Ukraine Updates: More Mass Graves Unearthed Near Kyiv as Russia Moves Troops South

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has once again said that it was a strategic mistake by Germany and France to oppose Ukraine's accession to NATO in 2008. Now, his country is paying for this mistake.

"If we were a member of NATO, this war wouldn't take place," he told US broadcaster NBC in its "Meet The Press" show.

Kuleba also accused Germany of failing to support his country because it still thinks in terms of defensive and offensive weapons when it comes to military equipment. "If we didn't waste a lot of time on discussing the issue of defensive against offensive and what Ukraine needs, and what Ukraine doesn't, then we would have been in a different position now, in a much stronger position," he said.

The Ukrainian diplomat stressed that his country was proposing a "fair deal" to NATO and the West. "You provide us with everything that we need. And we fight so that you don't have to step up into the fight when Putin decides to test article five of the North Atlantic Treaty and attack one of NATO countries," Kuleba said.

He was referring to the article that states that an attack on one member of NATO is an attack on all of its members. Since Ukraine is not a member of NATO, it cannot request assistance under this article.
Kuleba stressed Ukrainians know "how to fight," but they need weapons of all kinds to fight the Russian troops.

Referring to the withdrawal of Russian troops from the surroundings of the capital Kyiv and the expected large-scale Russian offensive in the east of the country, he said: "Ukraine won the battle for Kyiv. Now another battle is coming, the battle for Donbass."

■ Russian forces fired shells into Ukraine's Luhansk and Dnipro regions hitting several buildings, wounding one person and causing a fire, officials said.

■ Two people were killed and several injured in the Ukrainian town of Derhachy in the northeastern Kharkiv region, regional governor Oleh Synyehubov said in a Facebook post.

■ British military intelligence said Russia was seeking to strengthen troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service since 2012, as losses mount from the invasion.

■ Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had held spoken on the phone with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the possibility of additional sanctions on Russia, as well as fresh defense and financial support for his country.

■ Zelenskyy met Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Kyiv on Saturday, with the British leader using the visit to set out a new financial and military aid package for Ukraine.

Russian forces pounded targets in eastern Ukraine with missiles and artillery on Sunday as Austria's leader planned to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said he would meet with Putin on Monday in Moscow for the Russian leader's first face-to-face meeting with a European Union counterpart since Russia's invasion began on Feb. 24.

"We are militarily neutral, but (have) a clear position on the Russian war of aggression against #Ukraine," Nehammer wrote of Austria on Twitter.

The death toll from a missile strike on the train station in Ukraine's Kramatorsk has risen to 57 people, Donetsk region governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Sunday.

Kyrylenko said 109 people were wounded in the attack, which Ukraine has blamed on Russia. Moscow has denied responsibility, saying the missile was Ukrainian.

Former senior MI6 officer Christopher Steele believes Russia’s war in Ukraine will not be over imminently, but it could mark the beginning of the end for Vladimir Putin. Israel, he says, should reconsider its Russia policy. Read the full interview here

When Russian forces first surrounded the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol in early March, Victoria Zinin was in Hadera, in northern Israel, watching the tragedy unfold on television, thousands of miles away from the country of her birth.

As images of the emerging siege flashed on screens across the world, the 51-year-old Ukrainian immigrant decided that she had to rescue her septuagenarian parents Lyudmila and Anatoly before it was too late. After boarding a flight to Warsaw, she and her husband made their way to the western Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, from which they managed to hitchhike across the country in the direction of Mariupol, a port city on the Azov Sea.

Read the full story here.

The United States is committed to providing Ukraine with “the weapons it needs” to defend itself against Russia, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday as Ukraine seeks more military aid from the West.

Sullivan said the Biden administration will send more weapons to Ukraine to prevent Russia from seizing more territory and targeting civilians, attacks that Washington has labeled war crimes.

“We’re going to get Ukraine the weapons it needs to beat back the Russians to stop them from taking more cities and towns where they commit these crimes,” Sullivan said on ABC News’ “This Week”.

Moscow has rejected accusations of war crimes by Ukraine and Western countries.

Speaking later on NBC News’ “Meet the Press", Sullivan said the United States was “working around the clock to deliver our own weapons...and organizing and coordinating the delivery of weapons from many other countries.”“Weapons are arriving every day,” Sullivan said, “including today.”

Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova confirmed on Sunday that Russia and Ukraine had carried out a prisoner exchange on Saturday.

Moskalkova said that among those returned to Russia were four employees of state atomic energy corporation Rosatom, soldiers and some other civilians.

On Saturday an exchange of truck drivers between Russia and Ukraine was also conducted, Moskalkova said, with 32 Russian truck drivers, 20 Ukrainians and a number of Belarus nationals exchanged.

Ukraine Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk had said on Saturday that 12 of its soldiers were being returned after a prisoner exchange with Russia, the third such swap since the start of the conflict.

Vereshchuk said that 14 civilians were also returning to Ukraine as part of the deal.

Journalist, socialite and politician, Ksenia Sobchak – who once ran against Putin despite being the daughter of his late political patron – has received an Israeli citizenship. Another big Russian star to arrive in Israel is Hip-hop sensation Alisher Valeev, aka Morgenshtern. Read the full story

The head of Russia's Orthodox Church called on people on Sunday to rally around the authorities as Moscow pursues its military intervention in Ukraine.

Patriarch Kirill has previously made statements defending Moscow's actions in Ukraine and views the war as a bulwark against a Western liberal culture that he considers decadent.

"Let the Lord help us unite during this difficult time for our Fatherland, including around the authorities," the Interfax news agency quoted Kirill, 75, as saying at a sermon in Moscow.

"May the authorities to be filled with responsibility for their people, humility and the readiness to serve them even if it costs them their life," added the patriarch, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.