeting; Guterres calling for investigation; other details)

Russian soldiers who seized the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster drove their armoured vehicles without radiation protection through a highly toxic zone called the "Red Forest", kicking up clouds of radioactive dust, workers at the site said.

Ukraine's military warned the public on Tuesday of more indiscriminate Russian shelling from bogged-down Russian troops, and U.S. President Joe Biden issued his strongest warning yet that Russia is considering using chemical weapons.

Western allies announced sweeping new sanctions against Moscow on Saturday, including kicking key Russian banks off the main global payments system, as a defiant President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces were repelling Russian troops advancing on Kyiv.