Ukraine and Russia: what you need to know now

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Ukrainian authorities on Saturday exhumed more dead from a burial site near a cemetery in the town of Izium, where officials say hundreds are buried in territory recaptured from Russian forces.

There was no immediate public comment from Russia, which denies deliberately attacking civilians. The head of the pro-Russian administration who abandoned the area last week on Friday accused the Ukrainians of committing atrocities.

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STRUGGLE

* Up to 30 emergency services workers carefully dug up bodies at the wooded Izium burial site using shovels. Police experts and investigators documented the findings on camera and inspected the bodies. Some bodies found so far belonged to Ukrainian soldiers, others to civilians.

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* Oleksandr Ilienkov, the head of the Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office, told Reuters on the site on Friday: « One of the bodies (discovered) bears evidence of a ligature pattern and a rope around the neck, hands tied ».

* “As for the others, according to initial information, there are signs of violent causes of death. But in order to establish the facts and the circumstances, the bodies are (being) sent for forensic expertise for a more detailed investigation,” Ilienkov said.

* United Nations human rights monitors will travel to Izium « to try to find out a bit more about what may have happened », a spokesman said on Friday.

* Both sides reported injuries in fighting in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.

* Ukraine continues its offensive in the northeast while Russia has established a defensive line between the Oskil River and the town of Svatove, protecting one of its few main supply routes from the Russian region of Belgorod, have said British military intelligence.

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* The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces launched strikes against Ukrainian positions in several parts of Ukraine and accused Kyiv of carrying out shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine has denied shelling near the plant.

* Reuters could not verify reports from the battlefield.

* One of the Russian-owned plant’s four main power lines has been repaired and is once again supplying the plant with electricity from the Ukrainian grid two weeks after it went down, the nuclear watchdog said. ‘UN.

* A leading Ukrainian ballet dancer who died this week fighting on the front line has been honored with a memorial service at the National Opera of Ukraine.

* President Zelenskiy told Reuters in an interview on Friday that it was too early to say the tide of war was turning and that the outcome depended on the rapid delivery of foreign arms to his country.

DIPLOMACY

* Despite Putin’s assertion that Russia is not isolated because it can turn to Asian powers like China and India, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday attacked the Kremlin chief, saying to Putin that now was not the time for war.

* A day earlier, Putin acknowledged what he said were Chinese President Xi Jinping’s concerns about the conflict. (Compiled by Frances Kerry and Frank Jack Daniel)