TOP STORIES

· The Russian Orthodox Church said searches conducted by Ukrainian security services at a monastery in the capital Kyiv were an "act of intimidation."

· Ukraine's SBU security service and police raided the 1,000-year-old Orthodox Christian monastery early on Tuesday. They insisted it was part of counter-intelligence measures and that they were conducted within the law.

· Kyiv said it had discovered four Russian torture sites in newly-liberated Kherson. Moscow accused Ukrainian forces of killing a number of prisoners of war after a video of POW bodies surfaced.

· There are no immediate nuclear safety or security concerns at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine despite heavy shelling at the weekend, the UN atomic watchdog said after its experts toured the site.

·French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and said other nuclear plants at Rovno and Khmelnitski, as well as the Nova Kakhovka dam, had also been targeted.

· Russian President Vladimir Putin will, in coming days, meet the mothers of soldiers amid fierce fighting in Ukraine, the Vedomosti newspaper reported.

·Ukrainians will have to live with blackouts at least until the end of March, the head of a major energy provider said, as the government started free evacuations for people in Kherson to other regions.

·Russia will not ship oil or oil products to countries imposing a price cap on its exports and may also cut crude production, said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.

· Canada will impose more sanctions on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko's administration for supporting Russia's conflict in Ukraine. The foreign ministry in Ottawa said it would sanction 22 more Belarusian officials along with 16 Belarusian companies. 

IN DETAIL

Ukrainian security services raid Kyiv Orthodox monastery

The Russian Orthodox Church said searches conducted by Ukrainian security services at an Orthodox monastery in the capital Kyiv were an "act of intimidation."

"Like many other cases of persecution of believers in Ukraine since 2014, this act of intimidation of believers is almost certain to go unnoticed by those who call themselves the international human rights community," said church spokesperson Vladimir Legoida.

Ukraine said it carried out the searches at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra complex as part of counter-intelligence measures, insisting they were conducted within the law.

The SBU said it was part of operations to counter suspected "subversive activities by Russian special services."

The statement added that Kyiv aimed to "prevent the use of the Lavra as a center of the 'Russian world'" and make sure that the premises were not used to hide "sabotage and intelligence groups" and to store weapons.

The sprawling complex is a Ukrainian cultural treasure but is also the headquarters of the Russian-backed wing of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, known as the Moscow Patriarchate.

Located south of Kyiv's city center, the 11th century monastery is a UNESCO World Heritage site and was formerly under Moscow's jurisdiction. It cut ties with Russia soon after the conflict in Ukraine began last February.