Ukraine

KIEV, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian state-run energy company Ukrenergo has attracted more than 1 billion U.S. dollars from foreign countries and organizations to restore the energy infrastructure, the Ukrinform news agency reported Thursday, citing an official.

"We have already financed most of our needs," said Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, chief executive officer of Ukrenergo.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss the status of the war and needs of troops on Thursday, the day after Russia accused Ukraine’s Western allies of helping plan and conduct last week’s missile strike on the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters on the annexed Crimean Peninsula.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia on Wednesday accused Ukraine’s Western allies of helping plan and conduct last week’s missile strike on the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters on the annexed Crimean Peninsula.

“There is no doubt that the attack had been planned in advance using Western intelligence means, NATO satellite assets and reconnaissance planes and was implemented upon the advice of American and British security agencies and in close coordination with them,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia struck the Black Sea region of Odesa in a drone barrage that damaged a warehouse, charred dozens of trucks and injured two drivers in fiery explosions that led to the suspension of the ferry service between Romania and Ukraine, officials said Tuesday.

Video shot from the Romanian side of the Danube River showed rapid bursts of Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire streaking through the night sky followed by two orange fireballs exploding near the port area. Photos showed burned-out frames of trucks.

KYIV, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine's Special Forces said on Monday that Admiral Viktor Sokolov, the commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, had been killed in a Ukrainian attack last week on the fleet headquarters in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

The Russian Defence Ministry did not immediately respond when asked by Reuters to confirm or deny that Sokolov had been killed in the attack on Crimea, which Russia seized and annexed in 2014.

The Ukrainian military said Friday's attack had targeted a meeting of the Russian Navy's leadership in the city of Sevastopol.

LUHANSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Flying above enemy lines, a Ukrainian reconnaissance drone sends a clear image back to soldiers hiding in a basement a few kilometers away: A Russian armored vehicle is idling along a key logistics route, looking like easy prey in the artillery-scarred green landscape.

Then, in a flash, the image disappears, and the drone operator’s screen is replaced by a jumble of black and white pixels.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian airstrikes on Sunday killed two people and wounded three others in southern Ukraine’s Kherson province, the region’s governor reported Sunday as the war in Ukraine entered a 20th month.

According to Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin, Russian forces struck the city of Beryslav, destroying an unspecified number of private houses. A woman was killed and three people were wounded, including a police officer, he said.

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — Among the hundreds of trains criss-crossing Ukraine’s elaborate railway network every day, the Kyiv-Kramatorsk train stands apart, shrouded in solemn silence as passengers anticipate their destination.

Every day, around seven in the morning, passengers of this route leave the relative safety of the capital and head east to frontline areas where battles between Ukrainian forces and Russian troops rage and Russian strikes are frequent with imprecise missiles that slam into residential areas.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine on Saturday morning launched another missile attack on Sevastopol on the occupied Crimean Peninsula, a Russian-installed official said, a day after an attack on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet that left a serviceman missing and the main building smoldering.

EASTERN UKRAINE, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Ukrainian soldiers are vowing to take back the shattered city of Bakhmut but face a long, hard slog after encountering fierce Russian resistance while retaking two villages last week on strategic high ground nearby.

Bakhmut, captured by Russian forces in May, is Moscow's only big prize in more than a year of the war's bloodiest fighting, described by both sides as a meat grinder. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said this week that Kyiv would retake the city following the capture last week of Andriivka and Klishchiivka to the south.