Live updates: Ukrainian photojournalist missing near Kyiv | Health

KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian photojournalist has gone missing in a combat zone near the capital, raising fears he could have been injured, killed or taken captive by Russian forces.

The UNIAN news agency reported Tuesday that Maksym Levin has been unaccounted since March 13 when he contacted his friend from Vyshhorod near Kyiv. His friend, Markiyan Lyseiko, said Levin went to the area in his car to report on fighting there.

Lyseiko said Levin left his car near the village of Huta Mezhyhirska and was going to head to the village of Moshchun. Levin hasn’t contacted him ever since and hasn’t been seen online, Lyseiko said.

Levin has worked as a photojournalist and videographer for many Ukrainian and international publications.

KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:

— Ukraine says it has retaken a strategically important suburb of Kyiv. Meanwhile, the Russian siege of Mariupol continues.

— A pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper briefly reported that almost 10,000 Russian soldiers had been killed.

— Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been sentenced to nine year in prison

— Ukrainian orphans who are headed to refuge in the UK are stuck in Poland due to missing paperwork

— The U.N. is divided over mentioning Russia’s invasion in a resolution on the worsening humanitarian situation in Ukraine

Go to https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine for more coverage

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Tuesday that Ukrainian refugees should not be integrated into the Danish society but must instead return to Ukraine and help rebuild their homeland as soon as possible.

“Being a refugee is temporary, so you have to return and help build up your homeland when you get the opportunity. It gives us the opportunity to help other refugees,” Frederiksen said in Parliament during a debate.

Under a newly adopted law in Denmark, Ukrainian refugees can stay in the Scandinavian country for two years and can work, get an education and have access to health services.

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations chief says his discussions with officials indicate “there is enough on the table to cease hostilities now” and seriously negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Tuesday that the war is “unwinnable,” and the only question is how many more lives will be lost and how many more cities like Mariupol will be destroyed before the war moves from the battlefield to the peace table.

“From my outreach with various actors, elements of diplomatic progress are coming into view on several key issues,” he said, enough to end hostilities now.

Guterres did not state what those elements are or answer any questions.

He said the war is intensifying and “getting more destructive and more unpredictable by the hour.” Ten million Ukrainians have already been forced to flee their homes.

“Even if Mariupol falls, Ukraine cannot be conquered city by city, street by street, house by house,” the secretary-general said.

Guterres said “the Ukrainian people are enduring a living hell,” and the war’s reverberations “are being felt worldwide with skyrocketing food, energy and fertilizer prices threatening to spiral into a global hunger crisis.”

PRZEMSYL, Poland — The flow of refugees from Ukraine into a primary entry point in Poland has slowed to fewer than 8,000 people a day, the city’s mayor said.

That number is six to seven times lower than during the height of the Ukrainian exodus into Poland, Przemyśl Mayor Wojciech Bakun said Tuesday outside the city’s train station. He compared the Polish effort to provide safe harbor for refugees to a marathon.

“After one month, a lot of people are very tired, so we have to think about next month, or maybe, hopefully not, but maybe about years,” Bakun said. “So that’s the main thing at this moment. Not only for Poland, but also for EU countries.”

Poland has established a system to help new arrivals, providing them with immediate assistance and helping arrange travel to other parts of Poland and other European countries.

BRUSSELS — Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Nicu Popescu is warning that the plight of Ukrainian refugees in his country could get much worse if the war launched by Russia approaches its borders.

Popescu says that about 360,000 refugees have crossed into Moldova in recent weeks. Around 100,000 of them – equivalent to 4% of Moldova’s population – have remained, and many are minors. The rest have moved further into Europe.

“This is a very, very dramatic speed and scale of a humanitarian situation and, in our assessment, it could get much worse if the frontline approaches our borders,” he told European Union lawmakers on Tuesday.

Russia has troops in Moldova, a country of 2.6 million located between Ukraine and Romania, stationed in the disputed territory of Transnistria. Concern is rife in Europe that Russian President Vladimir Putin might push his forces west though Ukraine to join up with them.

Popescu says that “for now, the situation is calm” in Transnistria, but that things could change rapidly if the fighting spreads.

He says the war in Ukraine has hurt Moldova’s economy, notably its trade, just as the country struggles to recover from the coronavirus pandemic and an energy crisis.

MEDYKA, Poland — Ukrainians, mostly women and children, continued to cross into the Polish border town of Medyka on Tuesday.

Viktoria Totsen, 39, arrived there from Mariupol.

“Mariupol is almost 99% destroyed,” Totsen said. “They bombed us for the past 20 days. During the last five days the planes were flying over us every five seconds and dropped bombs everywhere, on residential buildings, kindergartens, art schools, everywhere. We live near the theater in the city center, and, as you know, they damaged the theater. It was horrible and we took a risk and we left. They city is under blockade, and when we left we got (mobile phone) connection, and we managed to find the route to Zaporizhzhia.”

Olena Almazova, 54, fled Kharkiv, a northeast Ukrainian city near the Russian border.

“It is a very difficult situation in Kharkiv,” Almazova said. “Every day they bomb, 40, 50, 60 times a day. They bombed suburbs and city center. They damaged the culture center, they damaged ancient architecture. So far, 700 buildings have been destroyed.”

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says this week’s meeting between NATO leaders should be focused on ways of securing a cease-fire in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and not just on sanctions and deterrence.

“Everyone’s first aim should be a cease-fire,” Cavusoglu told Turkish journalists on the sideline of an Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Pakistan on Tuesday. “It should be to stop the war that is going on right now. Everyone should act responsibly and constructively.”

Cavusoglu continued: “Of course, we need to show unity and solidarity within NATO, we need to show deterrence. But who is paying the price of the ongoing war?”

U.S. President Joe Biden and other NATO leaders are scheduled to meet Thursday in Brussels. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the meeting is intended not just to show NATO’s “support to Ukraine, but also our readiness to protect and defend all NATO allies,”

Cavusoglu said Turkey was pressing with its efforts as a “mediator and facilitator” to end the fighting and was in touch with negotiators on both sides. Turkey was also trying to bring the warring sides to meet face to face again, Cavusoglu said.

Earlier this month, the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine met in Turkey on the sidelines of a diplomacy forum.

LVIV, Ukraine — Exhausted Mariupol survivors continued to arrive by train in the western city of Lviv on Tuesday.

“In one compartment there were 10 or eleven people, with others in the corridor, but when you’re going to safety it doesn’t matter,” said one woman, Julia Krytska, who made it out with her husband and son. Her hands were shaking.

They were lucky to get out after volunteers found them in the besieged city, she said. “There’s no connection with the world,” she said. “We couldn’t ask for help.”

The people of Mariupol don’t have a chance to be heard, she said. “They are in need of help. People don’t even have water there,” Krytska said.

KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian actor is now serving in the Territorial Defense Forces on the outskirts of Kyiv in a unit packed with people from showbusiness.

Sergiy Volosovets said on Monday that the fight against Russian forces has drawn in people from all walks of life.

“There is a lot of very different people here, I met a lot of my friends here, as well as artists,” he said.

“I think maybe their artistic spirit just broke the fear and that allowed them to come and be here. For example in my units there were actors, singers, cameramen, photographers, people related to the showbusiness in various ways. Those people are artists, they believe they could change their country for better as well as defeat the enemy.”

Volosovets has acted in theater, movies and TV and has won awards for his work.

He now commands a unit of 11 men, and oversees the military training of volunteers in a base northeast of Kyiv, a few kilometers away from the frontlines where Ukraine’s army is trying to block the Russian advance towards the capital.

BRUSSELS — International news channel Euronews says it has been blocked from broadcasting in Russia due to its Ukraine war coverage.

“We firmly condemn this intolerable restriction imposed on millions … in Russia who relied on us to get impartial news,” Euronews said, adding that Russian authorities pulled the channel off air and blocked its websites in Russia.

Euronews said it might launch legal action to continue to freely broadcast in the country. Euronews is broadcast in 160 countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has intensified a crackdown on media and individuals who fail to toe his line on Russia’s war in Ukraine, blocking Facebook and Twitter and signing into law a bill that criminalizes the intentional spreading of “fake” reports.

Euronews said it strongly rejected Russian claims it spread “fake news” and that it allegedly called on Russians to protest the war. It said it faced an “unacceptable threat of criminal liability” due to the new Russian law.

ATHENS, Greece — Greece’s foreign minister says he intends to personally escort humanitarian aid into the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said Tuesday he had sent an official request to the Ukrainian side to facilitate the sending of humanitarian aid into the city, and an official request to the Russian side to let the delivery in. A sizeable Greek community lives in the Mariupol area.

Dendias did not provide any details on a possible date for the delivery or what the humanitarian aid would consist of.

He made the announcement after meeting with the Greek consul general in Mariupol, Manolis Androulakis, who arrived in Athens last Sunday after being evacuated from the city on March 15.

Androulakis was the last European Union diplomat to leave the city, which has been pummeled by Russian forces for weeks. Living conditions in the city are dire.

On arriving in Athens, Androulakis said civilians in the city were being hit “blindly and indiscriminately” and likened Mariupol to other cities decimated by war in the past, such as Guernica, Aleppo and Grozny.

WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s president has compared the conduct of Russian forces in Ukraine to that of Adolf Hitler’s infamous SS troops during World War II.

“Today, the Russian army is behaving in exactly the same way … as the German SS,” President Andrzej Duda said during a visit to Bulgaria on Tuesday.

Duda, whose country suffered a brutal Nazi occupation during World War II, noted that Russia had already violated international law when it attacked Georgia in 2008 and first invaded Ukraine in 2014.

He said he hoped that those responsible for attacks on civilians in Ukraine would be brought before international courts.

PARIS — The former Paris-based Europe correspondent for Russian state-controlled broadcaster Channel One says she quit her job earlier this month over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Zhanna Agalakova, who used to be a newsreader at the channel, said she believes Russian networks have been commandeered by the Kremlin to broadcasts lies and propaganda.

The 56-year-old journalist said there is little independent media in Russia, meaning that Russians are being “zombified” by the stream of media-sponsored untruths.

Agalakova quit March 3, leaving the channel officially on March 17.

BELGRADE, Serbia — A senior Serbian official says Belgrade will never impose sanctions or join the Western “hysteria” against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Serbia’s Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin said Tuesday: “Serbia will never be part of the anti-Russian hysteria in which the property of Russian citizens and the property of the Russian Federation is stolen, just as we will not ban Russian media.”

The Balkan country is a staunch ally of Russia, though it has condemned its invasion of Ukraine.

Serbia is seeking membership of the European Union, but it is the only European country that has refused to join international sanctions against the Kremlin.

MOSCOW — The Kremlin has refused to comment on a newspaper’s reporting of Russian military casualties in Ukraine.

The pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda reported Monday that 9,861 soldiers have been killed in action in Ukraine and another 16,153 have been wounded. It cited the Russian defense ministry.

The newspaper quickly removed the article from its website, describing it as the work of hackers.

Asked about the report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on it at Tuesday’s conference call with reporters, referring questions about the military casualties to the defense ministry.

On March 2, the defense ministry reported 498 soldiers had been killed and hasn’t released any casualty numbers since then.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Dutch government has frozen nearly 400 million euros ($440 million) in funds linked to Russians targeted by sanctions following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag revealed the latest figures on frozen accounts in a letter to Parliament on Tuesday.

She said that more than 242 million euros ($267 million) in funds linked to Russians have been frozen at Dutch trust companies and nearly 145 million euros ($160 million) in bank accounts.

The remainder of the frozen assets are held at investment companies and pension funds.

LVIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s natural resources minister says wildfires have been extinguished in the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which is under the control of Russian forces.

The fires have raised concern about the possible release of radiation from the plant, where a 1986 explosion and fire sent radioactive emissions across large parts of Europe.

But Natural Resources Minister Ruslan Strelets said Tuesday that radiation levels in the area are within the norms.

Ukrainian officials had earlier accused Russian forces of deliberately setting the fires or causing them with artillery shelling.

PARIS — A group of 20 Ukrainian children with cancer and leukemia has arrived in Paris as part of a rescue plan coordinated by French First Lady Brigitte Macron and Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska.

The children are accompanied by their parents as they flee the war with Russia. They arrived at Orly airport near the French capital on Monday evening.

Speaking to Le Parisien newspaper in an interview, Zelenska said “when it became clear that it was impossible to treat children with cancer in the bomb shelters, we immediately sought a solution.”

She said some of the evacuated children will remain in Poland, while others are heading to France, Italy, Germany, the United States and Canada.

ROME — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is urging Italy to beef up sanctions against Russia and seize more assets from President Vladimir Putin and his allies as a way of pressuring Moscow into negotiating an end to the war.

Zelenskyy spoke to the Italian parliament Tuesday via video from Kyiv, as he has done with other foreign parliaments. Wearing a collared shirt and speaking through an Italian translator, Zelenskyy told Italian lawmakers that he had just spoken by phone to Pope Francis and that the pontiff had endorsed Ukraine’s right to defend itself.

He said that 117 children have been killed in the war with Russia and that the city of Mariupol has been flattened by the Russian onslaught.

He warned that Europe’s security is at risk if Russia advances and that grain deliveries to the developing world are being jeopardized because Ukraine’s farmers can’t plant crops.

Italian Premier Mario Draghi praised the “heroic” resistance of the Ukrainian people.

MOSCOW — Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has rejected U.S. President Joe Biden’s warning that Russia may be planning a cyberattack against the United States.

Asked about Biden’s comments, Peskov said Tuesday that “the Russian Federation, unlike many Western countries including the United States, does not engage in banditry on the state level.”

Biden told a meeting of corporate CEOs on Monday that “evolving intelligence” indicated a cyberattack may be planned. He urged private companies to invest in their own security to counter cyberattacks.

Biden has suggested a cyberattack could be Russia’s response to economic sanctions imposed by the U.S.

GENEVA — The U.N. refugee agency says more than 3.5 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, passing another milestone in an exodus that has led to Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.

UNHCR reported Tuesday that 3.56 million people have left Ukraine, with Poland taking in the lion’s share — more than 2.1 million — followed by Romania with more than 540,000 and Moldova with more than 367,000.

Shortly after the invasion on Feb. 24, UNHCR predicted that some 4 million refugees might leave Ukraine, though it has been re-assessing that prediction. The outflows have been slowing in recent days after peaking at more than 200,000 each on two straight days in early March.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that nearly 6.5 million people are internally displaced within Ukraine, suggesting that some if not most of them might to flee abroad if the war continues.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, says it has confirmed 62 attacks on health care assets in Ukraine since the conflict began and through last Friday. The attacks caused 15 deaths and 37 injuries. The assets include hospitals and medical facilities, transport of medical supplies, warehouses, and health care workers.

MOSCOW — Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov says he wants to auction off his 2021 Nobel Peace Prize medal to raise funds for Ukrainian refugees.

Muratov called Tuesday in the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, which he edits, for people to “share with refugees, the wounded and children who need urgent treatment what is dear to you and has a value for others.”

Muratov is asking auction houses about the possibility of organizing a sale.

Muratov said last year he was giving away his share of the Nobel prize money to causes including independent media, a Moscow hospice, and care for children with spinal problems. He said he wouldn’t keep any himself.

LONDON — Two Russian pranksters are claiming credit for tricking Britain’s defense secretary into a hoax call with a man purporting to be Ukraine’s prime minister.

A video of the prank circulated on YouTube on Tuesday. It appeared after the U.K. accused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government of backing efforts to secure sensitive or embarrassing information through hoax calls.

Defense Secretary Ben Wallace last week had a video call with someone he thought was Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. Instead, he was speaking to “Vovan and Lexus,” a pair of hoaxers who had previously targeted Britain’s Prince Harry.

The video shows Wallace speaking from Poland to a caller who says Ukraine wants to advance its “nuclear program” to protect itself from Moscow, something Russian state media has baselessly claimed in the past.

The Ministry of Defense said the video had been “doctored.” Wallace said last week that he ended the call after it strayed into sensitive subjects over a non-secure line.

MADRID — Authorities in Gibraltar have detained a superyacht linked to a Russian tycoon who is the target of British sanctions over Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Gibraltar is a tiny British overseas territory on the southernmost tip of the European mainland, bordering Spain.

According to Gibraltar’s public broadcaster, GBC, the yacht is called Axioma and is believed to be owned by Dmitrievich Pumpyansky. He is chairman of the board of directors of PJSC, a main steel pipe supplier for Russia’s oil and gas industry.

Pumpyansky was also included earlier this month in a European Union list of Russian sanctioned individuals.

The Gibraltar government said late Monday it would not have normally granted the vessel permission to enter its waters given its “ultimate beneficial ownership,” but that port authorities allowed it in after “it was confirmed to be the subject of an arrest action by a leading international bank in the Supreme Court of Gibraltar.” The statement didn’t specify the legal claims from creditors.

Yachts owned or linked to super-rich Russian oligarchs have been among the first assets seized or frozen by Western governments as part of their response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Authorities in Italy, France and Spain have impounded several luxury vessels in the crackdown.

ANKARA, Turkey — A second superyacht belonging to Chelsea soccer club owner and sanctioned oligarch Roman Abramovich reportedly has docked in a resort in southwestern Turkey.

Turkey has not imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine last month, nor has it frozen assets belonging to top Russian businessmen linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The private DHA news agency said Tuesday the Bermuda-registered Eclipse docked in the resort of Marmaris.

A day earlier, Abramovich’s Bermuda-flagged luxury yacht My Solaris arrived in the nearby resort of Bodrum, triggering a protest by a group of Ukrainians who boarded a small motorboat and tried to prevent the yacht from docking.

NATO member Turkey has close ties to both Russia and Ukraine. It has criticized Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine but has also positioned itself as a neutral party trying to mediate between the two.

LONDON — Britain’s defense ministry says Russian forces have not managed to take over the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol despite weeks of bombardment and days of street fighting.

In an update posted on social media, U.K. officials say that “despite heavy fighting, Ukrainian forces continue to repulse Russian attempts to occupy” the city.

It says Russian forces have made “limited progress” elsewhere in Ukraine in the last day, and remain “largely stalled in place.”

The Ukrainian military said Tuesday that Ukrainian forces were still defending Mariupol and destroyed a Russian patrol boat and electronic warfare complex. But the defense ministry said Russia for now controls the land corridor from Crimea, the peninsula it annexed in 2014, and is blocking Ukraine’s access to the Sea of Azov.

PARIS — France’s foreign ministry has announced that the country sent 55 metric tons (60 tons) of humanitarian aid to Ukraine via Poland, including computers, medical equipment, baby formula and generators.

The 2.4 million euros ($2.6 million) in emergency aid was sent on an A330 cargo plane from Paris to Warsaw, the Polish capital, France said in a statement late Monday. It said that “in liaison with the Polish authorities, the material will be handed over to the Ukrainian authorities without delay.”

The medical equipment — which weighs some 10 metric tons (11 tons) — is said to include 10 oxygen generators designated for intensive care units in addition to 9 metric tons (10 tons) of medicines.

The aid includes 31 generators, six of which are high-capacity generators “aimed at strengthening the electrical safety of Ukrainian health facilities.”

Eight metric tons (9 tons) of computer and internet access material — such as smartphones, computers, routers and 60 kilometers (37 miles) of optical fiber — was also included in the package.

TOKYO — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to virtually deliver his address to the Japanese parliament on Wednesday to rally international support for his country’s fight against Russian invasion.

Japan, unlike in the past, has been acting tough against Russia, in line with other Group of Seven countries, though Tokyo’s steps have triggered Moscow’s retaliation. A compromise could set a bad precedence in East Asia, where China is increasingly making assertive military actions.

Zelenskyy’s speech, expected to be about 10 minutes, will be shown in a meeting room at the lower house — the more powerful of Japan’s two-chamber parliament which Prime Minister Fumio Kishida belongs to. Zelenskyy has made virtual addresses to the U.S. Congress, as well as parliaments in Europe, Canada, and Israel.

Foreign dignitaries, including former U.S. President George W. Bush and former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, have delivered their addresses in person during visits to Japan as state guests, but an online speech by a foreign leader is unprecedented.

On Monday, Russia announced a decision to discontinue peace treaty talks with Japan over the disputed Kuril islands and withdraw from joint economic projects there, citing Tokyo’s sanctions against Russian invasion of Ukraine.