Ukraine

KYIV, March 24 (Reuters) - At an unassuming industrial estate in northern Ukraine, two former Microsoft executives and a team of engineers are producing military drones that can travel over long distances and carry large payloads.

AeroDrone, which made crop-dusting drones prior to the war and now supplies Ukraine’s armed forces, makes unmanned aircraft that can carry up to 300 kilograms or fly up to several thousand kilometres in certain configurations.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian long-range strikes killed at least 10 civilians and wounded 20 others in several areas of Ukraine on Friday, Ukraine’s presidential office said, as a senior Moscow official warned that the Kremlin’s forces were prepared for an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeks.

DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Skimming the treetops, three Soviet-era attack helicopters bank and swoop down on a field after an early-morning mission to the front lines in the fight against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Each day, they might fly three or four sorties, says the commander, whose two-crew Mi-24 helicopter, built about 40 years ago, is older than he is.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia stepped up its missile and drone attacks against Ukraine on Wednesday, killing students and other civilians, in a violent follow-up to dueling high-level diplomatic missions aimed at bringing peace after 13 months of war.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s president posted a video Wednesday showing what he said was a Russian missile slamming into a city apartment building, hours after the Kremlin’s forces launched exploding drones that killed at least four people at a student dormitory near Kyiv before dawn.

The video posted by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Telegram appeared to be CCTV footage that captured the moment a missile hit the nine-story residential block by a busy road in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian and Ukrainian officials on Tuesday gave conflicting accounts of what appeared to be a brazen attack on Russian cruise missiles being transported by train in the occupied Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula.

A Ukrainian military spokesperson indicated that Kyiv was behind the explosion late Monday that reportedly destroyed multiple Kalibr cruise missiles near the town of Dzhankoi in northern Crimea, while stopping short of directly claiming responsibility.

AVDIIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — Pale and grimy from living in a dank, dark basement for nearly a year, the teenager and his weeping mother emerged to the sound of pounding artillery and headed to a waiting armored police van that would whisk them to safety.

Russian forces were not far from their battered front-line town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, where shells fall daily, ripping through buildings, smashing cars and leaving craters.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrived in Kyiv for a surprise visit Tuesday, hours after Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in neighboring Russia on a three-day trip. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine will be in the spotlight at both meetings.

Footage shown on Japanese national broadcaster NHK showed Kishida walking on the platform of Kyiv Central Station, escorted by a few people who appeared to be Ukrainian officials. The Ukrainian capital has not felt the brunt of the war, which has become bogged down eastern Ukraine.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the occupied port city of Mariupol, his first trip to the Ukrainian territory that Moscow illegally annexed in September.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Pentagon on Thursday released footage of what it said was a Russian aircraft pouring fuel on a U.S. Air Force surveillance drone and clipping the drone’s propeller in international airspace over the Black Sea.

The 42-second video shows a Russian Su-27 approaching the back of the MQ-9 drone and beginning to release fuel as it passes, the Pentagon said. Dumping the fuel appeared to be aimed at blinding its optical instruments and driving it out of the area.