(Reuters) – Russia accused Ukraine of killing its own civilians in shelling of the Kherson region. There was no immediate response from Ukraine to the report.
FIGHTING
* Russia destroyed a runway at the main airport in the southwestern city of Odesa on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed to rebuild it, saying, “Odesa will never forget Russia’s behaviour towards it”.
* Ukraine said Russian planes had continued to launch strikes on Mariupol, focussing on the Azovstal steelworks where troops and civilians are sheltering. A Ukrainian fighter inside said on Saturday that 20 women and children had managed to leave the plant.
Reuters could not immediately verify reports of battlefield developments.
DIPLOMACY, CIVILIANS
* U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several other U.S. lawmakers became the latest Western officials to visit Kyiv in a show of support for Ukraine.
* Britain’s Foreign Office said Russia is using a troll factory to spread disinformation about the war on social media and target politicians across a number of countries including Britain and South Africa.
* Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, a special envoy for the U.N. refugee agency, visited the western city of Lviv on Saturday, meeting people displaced by the war.
QUOTES
“We are getting civilians out of the rubble with ropes – it’s the elderly, women and children,” said Ukrainian fighter Sviatoslav Palamar at the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol.
(Compiled by William Mallard and Frances Kerry)
