Latest developments:

Pope Francis' peace envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi traveled to Moscow weeks after a visit to Kyiv, with the Vatican saying he seeks "a solution to the tragic current situation" of the war in Ukraine.





The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, arrived in Belarus days after an aborted mutiny.

Ukrainian officials said Wednesday a Russian missile attack on the city of Kramatorsk killed at least nine people and injured more than 50 others.  

Emergency services posted photos of rescue teams searching through the rubble at the site that included a restaurant.

Kramatorsk is located west of the front lines where fighting is taking place in Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine.

A Russian strike on the city’s railway station in April 2022 killed 63 people.

Ukraine also reported a Russian missile strike Tuesday in Kremenchuk, which came exactly a year after a Russian attack there killed at least 20 people at a shopping mall.

“Each such manifestation of terror proves over and over again to us and to the whole world that Russia deserves only one thing as a result of everything it has done — defeat and a tribunal, fair and legal trials against all Russian murderers and terrorists,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Tuesday.

Air defense 

Lithuania said Wednesday it is buying two Norwegian-made NASAMS air defense systems for Ukraine’s military. 

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda announced the deal as he visited Kyiv for talks with Zelenskyy. 

“The NASAMS launchers will reach Ukraine in the near future,” Nauseda said on Facebook. 

Zelenskyy welcomed the move, tweeting that he was grateful to the Lithuanian leader. 

“This is an important and timely contribution to protecting Ukraine’s sky and saving lives of Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy said. 

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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