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In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy congratulated fellow Ukrainians for surviving 50 days of Russia's invasion when the Russians “gave us a maximum of five," . He reminded Ukrainians that he was advised to flee the country when Russian troops crossed the border.
"But they didn't know how brave Ukrainians are, how much we value freedom and the possibility to live the way we want," Zelenskyy said.
looked back on the first 50 days of the invasion, which Russian launched Feb. 24, and examined how the word has changed.
Germany has officially confiscated the world's largest superyacht owned by Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, police said Thursday, according to Agency France-Presse reports.
The 156-meter "Dilbar" has an estimated value of $600 million, according to Forbes magazine.
The boat has been docked for repairs since last October in a Hamburg shipyard.
German customs had been eyeing the superyacht for several weeks but could not formally seize it because of legal issues over its ownership.
Eventually the German Federal Judicial Police indicated they had succeeded "after lengthy investigations, and in spite of concealment via offshore companies, in identifying the owner of the M/S Dilbar and it is Gulbakhor Ismailova, the sister of Alisher Usmanov."
A U.N. committee said on Thursday that the lives of about 2.7 million people with disabilities are at risk in Ukraine, citing reports that many are trapped or abandoned in their homes, care centers and orphanages without basic supplies or medicines, Reuters reports.
The Committee of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is made up of independent experts that monitor the implementation of a 2006 convention. Russia is among the governments that have signed and ratified it, a U.N. website showed.
The committee did not say exactly how it had obtained the reports about those who were trapped. However, it noted that few people with disabilities were among those internally displaced or who had reached Ukraine's borders as refugees, "indicating that many of them have not been able to flee to safety."
Powerful explosions were heard in the early hours of Friday in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and several other cities across the country, local media reported.
Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.
Explosions were also heard in the southern city of Kherson, the eastern city of Kharkiv and in Ukraine's western city of Ivano-Frankivsk.
Overnight, air raid sirens were going off across Ukraine. There has been no official confirmation of the explosions.
The Justice Department indicted a Russian lawmaker and two staffers Thursday on charges of waging a propaganda campaign in the United States that was hostile to Ukraine, years before Moscow's invasion, Agence France-Presse reports.
The lawmaker, Aleksandr Babakov, was already under U.S. sanctions and was charged along with two aides, Aleksandr Vorobev and Mikhail Plisyuk. All three are based in Moscow and remain at large, the Justice Department said.
The specific charges against the three are conspiring to have US citizens act as an unregistered agent for Russia in the United States, conspiring to violate and evade US sanctions, and conspiring to commit visa fraud.
Rainy weather in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region could favor that country's army in its fight against invading Russian forces, which are preparing a stronger offensive in the zone, a senior Pentagon official said.
"The fact that the ground is softer will make it harder for them to do anything off of paved highways," said the official, who spoke under condition of anonymity, according to Agence France-Presse.
The U.S. would not be concerned that an expansion of a defense alliance would do anything other than promote stability in Europe, State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Thursday, responding to a question about Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
"Without speaking to any countries in particular, we would not be concerned that the expansion of a defensive alliance would do anything other than promote stability on the European continent," Price told a news briefing.
Russia has asked Brazil for support in the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the G20 group of top economies to help it counter crippling sanctions imposed by the West since it invaded Ukraine, .
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov wrote to Economy Minister Paulo Guedes asking for Brazil's "support to prevent political accusations and discrimination attempts in international financial institutions and multilateral fora."