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, destroying electrical plants, fuel depots and other key infrastructure.

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.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) to stop supplying Kyiv with arms if they are "really interested in resolving the Ukraine crisis", Chinese state media reported Saturday.

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…