Russia Ukraine war highlights

#Russian media reports 1,000 Kyiv POWs taken to Russia

#Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a British newspaper that a standoff with Russia is “not an option”.

#Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu asserts that 97% of the Luhansk region, one of the two provinces that make up Ukraine’s Donbass, is under Russian control.

Shoigu adds that the Russian forces have completely “freed” the residential quarters of Severodonetsk.

#According to Ukrainian authorities, some 600 Ukrainians are being held in captivity and tortured in the Kherson region of southern Russia.

#Over a thousand Ukrainian soldiers who surrounded the city of Mariupol were transferred to Russia for investigation, the Tass State News Agency quotes one Russian law enforcement source.