Yahoo Autos Live updates | Russia returns 210 dead Mariupol defenders
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s military intelligence agency says Russia has so far turned over the bodies of 210 Ukrainian fighters killed in the battle for Mariupol. It says most of them were among the last holdouts in the Azovstal steelworks.
The agency did not specify Tuesday how many more bodies are believed to remain in the rubble of the plant.
Russia now controls the destroyed port city. It began turning over bodies last week. Ukraine said Saturday that the two sides had exchanged 320 bodies, with each getting back 160. It is unclear whether any more bodies have been given to Russia.
The Ukrainian fighters defended the steelworks for nearly three months before surrendering in May under relentless Russian attacks from the ground, sea and air.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:
— AP Exclusive: Ukraine recovers bodies from steel-plant siege
— Ukraine's leader says Russia is trying to capture a key southeastern city
— US general says US, allies will keep sending ‘significant’ aid to Ukraine
— UN: Climate shocks and Ukraine war fuel multiple global food crises
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his government is working to raise money to fund the army and rebuild cities and towns destroyed in the fighting.
He said in his nightly address Tuesday that work is already underway to restore electricity, gas, running water and phone service in places from which Russian forces have been pushed out. He says much also needs to be done to re-equip hospitals and remove landmines.
Zelenskyy says one of the ways money is being gathered is through the government fundraising platform UNITED24, which in its first month brought in more than $50 million.
He says Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina on Tuesday joined former Ukrainian soccer player Andriy Shevchenko in becoming an ambassador for the fundraising platform.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces have made no significant advances in the eastern Donbas region over the past day.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said late Tuesday that “the absolutely heroic defense of the Donbas continues.”
Zelenskyy says the Russians clearly did not expect to meet so much resistance and are now trying to bring in additional troops and equipment. He says the same is true in the southern Kherson region, which Russian troops occupied early in the war.
Zelenskyy slso says that Ukraine plans to release a special “Book of Executioners” next week with confirmed information about war crimes committed by the Russian army. He says those named will include not only those who carried out war crimes but their commanders.
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JERUSALEM -- Ukraine’s ambassador is urging Israel to sell its Iron Dome rocket interception system and provide anti-tank missiles to defend civilians against Russia’s invasion.
Yevgen Korniychuk on Tuesday stopped short of accusing Israel of blocking the sale of the missile defense system. But he wants the Israeli government to back up its verbal support for Ukraine with military assistance. At a news conference in Tel Aviv, he said Ukraine wants to buy the Iron Dome system, contending that the United States would not oppose such a sale.
The United States has been financially supporting Israel’s Iron Dome for about a decade, providing about $1.6 billion for its production and maintenance, according to the Congressional Research Service. The system is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets fired into Israel.
Korniychuk also said Israel last week declined a U.S. request for Germany to deliver Israeli-licensed “Spike” anti-tank missiles to Ukraine.
Israel has limited its support for Ukraine to humanitarian aid and was the only country operating a field hospital inside the country earlier in the year. Israel fears helping Ukraine militarily would inflame Russia, which has a military presence in neighboring Syria. Israel, which carries out frequent strikes on enemy targets in Syria, relies on Russia for security coordination.
The Israeli Defense Ministry had no comment.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has begun training Ukrainian forces on the sophisticated rocket systems that the Biden administration agreed last week to provide, but that Russia has said could trigger wider airstrikes in Ukraine.
Marine Lt. Col. Anton Semelroth, Pentagon spokesman, said Ukrainian troops are training on the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, at Grafenwoehr training base in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
The U.S. agreed to send four of the medium-range, precision rocket systems to Ukraine as part of a $700 million package approved last week, and officials said it would take about three weeks of training before they could go to the battlefront.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Sunday that any Western deliveries of longer-range rocket systems would prompt Moscow to hit “objects that we haven’t yet struck.”
About 900 Ukrainian service members have received training on a variety of weapons by the U.S. so far, including on howitzers which are being delivered to the front lines.
The HIMARS is mounted on a truck and can carry a container with six rockets, which can each travel about 45 miles (70 kilometers).
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MILAN — Italian right-wing leader Matteo Salvini says Italians are prepared to continue to make economic sacrifices “to support the defense of Ukraine and reach a ceasefire.”
Inflation in Italy last month was 7% as prices at the gas pump, grocery store and in energy bills skyrocketed, due in part on sanctions on Russian energy and raw materials shortages.
Salvini, speaking to foreign reporters on Tuesday in Rome, said his League party backs the sanctions that the European Union imposed on Russia. But he emphasized they must be a means to a cease-fire and not be something that continues into the fall.
“We need to see if they work or not," said Salvini, whose party is part of Italy's wide-ranging governing coalition. “In April of this year, the value of Russian exports to Italy rose by 18%, while the value of Italian exports to Russia decreased by 48%. The bottom line is that Russia is accumulating a ton of rubles, euros, dollars and who knows what, while European countries are choking.”
Added Salvini: “Sanctions are an absolutely useful instrument as long as they damage those sanctioned. If, at the end of the day, they damage those that impose them, then something is not working"
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MOSCOW -- The Russian parliament has passed a set of laws allowing Moscow not to comply with the top European human rights court’s rulings.
The move on Tuesday formalized the broken ties between Russia and the Council of Europe, the continent’s foremost human rights body.
In accordance with the new laws passed by the State Duma, Russia’s lower parliament house, Russian authorities are no longer obligated to comply with rulings of the European Court of Human Rights issued after March 15.
On that date, Russia announced it was withdrawing from the Council of Europe -- only to be officially expelled the next day over what the Kremlin calls a special military operation in Ukraine.
Thousands of Russians in recent years have turned to the court as a last resort, after failing to win in Russian courts, on human rights issues ranging from political persecution to domestic violence.
State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin on Telegram on Monday described the court as a “tool of a political battle against our country in the hands of Western politicians,” adding that “some of its rulings went directly against Russia’s Constitution, our values, our traditions.”
Volodin cited a ruling demanding that Russia recognize same-sex marriage, which was outlawed two years ago in a set of constitutional amendments.
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KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian authorities have refused to allow the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog to visit a nuclear plant in southern Ukraine under the Russian control.
The International Atomic Energy Agency director Rafael Mariano Grossi said that he intends to visit the Zaporizhzhia plant, the largest in Europe, to help maintain its safety and security.
Grossi spoke Monday to the IAEA board about the dire situation at the plant, taken by the Russian troops in early March. He noted the pressure on the plant’s Ukrainian staff and voiced concern that some spare parts were not getting to the plant due to supply chain interruptions.
He reiterated his determination to lead an expert mission to the plant, saying that “we must find a solution to the hurdles preventing progress.”
Grossi contended that Ukraine’s government had called on him to lead such a mission, but Energoatom, the Ukrainian state company overseeing the country’s nuclear power plants, said in a blunt statement Tuesday that he wasn’t welcome.
Energoatom said it hadn’t invited Grossi to visit the plant and described his intention to tour it as “yet another attempt to legitimize the occupier’s presence there and effectively approve their action.” The company contended that Grossi’s previous visits to Ukraine were useless. It alleged that he was acting in collusion with Russia, claiming that the Russians hold a quarter of senior managerial positions at the IAEA.
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