In this image released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office on Sunday, May 1, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, centre right, and U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi shake hands during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. Pelosi, second in line to the presidency after the vice president, is the highest-ranking American leader to visit Ukraine since the start of the war, and her visit marks a major show of continuing support for the country’s struggle against Russia. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP) In this image released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office on Sunday, May 1, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, third from right, and U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, third from left, talk during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. Pelosi, second in line to the presidency after the vice president, is the highest-ranking American leader to visit Ukraine since the start of the war, and her visit marks a major show of continuing support for the country's struggle against Russia. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP) Oleksiy Onoschenko, 42, rescues books from his house destroyed during the Russian occupation in Irpin, in the outskirt of Kyiv, Ukraine on Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) A car is photographed damaged by the shrapnel of an explosion in Irpin, in the outskirt of Kyiv, Ukraine on Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) Local residents close the windows of an apartment building with plywood after Russian shelling in Dobropillya, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) The body of a civilian lies in an apartment as Russian bombardments continue in a village recently retaken by Ukrainian forces near Kharkiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) This recent but undated photo provided Friday, April 29, 2022 by the wife of a member of the Azov Regiment shows a woman comforting a wounded man inside the Azovstal steel plant, in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine. (Anonymous via AP ) People sit in a bus during evacuation from Lyman, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) A boy looks out of a bus during an evacuation of civilians in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Andriy Andriyenko) A couple embrace in central Kyiv, on Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) Destroyed houses are photographed in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) A Ukrainian serviceman walks in a basement used as a bomb shelter during Russian attacks in a village recently retaken by Ukrainian forces near Kharkiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) Ukraine women wait for the start of a religious service to commemorate the fallen during the Russian occupation in Zdvyzhivka, on the outskirts of Kyiv, on Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) A man pays tribute to foreign citizens killed during Russia-Ukraine war near a memorial sign reading "Foreigners killed by Putin" in a central square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Apr. 30, 2022. Names of the killed foreigners are written on the Ukrainian flags. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) Wives, relatives and activists take part in a rally demanding international leaders to organize a humanitarian corridor for evacuation of Ukrainian military and civilians from Mariupol, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) A woman receives humanitarian aid from a volunteer in Lyman, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) People walk past wrecks of military vehicles in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) A view of a destroyed railway bridge over Siverskiy Donets river near Raigorodka, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) In this image released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office on Sunday, May 1, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives for his meeting with U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. Pelosi, second in line to the presidency after the vice president, is the highest-ranking American leader to visit Ukraine since the start of the war, and her visit marks a major show of continuing support for the country's struggle against Russia. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP) Destroyed houses are photographed in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) A Ukrainian serviceman talks to a resident inside a basement used as a bomb shelter during Russian attacks in a village recently retaken by Ukrainian forces near Kharkiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) An elderly couple drinks tea in the basement of their house in Lyman, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) In this image released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office on Sunday, May 1, 2022, U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi walks before her meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. Pelosi, second in line to the presidency after the vice president, is the highest-ranking American leader to visit Ukraine since the start of the war, and her visit marks a major show of continuing support for the country's struggle against Russia. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP) In this image released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office on Sunday, May 1, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, third from right, and U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, third from left, talk during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. Pelosi, second in line to the presidency after the vice president, is the highest-ranking American leader to visit Ukraine since the start of the war, and her visit marks a major show of continuing support for the country's struggle against Russia. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
LVIV, Ukraine — Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show damage to oil depots just across the Ukrainian border in Russia after suspected Ukrainian attacks.
The photos from Saturday show damage at two sites in Bryansk. The blasts damaged multiple tanks, leaving the surrounding grounds charred.
The explosions happened Monday. One hit an oil depot owned by Transneft-Druzhba, a subsidiary of the Russian state-controlled company Transneft that operates the western-bound Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline carrying crude oil to Europe.
The second facility is a short distance from the other.
Bryansk is located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the border with Ukraine.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:
— Ukrainian forces fight Russia's grinding advance in eastern Donbas region
— Wives of Mariupol defenders appeal for soldiers’ evacuation from final holdout
— Some Ukrainians go back across front line toward homes, despite dangers
— Ukrainian women learn how to clear land mines at course in Kosovo
— Angelina Jolie makes surprise Ukraine visit, meets children
Follow all AP stories on Russia’s war on Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
KYIV, Ukraine — U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has met with Ukraine’s president.
Footage released early Sunday by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office showed Pelosi in Kyiv with a Congressional delegation. Those with Pelosi included Reps. Jason Crow, Jim McGovern and Adam Schiff.
Zelenskyy told the delegation: “You all are welcome.”
Pelosi later said: “We believe that we are visiting you to say thank you for your fight for freedom. We are on a frontier of freedom and your fight is a fight for everyone. Our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done.”
The visit was not previously announced.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Some women and children were evacuated from a steel plant that is the last defensive stronghold in the bombed-out ruins of the port city of Mariupol, a Ukrainian official and Russian state news organizations said.
But hundreds are believed to remain trapped with little food, water or medicine.
The United Nations was working to broker an evacuation of the up to 1,000 civilians living beneath the sprawling Soviet-era Azovstal plant after numerous previous attempts failed.
Ukraine has not said how many fighters are also in the plant, the only part of Mariupol not occupied by Russian forces, but Russia put the number at about 2,000. An estimated 100,000 civilians remain in the city.
U.N. humanitarian spokesperson Saviano Abreu said the world organization was negotiating with authorities in Moscow and Kyiv, but he could not provide details of the ongoing evacuation effort “because of the complexity and fluidity of the operation.”
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LVIV, Ukraine — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says American diplomats are making plans to return to Ukraine as soon as possible.
Blinken made the comment while speaking to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. An overnight statement Sunday said Blinken told Kuleba that America “plans to return to Kyiv as soon as possible.”
He said diplomats had been making “initial visits” to Lviv to prepare.
The U.S. evacuated its embassy in Kyiv in February just before Russia launched its war on the country. The U.S. had been bringing diplomats across the Polish border each day to work in Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, before stopping the practice.
Lviv has largely been spared in the conflict, though a missile strike several days ago targeted a railroad facility near the city.
The U.S. is one of Ukraine’s main backers in the war, providing billions in aid and weaponry.
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LVIV, Ukraine — The British military says the Russian ruble will be used as currency in a Ukrainian city that Moscow seized earlier in the war.
The British military wrote that the city of Kherson will begin a four-month transition from the Ukrainian hryvnia to the ruble starting Sunday. The British Defense Ministry said the move is “indicative of Russian intent to exert strong political and economic influence in Kherson over the long term.”
It added: “Enduring control over Kherson and its transport links will increase Russia’s ability to sustain its advance to the north and west and improve the security of Russia’s control over Crimea.”
Kherson is some 450 kilometers (280 miles) southeast of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Russia seized the city just across the Crimean Peninsula in early March.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy switched into Russian in his nightly video address to urge Russian soldiers not to fight in Ukraine, saying even their generals expected that thousands of them would die.
He said Russia has been recruiting new troops “with little motivation and little combat experience” for the units that were gutted during the early weeks of the war so these units can be thrown back into battle.
He said Russian commanders fully understand that thousands of them will die and thousands more will be wounded in the coming weeks.
“The Russian commanders are lying to their soldiers when they tell them they can expect to be held seriously responsible for refusing to fight and then also don’t tell them, for example, that the Russian army is preparing additional refrigerator trucks for storing the bodies. They don’t tell them about the new losses the generals expect,” Zelenskyy said late Saturday.
“Every Russian soldier can still save his own life. It’s better for you to survive in Russia than to perish on our land,” he said.
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STOCKHOLM — Sweden says a Russian military plane has violated Swedish airspace.
The incident happened late Friday in the Baltic Sea near the island of Bornholm.
In a statement Saturday, the Swedish Armed Forces said a Russian AN-30 propeller plane flew toward Swedish airspace and briefly entered it before leaving the area.
The Swedish Air Force scrambled fighter jets which photographed the Russian plane.
Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist told Swedish public radio that the violation was “unacceptable” and “unprofessional.”
In a similar incident in early March, four Russian warplanes violated Swedish airspace over the Baltic Sea.
Sweden and neighboring Finland are both considering NATO membership following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has warned that such a move would have consequences, without giving specifics.
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LONDON — Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson discussed the progress of the U.N. effort to evacuate people from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol and “offered the U.K.'s continued economic and humanitarian support” during a talk Saturday with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskky.
“The prime minister reiterated that he is more committed than ever to reinforcing Ukraine and ensuring (Russian President Vladimir) Putin fails, noting how hard the Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom,’’ Johnson’s Downing Street office said.
“He confirmed that the UK will continue to provide additional military aid to give the Ukrainians the equipment they needed to defend themselves,” the statement said.
The United Nations has been attempting to broker an evacuation in the port city where some 100,000 civilians remain. Up to 1,000 civilians are living beneath a Soviet-era steel plant in Mariupol, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukraine has not said how many fighters are also in the plant, but the Russians put the number at about 2,000.
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A Russian rocket attack destroyed an airport runway in Odesa, Ukraine’s third-largest city and a key Black Sea port, the Ukrainian army said Saturday.
In a Telegram post, Ukraine’s Operational Command South said there was no way that the Odesa runway could be used as a result of the rocket attack.
Local authorities urged residents of the area to shelter in place as Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, citing army sources, reported that “several” explosions were heard in Odesa.
Odesa’s regional governor, Maksym Marchenko, said that the rocket was fired from Russian-occupied Crimea. He said there were no reports of any injuries.
Russian forces have embarked on a major military operation to seize significant parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, the country’s industrial heartland, and capture the country’s Black Sea and Sea of Azov coasts.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s national grid operator says it has has restored “reliable” power supply in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, around the site of the 1986 nuclear reactor disaster.
“In the afternoon, the last necessary 330 kV power transmission line was put into operation,” the state-owned Ukrenergo wrote in a Telegram post Saturday.
According to the same post, Ukrenergo also restored another 330 kV line in the northern Kyiv region, helping stabilize the energy supply in the capital. It said the reconstruction of further transmission lines in and around Kyiv remains underway.
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