TOP HEADLINES

• More than 30 children were reunited with their families in Ukraine this weekend after a long operation to bring them back home from Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea, where they had been taken from areas occupied by Russian forces during the war. READ MORE BELOW

• A 50-year-old man and his 11-year-old daughter were killed after Russian forces struck a residential building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia early on Sunday, authorities said.

• A missile fired from Ukrainian-held territory was shot down over the Black Sea town of Feodosia in Russian-controlled Crimea, the head of Crimea's administration said.

• Russia's Gazprom said it would ship 36.8 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Sunday.

• The US Department of Justice said it has begun an investigation into a trove of leaked U.S. documents, many related to Ukraine, that have spread to the internet.

• Hundreds of mourners, including the leader of Russia's Wagner private militia group, attended the funeral of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who was killed on April 2 in a cafe bomb blast that Moscow has blamed on Ukraine.

• Russia threatened to bypass a UN-brokered grain deal unless obstacles to its agricultural exports were removed, while talks in Türkiye agreed removing barriers was needed to extend the agreement beyond next month.

• Ukrainians in the eastern city of Kramatorsk laid flowers at a small memorial at the central train station one year after Russian missiles hit the transport hub, killing dozens.

IN DETAIL

Ukrainian families welcome back 31 children taken by Russians

Thirty-one children have been brought back to Ukraine after being taken to Russia from territories occupied by Moscow, a charity said Saturday.

"Today we are welcoming home 31 more children who have been illegally taken by Russians from occupied territories," Mykola Kuleba, head of the Save Ukraine charity, wrote on social media. 

The children had been taken from the country's northeastern region of Kharkiv and the southern region of Kherson, said Save Ukraine, which fights what it says are illegal deportations of Ukrainian children.

On Friday, the charity said the children and their relatives had crossed the border into Kyiv-controlled territory. According to footage released Friday, the children, who carried suitcases and bags, crossed the border on foot and later boarded a bus to continue their journey.

Kuleba praised the "heroic mothers" who had traveled to retrieve their children in what he called the "most difficult" of the charity's rescue missions to date. One elderly woman who was supposed to bring home two grandchildren had died from "stress," Kuleba added.

Writing on Facebook, he said the Ukrainian relatives had been subjected to a "13-hour interrogation" by Russia's FSB security service.

More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the conflict began on February 24, 2022, according to Kyiv, with many allegedly placed in institutions and foster homes. Russia denies the allegations, saying instead it has saved Ukrainian children from the horrors of the war.

Last month, the International Criminal Court announced an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin accusing him of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children. The Hague-based court also issued a warrant against Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's presidential commissioner for children's rights, on similar charges.

Russia is not a signatory of the Rome Statute that outlines the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and Moscow has said it does not recognize its authority.