The Latest Breaking News from Sergei Lavrov

LVIV, Ukraine — Russian forces aimed a punishing artillery barrage Saturday at cities, towns and villages in eastern Ukraine, even as Western and Ukrainian military officials and analysts said Moscow’s much-vaunted military offensive in the country’s industrial heartland was being slowed by troop casualties and logistical, supply and morale problems.

French president Emmanuel Macron on Saturday vowed to send more weapons and humanitarian aid to Ukraine as part of the international effort to help the country's fight against Russian forces.

Russia carried out missile strikes across southern and eastern Ukraine on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, and some women and children were evacuated from a steel plant in the besieged city of Mariupol after sheltering there for over a week.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said the lifting of sanctions imposed on Russia is part of peace talks with Ukraine, but senior Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak denied that this was the case.

Some 1.02 million people have been evacuated from Ukraine into Russia since Feb. 24, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks published early on Saturday.

Ukraine news from April 30: Russian official says armed conflict between nuclear powers should be prevented.

Russia does not consider itself to be at war with NATO over Ukraine since such a development would increase the risks of a nuclear war, RIA news agency cited Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Friday.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine two months ago, the world has grown used to the sight of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky’s diplomatic initiatives, initially from hiding in the besieged capital, Kyiv, and more recently in open meetings with a range of world leaders, have made him one…

’Either we lose in Ukraine or the Third World War starts’, says top Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan