(Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia’s aggression was never limited to just Ukraine and the whole of Europe was a target as he urged the West to impose a complete embargo on Russian energy products and to supply Ukraine with more weapons.
SUPPORT
*Zelenskiy met Prime Minister Boris Johnson, one of his staunchest backers, in Kyiv, with the British leader using the visit to set out a new financial and military aid package for Ukraine.
* Johnson was the latest foreign leader to visit Kyiv after Russian forces pulled back from the outskirts of the capital last week.
* Donors including Canada and the European Commission pledged a combined 9.1 billion euros in donations, loans and grants to support refugees fleeing the war.
FIGHTING
* British military intelligence said Russian forces used improvised explosive devices to inflict casualties, lower morale, and restrict Ukrainian freedom of movement, adding that Russia’s departure from northern Ukraine left evidence of the disproportionate targeting of non-combatants.
* Russian operations focus on the Donbas region, Mariupol and Mykolaiv, supported by cruise missile launches by Russian naval forces.
CIVILIANS
* More people need to evacuate from the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine as shelling has increased in recent days and more Russian forces have been arriving, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said.
* European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Russian forces appeared to have committed war crimes by targeting civilians in Ukraine, but she said lawyers must investigate the alleged incidents.
ECONOMY
* Ukraine has banned all imports from Russia, one of its key trading partners before the war with annual imports valued at about $6 billion, and called on other countries to follow and impose harsher economic sanctions.
QUOTES
* “We will never forget everything we saw here, this will stay with us for our whole lives,” Bohdan Zubchuk, a community police officer in Bucha.
(Compiled by Robert Birsel)
