Ukraine war: Smoke rises from a factory building near Lviv airport (Reuters)
Three weeks into their devastating invasion of Ukraine, the Russian troops have stalled in their advance on Ukrainian cities amid heavy losses but there are no signs Russian President Vladimir Putin "is prepared to stop."
Here are the top 10 updates on this big story:
- Three people have been killed after a multi-storey teaching building was shelled in the eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine's state emergency service. Shells also hit the eastern city of Kramatorsk on Friday, killing two people and wounding six, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in an online post.
- Several missiles have hit an aircraft repair plant near Lviv's airport in western Ukraine, city Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said, adding that the airport was safe. An explosion was also reported in the northern part of capital Kyiv by news agency Reuters.
- Britain's broadcasting regulator revoked the licence of Russia's state-funded television channel RT, in the latest international repercussion for Moscow.
- But despite battleground setbacks and punitive sanctions by the West, Putin has shown little sign of relenting. Russia has now established a no-fly zone over the Donbass region, Interfax news agency reported quoting a separatist official from the Donetsk People's Republic.
- The US, which this week announced $800 million in new military aid to Kyiv, has warned that Beijing is "considering directly assisting Russia with military equipment to use in Ukraine". China has refused to condemn Russia's action in Ukraine or call it an invasion.
- While the US says it wants to avoid direct confrontation with Russia, Chinese military aid to Moscow would pit Washington and Beijing -- the world's two biggest powers -- on opposite sides of the largest assault on a European state since World War Two.
- More than 320,000 Ukrainian citizens have returned to help their country fight since Russia began its invasion, according to the state border guard service of Ukraine. "The occupants thought they were going to Ukraine which they had seen before, in 2014-2015, which they corrupted and were not afraid of, but we are different now," Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his latest address.
- Russia has accused the West of stoking a wild Russophobic plot to tear Russia apart. "It will not work - Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place," Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, said on Thursday.
- The United Nations said it had recorded 2,032 civilian casualties so far in Ukraine - 780 killed and 1,252 injured. Some 3.2 million civilians, mostly women and children, have now fled to neighbouring countries, the United Nations said.
- The OECD estimates the war could knock more than 1 percentage point off global growth this year. Some creditors have received payment of Russian bond coupons which fell due this week, market sources said, meaning Russia may for now have averted a debt default.
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