Iryna Moskaeva and her children jumped out of their beds and started running after an explosion rocked their Kyiv apartment early on Thursday, in a major Russian attack that killed 18 people across the Ukrainian capital.

Moscow's campaign for students to sign army contracts comes as the Kremlin seeks to sustain its war effort for a fifth year.

Ukraine is engaged in a campaign in Crimea to take out Russian air defenses, sever vital supply lines, and cripple the peninsula's energy grid and fuel reserves.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that he had ‌spoken to US President Donald Trump on the Fourth of July holiday and called for "American resolve" to help end the more than four-year-old war with Russia.

Read the latest news on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Stay updated with on-the-ground reporting, political developments on both sides, and the economic impact on the region and the world.

Ukraine strikes Russia's Saky air base in occupied Crimea for second time in a week, SBU says * Poland should be cautious in promising further Ukraine aid at NATO

The Russian leader denounced Ukraine’s “imaginary achievements” on the battlefield of late, calling its leaders “play actors.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is coming under rare public criticism at home, a significant signal of how the pressures from the more than four-year war in Ukraine are hurting the country. Fuel shortages and rising inflation,