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Ukraine Urges UN to Be Guarantor of Safe Corridor from Mariupol Steel Plant

People walk near a destroyed tank and damaged buildings in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 22, 2022. (Reuters)
People walk near a destroyed tank and damaged buildings in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 22, 2022. (Reuters)
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Ukraine Urges UN to Be Guarantor of Safe Corridor from Mariupol Steel Plant

People walk near a destroyed tank and damaged buildings in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 22, 2022. (Reuters)
People walk near a destroyed tank and damaged buildings in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 22, 2022. (Reuters)

Ukraine denied on Monday reaching an agreement with Russia on evacuating civilians from a steel plant in the southern city of Mariupol, and pushed for the United Nations to be the "initiator and guarantor" of any such deal.

Russia had said earlier on Monday that it would open a humanitarian corridor for civilians to leave the huge Azovstal steel plant where they are holed up with Ukrainian fighters and are under Russian attack.

"It is important to understand that a humanitarian corridor opens by the agreement of both sides. A corridor announced unilaterally does not provide security, and therefore is not a humanitarian corridor," Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Shortly after she made her comments, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces were attacking the steel plant from the air and with artillery and tanks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had said last week that it was unnecessary to storm the plant, where the last Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol are hunkered down following two months of Russian siege and bombardment.

Ukraine has appealed for the United Nations "to be the initiator and guarantor of the humanitarian corridor from Azovstal for civilians", said Vereshchuk. She said officials from the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross should be present when any corridor was established.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has been seeking a humanitarian truce in Ukraine, is due to meet Putin in Moscow on Tuesday and Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Thursday.

The Russian foreign ministry said Moscow intended to discuss issues related to Mariupol and the Azovstal plant with Guterres, Russia's RIA news agency reported.

Guterres met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday and they "stressed the urgent need" for humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians and deliver aid, the United Nations said.

However, Russia's deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said a truce would only allow Ukrainian forces to regroup.

"We don't think that a ceasefire is a good option right now," Polyanskiy told reporters, while also noting it was "not up to me to decide".

After deploying UN aid chief Martin Griffiths to Russia and Ukraine earlier this month, Guterres said on April 13 that a nationwide humanitarian ceasefire did not seem possible "at the present moment". He then called for a four-day pause in fighting for last weekend's Orthodox Easter, but was ignored.

Moscow, which describes its actions in Ukraine as a "special military operation", denies targeting civilians. It blames Ukraine for the repeated failure of humanitarian corridors.

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World

Russia Hits Ukraine's Oil, Gas Infrastructure in Poltava Region, Naftogaz Says

FILE PHOTO: A Ukrainian service member of the 14th Unmanned Aerial Systems Regiment prepares a deep strike unmanned aerial vehicle before its launch toward Russian territory, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in an undisclosed location in Ukraine, undisclosed date, 2025. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A Ukrainian service member of the 14th Unmanned Aerial Systems Regiment prepares a deep strike unmanned aerial vehicle before its launch toward Russian territory, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in an undisclosed location in Ukraine, undisclosed date, 2025. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
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Russia Hits Ukraine's Oil, Gas Infrastructure in Poltava Region, Naftogaz Says

FILE PHOTO: A Ukrainian service member of the 14th Unmanned Aerial Systems Regiment prepares a deep strike unmanned aerial vehicle before its launch toward Russian territory, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in an undisclosed location in Ukraine, undisclosed date, 2025. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A Ukrainian service member of the 14th Unmanned Aerial Systems Regiment prepares a deep strike unmanned aerial vehicle before its launch toward Russian territory, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in an undisclosed location in Ukraine, undisclosed date, 2025. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo

Russian drones hit Ukraine's oil and gas infrastructure in the central Poltava region, causing ‌damage ‌and a ‌fire, ⁠the state energy company ⁠Naftogaz said on Friday.

"This is yet another targeted ⁠attack on ‌our ‌oil and ‌gas infrastructure. ‌Since the beginning of the year, the ‌enemy has attacked Naftogaz Group facilities ⁠more ⁠than 20 times," Sergii Koretskyi, Naftogaz CEO said in a post on Facebook.

World

Kim Jong Un Vows to Boost Living Standards as He Opens Rare Congress 

This picture taken on February 19, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on February 20, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering the opening address at the Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on February 19, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on February 20, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering the opening address at the Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
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Kim Jong Un Vows to Boost Living Standards as He Opens Rare Congress 

This picture taken on February 19, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on February 20, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering the opening address at the Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on February 19, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on February 20, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering the opening address at the Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang. (KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to lift living standards as he opened a landmark congress, state media said Friday, offering a glimpse of economic strains within the sanctions-hit nation.

Supreme Leader Kim took center stage with a speech to start the Workers' Party congress, a gathering that directs state efforts on everything from house building to war planning.

Held just once every five years, the days-long congress offers a rare glimpse into the workings of a nation where even mundane details are shrouded in secrecy.

"Today, our party is faced with heavy and urgent historic tasks of boosting economic construction and the people's standard of living and transforming all realms of state and social life as early as possible," Kim said in his opening speech.

"This requires us to wage a more active and persistent struggle without allowing even a moment's standstill or stagnation."

For decades, nuclear weapons and military prowess came before everything else in North Korea, even as food stocks dried up and famine took hold.

But since assuming power in 2011, Kim has stressed the need to also fortify the impoverished nation's economy.

At the last party congress in 2021, Kim made an extremely rare admission that mistakes had been made in "almost all areas" of economic development.

Analysts believe such language is designed to head off public discontent stirred by food shortages, military spending, and North Korea's continued support for Russia's war effort in Ukraine.

Kim said North Korea had overcome its "worst difficulties" in the last five years, and was now entering a new stage of "optimism and confidence in the future".

North Korea's economy has for years languished under heavy Western sanctions that aim to choke off funding for its nuclear weapons program.

But Pyongyang refuses to surrender its atomic arsenal.

Kim has already declared this year's congress will unveil the next phase in the nation's nuclear weapons program.

- Ruling dynasty -

Thousands of party elites packed the cavernous House of Culture in Pyongyang for the opening day of the congress.

It is just the ninth time the Workers' Party congress has convened under the Kim family's decades-long rule.

The meeting was shelved under Kim's father Kim Jong Il, but was revived in 2016.

Kim Jong Un has spent years stoking his cult of personality in reclusive North Korea, and the congress offers another chance to demonstrate his absolute grip on power.

Footage showed Kim stepping out of a black limousine and striding into the meeting flanked by officials.

Delegates broke into hearty applause as he took his place at the center of the imposing rostrum overlooking proceedings.

Analysts will scour photographs to see which officials are seated closest to Kim, and who is banished to the back row.

Particular attention will be placed on the whereabouts of Kim's teenage daughter Ju Ae, who has emerged as North Korea's heir apparent, according to Seoul's national intelligence service.

- 'Biggest enemy' -

The ruling parties of China and Russia -- North Korea's longtime allies -- sent friendly messages to mark the start of the meeting.

"In recent years, under the strategic guidance of the top leaders of the two parties and two countries, China-DPRK relations have entered a new historical period," said a telegram from the Chinese Communist Party, using the official acronym for North Korea.

Kim appeared alongside China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin at a military parade in Beijing last year -- a striking display of his elevated status in global politics.

At the previous congress five years ago, Kim declared that the United States was his nation's "biggest enemy".

There is keen interest in whether Kim might use the congress to soften this stance, or double down.

US President Donald Trump stepped up his courtship of Kim during a tour of Asia last year, saying he was "100 percent" open to a meeting.

Kim has so far largely shunned efforts to resume top-level diplomatic dialogue.

World

Police Search Royal Mansion as Probe Into King's Brother Goes On

British newspapers, featuring coverage of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, younger brother of Britain's King Charles, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, sit on display in a newsagent in London, Britain, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Jack Taylor
British newspapers, featuring coverage of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, younger brother of Britain's King Charles, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, sit on display in a newsagent in London, Britain, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Jack Taylor
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Police Search Royal Mansion as Probe Into King's Brother Goes On

British newspapers, featuring coverage of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, younger brother of Britain's King Charles, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, sit on display in a newsagent in London, Britain, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Jack Taylor
British newspapers, featuring coverage of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, younger brother of Britain's King Charles, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, sit on display in a newsagent in London, Britain, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Jack Taylor

British police were searching the former mansion of King Charles' younger brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on Friday after a photograph of the royal emerging from a police station was splashed on newspapers around the world.

Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on Thursday, his 66th birthday, on suspicion of misconduct in public office over allegations he sent confidential government documents to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein when he was a trade envoy.

The former prince was released under investigation after being held by police for more than 10 hours. He has not been charged with any offence but looked haunted in a Reuters photograph after his release, slumped in the back of ‌a Range Rover, eyes ‌red and with a look of disbelief on his face.

The photograph ‌of ⁠a man who ⁠was once a dashing naval officer and reputed favorite son of the late Queen Elizabeth was carried on the front page of newspapers in Britain and around the world, accompanied by headlines such as "Downfall".

Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who took his own life in 2019, and said he regrets their friendship. But the release of millions of documents by the US government showed he had remained friends with Epstein long after the financier was convicted of soliciting prostitution from ⁠a minor in 2008.

Those files suggested Mountbatten-Windsor had forwarded to Epstein British ‌government reports about investment opportunities in Afghanistan and assessments of Vietnam, Singapore ‌and other places he had visited as the government's Special Representative for Trade and Investment.

The arrest of the senior royal, eighth in line to the throne, ‌is unprecedented in modern times. The last member of the royal family to be arrested in Britain was Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649 after being found guilty of treason.

King Charles, who stripped his brother of his title of prince and forced him out of his Windsor home last year, said on Thursday he ‌had learned about the arrest with "deepest concern".

"Let me state clearly: the law must take its course," the king said. "What now follows is the ⁠full, fair and proper process ⁠by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities."

The news broke early on Thursday morning that six unmarked police cars and around eight plain-clothed officers had arrived at Wood Farm on the king's Sandringham estate in Norfolk, eastern England, where Mountbatten-Windsor now resides.

Thames Valley Police officers also searched the mansion on the king's Windsor estate west of London where Mountbatten-Windsor had lived before being forced out amid anger at the Epstein revelations.

Officers said late on Thursday that the royal had been released under investigation. They said the searches at Sandringham had concluded but the searches in Windsor were continuing.

While being arrested means that police have reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed and that the royal is suspected of involvement in an offence, it does not imply guilt.

A conviction for misconduct in a public office carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and cases must be dealt with in a Crown Court, which handles the most serious criminal offences.