TOP HEADLINES

• At least five people died following strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine's separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, Russian investigators said, claiming the attack was carried out by Kyiv's forces. 

• A 32-year-old French journalist was killed on Monday during a Russian bombardment that struck a vehicle evacuating civilians from eastern Ukraine, French and Ukrainian officials said. "Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff was in Ukraine to show the reality of war," French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter. "Onboard a humanitarian bus with civilians forced to flee to escape Russian bombings, he was mortally wounded." 

• EU leaders were hoping to persuade Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban to back a watered-down oil embargo against Russia. But the Hungarian leader, who has demanded an exemption from the ban and guarantees for his country's energy supply, warned on arrival at the EU summit that no compromise had yet been reached. READ MORE BELOW

• Russian President Vladimir Putin told Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow is ready to work with Ankara to free up maritime shipping blocked over the conflict in Ukraine. "Vladimir Putin noted the readiness of the Russian side to contribute to the unimpeded maritime transit of goods in coordination with Turkish partners. This also applies to grain exports from Ukrainian ports," the Kremlin quoted Putin as saying.

• Russia's defense ministry said its forces had struck a shipbuilding facility in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv. Russian artillery struck a hangar in Mykolaiv's Okean Shipyard, destroying vehicles and other equipment, the ministry said.

• Ukrainian forces counterattack in the south, claiming to have pushed back Russian troops in Kherson, the only region fully controlled by Russian forces. "Kherson, hold on. We're close!" Ukraine's general staff tweet. READ MORE BELOW

• U.S. President Joe Biden said he would not send rocket systems to Ukraine that could hit targets well inside Russian territory, despite urgent requests from Kyiv for long-range weapons. 

• France's new foreign minister Catherine Colonna said on a visit to Kyiv that Paris is ready to boost military aid to Ukraine to help it counter Russia's offensive. "France is not at war with Russia" but will "continue to reinforce arms deliveries," Colonna said at a news conference with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba. She said the arms will arrive "in the coming weeks."

• Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol may face the death penalty, a pro-Moscow separatist official said. "The court will make a decision about them," Yuri Sirovatko, the justice minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine, was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

• Russia's Gazprom will halt gas supplies to the Netherlands' partly state-owned energy firm GasTerra on Tuesday after it refused to pay in rubles, the Dutch company said.

• Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called for increased military spending in light of the security threat posed by Russia as Spain marked 40 years since joining NATO. "The war in Ukraine has opened the eyes of European society, including in Spain," said Sanchez.

IN DETAIL

Orban: 'There's no agreement at all'

European Union leaders were hoping on Monday to persuade Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban to back a watered-down oil embargo against Russia after a month of haggling over a blocked sanctions package.

But the Hungarian leader, who has demanded an exemption from the ban and guarantees for his country's energy supply, warned on arrival at the EU summit that no compromise had yet been reached.

Orban confirmed that the proposal on the table would see Russian oil arriving in the EU and in Hungary by pipeline, rather than by sea, exempted from the sanctions.

"For Hungary this is a good solution, it means that an atomic bomb won't be thrown on the Hungarian economy," he said. But he warned that this would not be enough to guarantee supply.

"What causes us a problem is that in the case that something happens to the pipeline carrying Russian oil, which is something that the Ukrainians and others have spoken about," he said. 

"If Russian oil does not arrive by pipeline, then we would have the right to receive oil by sea, and have it arrive from elsewhere, that is the guarantee that we need."

Orban said "there is no agreement at all". He did not, however, threaten to veto the leaders' planned summit statement, arguing that it was the European Commission's job to fine-tune the sanctions package.

Kherson: 'We will for sure liberate the entire area'

Ukrainian forces have counterattacked in the country's south, claiming to have pushed back Russian troops near three villages in the Kherson region, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his first visit to the embattled east since the start of the conflict.

While one-third of the northeastern region remains under Russian control, "We will for sure liberate the entire area," Zelenskyy said after the visit, also revealing he had fired the city's security chief in a rare public rebuke.

Since failing to capture Kyiv in the early stages of the offensive, Russia's army has narrowed its focus to eastern Ukraine, hammering cities with relentless artillery and missile barrages as it seeks to consolidate areas under its control.

But Ukrainian forces pushed back at the weekend, forcing Russian troops into "unfavorable positions" around the villages of Andriyivka, Lozovo and Bilohorka in Kherson, the country's military leadership said in a statement.

"Kherson, hold on. We're close!" Ukraine's general staff tweeted Sunday as their forces counterattacked in the only region of the country fully controlled by Russian troops.

Kherson, which borders Crimea, was taken by Russian forces in March and Moscow-backed officials in the region have recently pushed for annexation.