TOP HEADLINES

• Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Kyiv is willing to resume talks with Russia. He said that "discussions between Ukraine and Russia will undoubtedly take place … under what format I don't know … but the war will be bloody, there will be fighting and will only definitively end through diplomacy." He added: “We want everything back. And the Russian Federation doesn't want to return anything. That's why the ending will be at the negotiating table.”

• However, the Ukrainian side has ruled out a ceasefire and making any concessions to Moscow in the negotiations, with presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak saying Kyiv would not accept any deal with Russia that involved ceding territory. "Any concession to Russia is not a path to peace but a war postponed for several years. Ukraine trades neither its sovereignty nor territories and Ukrainians living on them," he said. He added that concessions or a break in the fighting would essentially give Russia further opportunity to hit back harder later: "The war will not stop [after concessions]. It will just be put on pause for some time. They'll start a new offensive, even more, bloody and large-scale."

• Russia says it has taken full control of Mariupol as the last group of Ukrainian soldiers holed up in the Azovstal steel works surrendered on Friday, marking an end to the city's siege and one of the deadliest urban battles of the conflict to date. "Underground structures of Azovstal where militants were hiding are now under full control of Russian armed forces," the Russian defense ministry said in a statement, stating that 2,439 Ukrainian fighters had surrendered.

• Moscow is considering trading the Ukraine soldiers captured in Mariupol for Viktor Medvedchuk, the former leader of Ukraine's largest opposition party and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Medvedchuk was caught last month trying to escape the country. "We are going to study the possibility," said Leonid Slutsky, one of Russia's top negotiators in the Ukraine talks.  

• Russia is attacking Ukrainian forces with airstrikes and artillery in the east and the south, targeting command centers, troops, and ammunition depots in the Mykolaiv and Donbas regions, the Russian defense ministry said on Sunday. Major General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the defense ministry, said air-launched missiles hit three command points and four ammunition depots in the Donbas.

• Zelenskyy said the situation in Donbas was "extremely difficult" during his latest nightly address, adding that the Russian army was attacking Slovyansk and Severodonetsk, a frontline city in Ukraine's east which is at risk of being encircled by Russian troops. Twelve people were killed and another 40 wounded by Russian shelling in the area, regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said. 

• Russia's military says it has destroyed a significant consignment of Western arms in Ukraine's Zhytomyr region, west of Kyiv, using sea-launched Kalibr cruise missiles. It added that Russian missiles had struck fuel storage facilities near Odesa on the Black Sea coast and shot down two Ukrainian Su-25 aircraft and 14 drones.

• Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who has been vocally opposed to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, spoke to both countries' leaders by phone on Saturday to discuss his concerns. Turkey says Sweden and Finland harbor people linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and followers of Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt. Erdogan told Sweden's prime minister that he expected concrete steps to address these concerns, also calling for an arms exports embargo imposed on Turkey after its Syria incursion in 2019 to be lifted. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said the talks had been "open and direct."

• Polish President Andrzej Duda, who met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv last month, was back to address the Ukrainian parliament on Sunday, the first foreign leader to do so in person. "Worrying voices have appeared, saying that Ukraine should give in to Putin's demands," Duda said. "Only Ukraine has the right to decide about its future... nothing about you without you."

• U.S. President Joe Biden has signed a bill giving nearly $40 billion in military hardware and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, as part of efforts to bolster its defense against Russia's military operations, the White House said, by far the most extensive aid package Washington has given Kyiv to date.

• Russia has released a list of 963 Americans it said were banned from entering the country, including US president Joe Biden. The lifetime bans include secretary of state Antony Blinken, US senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, defense secretary Lloyd Austin, and CIA head William Burns, which are considered to be largely symbolic.

• Russia's Gazprom halted gas exports to neighboring Finland, the Finnish gas system operator said, in the latest escalation of an energy payments dispute with Western nations. Gazprom Export has demanded that European countries pay for Russian gas supplies in rubles in a bid to strengthen the country's currency amid sanctions, but Finland refuses to do so.

IN DETAIL

Russia steps up eastern assault

After weeks of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic southeastern city of Mariupol came to an end with Kyiv essentially ceding the city to Moscow, Russia has intensified its offensive in the eastern Donbas region, carrying out a major assault in the Luhansk province.

Russian-backed separatists have been in control of large areas of territory in Luhansk and the neighboring Donetsk province since the 2014 conflict, but Moscow is looking to seize the last remaining Ukrainian-held territory in Donbas.

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President Zelenskyy described the situation in Donbas as "extremely difficult," while both U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi have called for an immediate ceasefire.

However, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak ruled out a break in the fighting, saying Kyiv would not accept any deal with Moscow that involved ceding territory. Making concessions would backfire on Ukraine because Russia would hit back harder after any break in fighting, he said.

"The war will not stop (after concessions). It will just be put on pause for some time," Podolyak, Ukraine's lead negotiator, said. "They'll start a new offensive, even more bloody and large-scale."

The end of fighting in Mariupol, the biggest city Russia has captured, is a major boon for Moscow, which has been hit by a series of setbacks over nearly three months of combat.

The last Ukrainian forces holed up Mariupol's Azovstal steelworks surrendered on Friday, giving Russia full control of Mariupol and a new land route linking the Crimean Peninsula to mainland Russia and areas of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists.

On the Donetsk frontline, Russian forces were trying to break through Ukrainian defences to reach the administrative borders of the Luhansk region, while further north they continued heavy shelling of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, Ukraine's general staff said on Sunday.

Sievierodonetsk and its twin Lysychansk across the Siverskiy Donets River form the eastern part of a Ukrainian-held area that Russia has been trying to capture since mid-April after failing to take Kyiv and shifting its focus east.

Ukrainian forces in the separatist-controlled regions of Luhansk and Donetsk said on Saturday they had repelled nine attacks and destroyed five tanks and ten other armored vehicles in the previous 24 hours. At least seven people had been killed in the Donetsk region, they added.

The British Ministry of Defense said on Sunday that Russia was using its BMP-T "Terminator" tank-support vehicles in the attack, but Kyiv noted the small number of the tanks meant they were "unlikely to have a significant impact."

Russia's defense ministry said it was hitting Ukrainian forces with airstrikes and artillery in the area, targeting command centers, troops, and ammunition depots.

Defense spokesperson Major General Igor Konashenkov said air-launched missiles hit three command points, 13 areas where troops and Ukrainian military equipment amassed, as well as four ammunition depots in the Donbas.

In Ukraine's southern region of Mykolaiv, Russian rockets hit a mobile anti-drone system near the settlement of Hannivka, around 100 km northeast of Mykolaiv city, he added.