Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

(Reuters) – Ukrainian authorities said missiles struck the western city of Lviv, killing six and injuring 11, and explosions rocked other cities as Russian forces kept up their bombardments after claiming near full control of the southern port of Mariupol.

FIGHTING

* Lviv mayor Andriy Sadoviy said there had been five missile strikes on the western city. Authorities also report explosions in the southern region of Dnipropetrovsk.

* Russia said it had launched mass strikes overnight on the Ukrainian military and associated military targets.

* Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said that Russians advanced overnight and took the town of Kreminna. Four civilians were shot dead while trying to evacuate, he said.

* Ukraine and Russia failed to agree on humanitarian convoys for the evacuation of civilians for the second day, Ukraine’s deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

* Eighteen people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in shelling in the past four days in the northeast city of Kharkiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Sunday.

* Russia said its troops had cleared most of Mariupol with only a small contingent of Ukrainian fighters left in the Azovstal steelworks.

DIPLOMACY, SANCTIONS

* Ukraine has completed a questionnaire that will form a starting point for the European Union to decide on its membership, the deputy head of President Zelenskiy’s office said.

* Ukrainian foreign minister Kuleba said there had not been any recent diplomatic communications between Russia and Ukraine at foreign minister level, adding the “dire” situation in Mariupol may be a “red line” in the path of negotiations.

ECONOMY

* President Zelenskiy spoke with the head of the IMF about financial stability and post-war reconstruction. Prime Minister Shmyhal is expected to attend the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington this week.

QUOTES

* “I just prayed today to stop crying,” said Evgeniya Lebedko of Bucha after a service in the town where many civilians were killed while it was occupied by Russian forces. “We have survived these horrors and we are constantly crying.”

(Compiled by Grant McCool, Robert Birsel, Alexandra Hudson)

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