Missiles Hit Near Odesa in Ukraine as New Mariupol Evacuation Bid Planned

Ukraine estimates 20,000 people have been killed in the war so far. Genya SAVILOV AFP
Ukraine estimates 20,000 people have been killed in the war so far. Genya SAVILOV AFP
TT

Missiles Hit Near Odesa in Ukraine as New Mariupol Evacuation Bid Planned

Ukraine estimates 20,000 people have been killed in the war so far. Genya SAVILOV AFP
Ukraine estimates 20,000 people have been killed in the war so far. Genya SAVILOV AFP

Missiles struck near Ukraine's southern port of Odesa on Sunday with Russia saying it had destroyed an oil refinery used by the Ukrainian military, while attempts to evacuate people from the devastated city of Mariupol were due to continue.

There was little sign of a breakthrough in efforts to negotiate an end to the five-week war, although Russia's chief negotiator said talks were due to resume on Monday.

In Odesa, the city council said "critical infrastructure facilities" were hit by missiles. No casualties were reported.

Russia's defense ministry said strikes by its military destroyed an oil refinery and three fuel storage facilities near Odesa. It said the facilities were used to supply Ukrainian troops near the city of Mykolaiv.

Odesa, on the Black Sea, is the main base for Ukraine's navy. It has been targeted by Russian forces seeking a land corridor to Transdniestria, a Russian-speaking breakaway province of Moldova which hosts Russian troops.

"Smoke is visible in some areas of the city. All relevant systems and structures are working ... No casualties reported," Vladyslav Nazarov, an officer of Ukraine's South Operational Command, said on Telegram.

Dmytro Lunin, governor of the central Poltava region, said the Kremenchug oil refinery, 350 kilometers (220 miles) northeast of Odesa, had been destroyed in a separate rocket attack on Saturday.

Evacuation efforts in Mariupol and nearby Berdyansk, both also on Ukraine's southern shores, were due to continue with a convoy of buses being prepared for the operation with help from the Red Cross.

"Seven buses will try to get closer to Mariupol, accompanied by the International Committee of the Red Cross," Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in an online video posting.

The ICRC abandoned earlier attempts due to security concerns. Russia blamed the ICRC for the delays.

Mariupol is Russia's main target in Ukraine's southeastern region of Donbas, and tens of thousands of civilians there are trapped with scant access to food and water.

Peace talks

Russia's chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said a draft deal was not ready for any meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

On Saturday, Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia raised hope for negotiations with Russia, saying enough progress had been made for direct talks between the two.

Medinsky said that while Ukraine was showing more realism by agreeing to be neutral, renouncing nuclear weapons, not joining a military bloc and refusing to host military bases, there had been no progress on other key Russia demands.

"I repeat again and again: Russia's position on Crimea and Donbas remains UNCHANGED," he said on Telegram, adding talks via video-conference would continue on Monday.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has recognized declarations of independence by the self-proclaimed republics of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas area of eastern Ukraine which rose up against Kyiv's rule.

Bucha Destruction

Ukraine said on Saturday its forces had retaken all areas around Kyiv, claiming complete control of the capital region for the first time since Russia launched its invasion on Feb 24.

Russia has pulled back forces that had threatened Kyiv from the north to regroup for battles in eastern Ukraine.

There was no Russian comment on the claim that the Kyiv region was entirely in Ukrainian hands, which Reuters could not immediately verify.

The mayor of Bucha, a liberated town 37 km (23 miles) northwest of the capital, said 300 residents had been killed during a month-long occupation by the Russian army, and victims were seen in a mass grave and still lying on the streets.

"The bastards!" Vasily, a 66-year-old man said, weeping with rage as he looked at more than a dozen bodies in the road outside his house. "I'm sorry. The tank behind me was shooting. Dogs!"

The Kremlin and the Russian defense ministry in Moscow did not immediately reply to requests for comment when asked on Saturday about the bodies found in Bucha.

Moscow denies targeting civilians and rejects war crimes allegations.

Among those killed near Kyiv was Maksim Levin, a Ukrainian photographer and videographer who was working for a news website and was a long-time contributor to Reuters.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said she was appalled by atrocities in Bucha and voiced support for the International Criminal Court's inquiry into potential war crimes.

Ukraine's emergencies service said more than 1,500 explosives had been found in one day during a search of the village of Dmytrivka, west of the capital.

Zelenskiy warned in a video address: "They are mining all this territory. Houses are mined, equipment is mined, even the bodies of dead people." He did not cite evidence.

Russia's defense ministry did not reply to a request for comment on the allegations about mines. Reuters could not independently verify them.

Since the launch of what Putin called a "special military operation" to demilitarize and "denazify" Ukraine, Russia has failed to capture a single major city and has instead laid siege to urban areas, uprooting a quarter of the country's population.

British military intelligence said Russian naval forces were maintaining a blockade along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, but the option of amphibious landings were becoming increasingly high-risk for Russia.

It said reported mines, the origin of which remained unclear and disputed, posed a serious risk to shipping in the Black Sea.



Pregnant Syrian Mum, 5 Kids Die in Container Fire in Türkiye

A crossing at the Syrian-Turkish borders. (AFP)
A crossing at the Syrian-Turkish borders. (AFP)
TT

Pregnant Syrian Mum, 5 Kids Die in Container Fire in Türkiye

A crossing at the Syrian-Turkish borders. (AFP)
A crossing at the Syrian-Turkish borders. (AFP)

A pregnant Syrian woman and her five young children died when a fire ripped through containers housing agricultural workers near the southwestern Antalya resort, the governor and media reports said Friday.

DHA news agency said the 27-year-old mother was seven months pregnant, with her husband fighting for his life after the blaze.

The tragedy occurred as Türkiye began celebrating the three-day Bayram holiday to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Antalya Governor Hulusi Sahin said the fire ripped through several containers where greenhouse workers were living in Kepez district, just north of Antalya.

"Three containers caught fire, and we lost a mother and five children aged between four and nine," he told reporters standing in front of the charred remains of a container and a burned-out car.

Five others were injured in the blaze, one of whom had sustained "life-threatening injuries", he said.

DHA said the fire broke out in the northern Gaziler neighborhood at around 1:30 am (2230 GMT on Thursday), with local leader Suleyman Kaplan saying the victims were from a family of Syrian agricultural workers.

"A fire broke out in the middle of the night in a container where Syrians were staying. Unfortunately, five children and their pregnant mother died. The children's father was also injured and is in intensive care," he told DHA.

Anadolu said four of the injured -- one of whom was a two-year-old -- had the same family names as the victims, while the fifth was the business owner.

Although the cause was not immediately clear, Sahin said it appeared someone had been having a barbecue on a burner outside the containers.

"It seems they went to bed without extinguishing it. But for now, we cannot definitively say that's why it happened," he added.

Investigators were looking into the cause of the blaze and had arrested three people, he said.

Kaplan said he and other neighborhood leaders had repeatedly asked the authorities to set up a fire station in the area.

"As a community, we've asked for a fire engine because the fire station is so far away and it takes the fire brigade too long to arrive," he said.

"We urgently need a fire station."


UK FM Warns Iran against 'Directly' Targeting British Bases

UK and Iran flags are seen in this illustration taken June 18, 2025. REUTERS/Dado
UK and Iran flags are seen in this illustration taken June 18, 2025. REUTERS/Dado
TT

UK FM Warns Iran against 'Directly' Targeting British Bases

UK and Iran flags are seen in this illustration taken June 18, 2025. REUTERS/Dado
UK and Iran flags are seen in this illustration taken June 18, 2025. REUTERS/Dado

Britain's Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper warned her Iranian counterpart in a phone call "against targeting UK bases, territory or interests directly", a foreign office statement said Friday, AFP reported.

The statement was response to one issued by Iran's foreign ministry in which it said Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Cooper in the call on Thursday that any US use of British bases would be seen as "participation in aggression" against the Islamic republic.

Cooper told Araghchi "the defensive UK operations in the region were a response to the Iranian aggression against Gulf partners", the UK foreign office said, adding: "She made clear that the UK wants to see a swift resolution to this conflict."


Trump Calls NATO Allies 'Cowards' over Iran

US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (not pictured) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (not pictured) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
TT

Trump Calls NATO Allies 'Cowards' over Iran

US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (not pictured) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (not pictured) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

US President Donald Trump on Friday branded NATO allies "cowards" for not heeding his demand for military assistance against Iran to control the Strait of Hormuz shipping route.

Trump has recently veered between saying that Washington needs no help to secure the vital waterway for oil tankers, and then lashing out at other countries for failing to help.

"Without the USA, NATO IS A PAPER TIGER!" Trump posted on his Truth Social network, AFP reported.

"They didn't want to join the fight to stop a Nuclear Powered Iran. Now that fight is Militarily WON, with very little danger for them, they complain about the high oil prices they are forced to pay, but don't want to help open the Strait of Hormuz, a simple military maneuver that is the single reason for the high oil prices.

"So easy for them to do, with so little risk. COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER!"

The 79-year-old Republican, a long-term skeptic of the Western military alliance, has launched a series of diatribes against NATO in recent days.

On Thursday, six major international powers, including Britain, France, Germany and Japan said they were ready to "contribute to appropriate efforts" to secure the Strait of Hormuz.

But they have not formally committed to any mission to work in the crucial waterway -- while other allies such as Germany and Italy have ruled out doing anything before a truce in the Middle East war.

None of the countries Trump has called on to help was consulted before the US-Israeli mission started.

An effective Iranian blockade has paralyzed commercial shipping through the crucial maritime chokepoint, which in peacetime sees a fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas pass through it.

Global oil prices have spiked as a result of the war, which erupted on February 28 when the United States and Israel began bombing Iran, leading Tehran to retaliate with strikes across the Gulf region.