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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia on Tuesday reported its forces had taken full control of residential neighbourhoods in Ukraine's flashpoint city of Severodonetsk, after Kyiv said its troops were fighting on in the eastern hub despite being outnumbered.

"The residential areas of the city of Severodonetsk have been fully liberated," Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told a defence ministry meeting.

The Russian army was still seeking to establish control over the city's "industrial zone and the nearest settlements", he added, amid conflicting reports of who is in control of what.

Moscow has been pushing for control of the strategic industrial hub as part of its bid to conquer a vast swathe of eastern Ukraine but Kyiv's forces have so far managed to hold out,

"Our heroes are holding their positions in Severodonetsk. Fierce street fights continue in the city," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address late Monday.

Zelensky warned Ukrainian forces in the key city were outnumbered and the Russians "are stronger". He was speaking to journalists after visiting frontline positions in Lysychansk, across the river from Severodonetsk.

Thousands of civilians have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24.

After being repelled from other parts of the country, including Kyiv, Russia has concentrated its assault on the eastern Donbas region and had been making slow but steady progress.

Severodonetsk, the largest city still in Ukrainian hands in the Lugansk region of the Donbas, has been the focal point in recent weeks.

'General killed' 

The leader of Ukraine's pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, on Tuesday confirmed the death of another Russian general in the fighting.

Pushilin expressed on Telegram his "sincere condolences to the family and friends" of Major General Roman Kutuzov, "who showed by example how to serve the fatherland".

Ukraine’s forces have claimed to have killed several of Russia’s top brass but their exact number is not known as Moscow is tight-lipped on losses.

Defence Minister Shoigu said Russia had completed demining of the eastern port city of Mariupol, the second busiest in Ukraine before the conflict.

“It is operating as normal and has accepted the first cargo ships,” Shoigu said.

With fighting raging in the east of Ukraine, Kyiv hit out at the UN’s nuclear watchdog for trying to visit Europe’s largest nuclear reactor in the south of the country while it is under Russian occupation.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said on Monday his agency was preparing an expert mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

Grossi said on Twitter the visit was arranged after Ukraine had “requested” it.

But Ukraine’s nuclear agency, Energoatom on Tuesday accused Grossi of lying and said it did not greenlight the trip.

“The visit to the plant will only become possible when Ukraine takes back control of the site,” Energoatom wrote on Telegram.

“We consider this declaration a new attempt to gain access to the Zaporizhzhia power plant to legitimise the presence of the occupiers and approve their actions.”

Russian forces took control of the plant at the beginning of March and Moscow has threatened to cut Ukraine off from Zaporizhzhia unless Kyiv pays Moscow for the electricity produced.

Sexual violence concerns 

In 2021 the plant represented 20 per cent of Ukraine’s annual electricity production and nearly half of all nuclear power produced in Ukraine.

The Russian invasion, combined with supply chain snarls and climate change, has triggered stark warnings of global food shortages.

Moscow has blockaded the key black sea port of Odessa, and Zelensky said Ukraine had up to 25 million tonnes of grain that could not be exported.

“In the autumn that could be 70 to 75 million tonnes,” said the president, whose country was the world’s fourth biggest grain exporter before the war.

In Washington, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that reports Russia had stolen grain from Ukraine for export are “credible”.

At a meeting of the UN Security Council, the United States and Europe urged Russia to stop alleged sexual violence by its army and proxies in Ukraine, allegations that Moscow denounced as “lies”.

With the West seeking to tighten sanction screws on Russian oligarchs, the US Justice Department on Tuesday ordered the seizure of two aircraft owned by former Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich.

The US says the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner and Gulfstream G650ER executive jet were flown into Russian territory earlier this year in violation of US export controls.

And in Fiji, a court ruled a $300 million superyacht linked by the US to sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov could be handed over to US authorities.

The Amadea, which boasts a helipad, pool, jacuzzi and “winter garden”, was impounded in Fiji in April at Washington’s request.

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday survived a vote of no confidence from his own Conservative MPs but with his position weakened after a sizeable number refused to back him.

The Brexit figurehead called the 211-148 split a "convincing result, a decisive result".

"As a government we can move on and focus on the stuff that really matters," he told reporters.

The vote, just over two years after he won a landslide general election victory, was brought after a string of scandals that have left the Tory Party's standing in tatters.

Chief among them was the “Partygate” controversy over lockdown-breaking events at Downing Street, which caused public outrage and saw him become the first serving UK prime minister to have broken the law.

Johnson, 57, needed the backing of 180 MPs to survive the vote — a majority of one out of the 359 sitting Conservatives in parliament.

Defeat would have meant an end to his time as party leader and prime minister until a replacement was found in an internal leadership contest.

Speculation will now turn to whether Johnson can survive having lost the confidence of so many of his own MPs, and whether senior ministers will now resign.

In previous Tory ballots, predecessors Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May both ultimately resigned despite narrowly winning their own votes, deciding that their premierships were terminally damaged.

“The Conservative government now believes that breaking the law is no impediment to making the law,” the main opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer said.

“The Conservative party now believes the British public have no right to expect honest politicians.”

‘Party’s over, Boris’ 

The vote dominated British newspaper front pages on Tuesday, with The Times describing Johnson as “A wounded victor” and pointing out that his margin of victory was less than that of his predecessor May, who was ousted months later.

Under the headline “Hollow victory tears Tories apart”, The Daily Telegraph said Johnson was “clinging to power” while The Financial Times said the margin of his victory “left him badly damaged and exposed the scale of the division and animosity in his party”.

“PM clinging to power after vote humiliation,” The Guardian said, while The Daily Mirror, which helped break the “Partygate” story, simply said “Party’s over, Boris”.

The Daily Mail was among the few supportive papers, saying “Boris vows: I’ll bash on”.

Johnson has steadfastly refused to resign over “Partygate”.

He earlier defended his record on delivering Brexit, fighting the COVID pandemic and Britain’s hawkish support for Ukraine against Russia.

“This is not the moment for a leisurely and entirely unforced domestic political drama and months and months of vacillation from the UK,” he told Tory MPs, according to a senior party source.

“We have been through bumpy times before and I can rebuild trust,” the prime minister told his parliamentary rank and file, according to the source, adding: “The best is yet to come.”

Supporters cheered and thumped their tables in approval.

The source said Johnson had indicated tax cuts could be in the offing as Britain contends with its worst inflation crisis in generations.

But the scale of Tory disunity was exposed in a blistering resignation letter from Johnson’s “anti-corruption champion” John Penrose and another letter of protest from long-time ally Jesse Norman.

The prime minister’s rebuttals over “Partygate” were “grotesque”, Norman wrote, warning that the Tories risked losing the next general election, which is due by 2024.

Ex-Cabinet member Jeremy Hunt, who lost to Johnson in the last leadership contest in 2019 and is expected to run again if Johnson is deposed, confirmed he would vote against him.

“Conservative MPs know in our hearts we are not giving the British people the leadership they deserve,” Hunt tweeted.

Jubilee booing 

After a dismal showing in May local elections, the party is expected to lose two by-elections this month, one of them in a previously rock-solid Conservative seat.

That is focusing the minds of Tory lawmakers, who fear their own seats could be at risk if Johnson leads them into the next election.

In a snap poll by Opinium Monday of 2,032 people, 59 per cent of respondents said the Tories should ditch him as leader.

Among Conservative members, 42 per cent want MPs to fire Johnson, according to another poll by YouGov.

Johnson was booed Friday by sections of an ardently patriotic crowd gathered outside St Paul’s Cathedral, ahead of a religious service for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee.

For wavering Tories, the barracking at a televised national occasion reportedly marked a turning point. Some said they had held back on public criticism of Johnson until after the jubilee.

But Cabinet ally Jacob Rees-Mogg dismissed the booing as “muted noise” and insisted that Johnson could survive with the slenderest of majorities.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian troops suffered setbacks after retaking parts of flashpoint eastern city Severodonetsk from Russian forces, local officials said on Monday, as the see-saw battle raged on for the strategically important city.

With Russia bringing the weight of its artillery to bear around Severodonetsk, the largest city in the Lugansk region not under Russian control, more help was promised from abroad.

The United Kingdom said it would follow the United States and send long-range missile systems to Ukraine, defying warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin against supplying Kyiv with the advanced weapons.

Thousands of civilians have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24.

Fighting since April has been concentrated in the east of the country, where Russian forces have made slow but steady advances after being beaten back from other parts of Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv.

“Fighting is very fierce in Severodonetsk,” regional governor Sergiy Gaiday told Ukraine’s 1+1 television.

“Our defenders managed to counterattack and liberate half of the city, but the situation has worsened for us.”

Russian forces “are destroying everything with their usual scorched earth tactics” so that “there’s nothing left to defend”, he said.

Gaiday said on Sunday that Kyiv’s troops had “cleared half of Severodonetsk and are moving forward”, after Ukrainian forces earlier appeared on the verge of being driven out of the city.

‘It’s a horror show’ 

Artillery strikes have intensified on Severodonetsk and neighbouring city Lysychansk, where pensioner Oleksandr Lyakhovets said he had just enough time to save his cat before the flames engulfed his flat after it was hit by a Russian missile.

“They shoot here endlessly... It’s a horror show,” the 67-year-old told AFP.

Lysychansk was among areas visited on Sunday by President Volodymyr Zelensky, who “got himself acquainted with the operational situation on the front line of defence”, the presidency said.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday blasted European countries for blocking his plane from travelling to Serbia, saying: “The unthinkable has happened.”

“This was a deprivation of a sovereign state of the right to carry out foreign policy,” Lavrov told an online press conference in Moscow after several of Serbia’s neighbours prevented his plane from passing through their airspace.

Lavrov had been due to hold talks with top officials in Belgrade, one of Moscow’s few remaining allies in Europe since the launch of its military offensive in Ukraine.

Serbian daily Vecernje Novosti reported that Bulgaria, Macedonia and Montenegro had refused access to their airspace.

While Serbia has condemned Russia’s military action in Ukraine, it has not joined the European Union in imposing sanctions in Moscow, despite its bid to join the bloc.

UK pledges missiles 

Ukraine has asked supporting countries for ever more powerful arms to fend off the Russian attack, and its deputy defence minister stressed on Sunday this support was needed until Moscow was defeated.

The United States last week said it would supply Ukraine with advanced missile systems, the latest in a long list of weaponry sent or pledged to the pro-Western country.

But Putin said long-range missile supplies to Ukraine meant “we will draw the appropriate conclusions and use our arms... to strike targets we haven’t hit before”.

Unveiling the latest UK contribution, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace insisted Ukraine’s Western allies must maintain their weapons deliveries to enable it to win.

The UK defence ministry said London had coordinated closely with Washington over its gift of the multiple-launch rocket systems, known as MLRS.

The M270 launchers, which can strike targets up to 80 kilometres away with precision-guided rockets, will “offer a significant boost in capability for the Ukrainian forces”, the ministry added.

Western powers have imposed increasingly stringent sanctions on Russia but divisions have emerged on how to act, particularly on whether to engage in dialogue with Russia.

Grain talks 

Russian troops now occupy a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, according to Kyiv, and Moscow has imposed a blockade on its Black Sea ports, sparking fears of a global food crisis.

Ukraine and Russia are among the top wheat exporters in the world. Some 30 per cent of the world’s grain exports originate from the warring countries.

The United Nations said it was leading intense negotiations with Russia to allow Ukraine’s grain harvest to leave the country.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Sunday that Moscow will hit new targets if the West supplies Ukraine with long-range missiles, hours after several explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

If Kyiv is provided with such missiles "we will draw the appropriate conclusions and use our arms... to strike targets we haven't hit before", Putin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.

He did not specify which targets he meant.

Putin's comments came after the United States last week announced that it would supply Ukraine with advanced missile systems.

Ukrainian officials earlier on Sunday said Russian missiles hit railway infrastructure sites in the first such strikes on Kyiv since April 28.

Russia said that it had destroyed tanks supplied to Ukraine by eastern European countries during the strikes.

"High-precision, long-range missiles fired by the Russian Aerospace Forces on the outskirts of Kyiv destroyed T-72 tanks supplied by eastern European countries and other armoured vehicles that were in hangars," Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

One person was wounded and AFP reporters saw several buildings with blown-out windows near one of the sites that was targeted.

Leonid, a 63-year-old local resident who used to work at the facility, said he heard three or four explosions.

"There is nothing military there but they are bombing everything," he said.

Vasyl, 43, said he heard five blasts.

"People are afraid now," he said, walking back to his damaged home with two loaves of bread.

Ukrainian authorities did not want to identify the precise locations of the explosions for security reasons.

Severodonetsk 'divided' 

Meanwhile, in the east of the country, the battle for control of Severodonetsk raged on.

The city is the largest still in Ukrainian hands in the Lugansk region of the Donbas, where Russian forces have been advancing gradually after retreating or being beaten back from other parts of the country, including Kyiv.

Lugansk Regional Governor Sergiy Gaiday said that Russian forces had lost ground in the city and it was now "divided in two".

"The Russians were in control of about 70 per cent of the city, but have been forced back over the past two days," he said on Telegram.

"They are afraid to move freely around the city."

Russia's army on Saturday claimed some Ukrainian military units were withdrawing from Severodonetsk, but Mayor Oleksandr Striuk said Ukrainian forces were fighting to retake the city.

"We are currently doing everything necessary to reestablish total control" of the city, he said in an interview broadcast on Telegram.

'Put Russia in its place' 

Tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions forced to flee and towns turned into rubble since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an all-out assault on his pro-Western neighbour on February 24.

Western powers have imposed increasingly stringent sanctions on Russia and supplied arms to Ukraine, but divisions have emerged on how to react.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday Putin had committed a "fundamental error" but that Russia should not be "humiliated" so that a diplomatic solution could be found.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reacted Saturday by saying such calls "only humiliate France" and any country taking a similar position.

"It is Russia that humiliates itself. We all better focus on how to put Russia in its place," he said.

Despite diplomatic efforts, the conflict has raged in the south and east of the country.

The press service of the Ukrainian president's office on Sunday reported nine civilians killed in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions from shelling.

Apart from the human toll, the conflict has caused widespread damage to Ukraine's cultural heritage.

On Saturday, Ukrainian officials reported a large Orthodox wooden monastery, a popular pilgrim site, had burnt down and blamed Russia shelling.

Moscow continues to prove "its inability to be part of the civilised world", Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said in a statement.

Russia's defence ministry blamed "Ukrainian nationalists" for the blaze.

Russian troops now occupy a fifth of Ukraine's territory, according to Kyiv, and Moscow has imposed a blockade on its Black Sea ports, sparking fears of a global food crisis. Ukraine and Russia are among the top wheat exporters in the world.

The United Nations said it was leading intense negotiations with Russia to allow Ukraine's grain harvest to leave the country.

The UN has warned that African countries, which normally import over half of their wheat consumption from Ukraine and Russia, face an "unprecedented" crisis.

Food prices in Africa have already exceeded those in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings and the 2008 food riots.

'Game of survival' 

Away from the battlefield, Ukraine will be fighting for victory over Wales in Sunday's play-off final as the war-torn country aims to reach its first football World Cup since 2006.

"We all understand that the game with Wales will no longer be about physical condition or tactics, it will be a game of survival," said Ukraine player Oleksandr Zinchenko.

"Everyone will fight to the end and give their all, because we will play for our country."

SITAKUNDA, Bangladesh — At least 49 people died and hundreds were injured after a fire sparked a huge chemical explosion at a shipping container depot in Bangladesh, officials said on Sunday.

The toll was expected to rise, with some of the more than 300 people injured in serious condition, officials said, while volunteers reported that there were more bodies inside the smouldering, wreckage-strewn facility.

The fire started late on Saturday at the depot in Sitakunda, which stores around 4,000 containers, many filled with garments destined for Western retailers. The facility is about 40 kilometres from the major southern port of Chittagong.

The blaze caused containers holding chemicals to explode, engulfing firefighters, volunteers and journalists in an inferno, hurtling people and debris through the air, and turning the night sky a blazing orange.

Buildings located kilometres away rattled with the force of the blast.

Elias Chowdhury, regional chief doctor, told AFP that the number of dead was 49 but would likely increase.

“The death toll will rise as the rescue work has not been completed yet,” Chowdhury said.

“These people, including several journalists who were doing Facebook lives, are still not accounted for.”

Firefighters continued to douse pockets of fire on Sunday afternoon, with television footage showing smoke still billowing from some containers, more than 19 hours after the fire began.

Reazul Karim, operations director of the fire department, said that at least seven firefighters died and at least four others were missing.

“Never in our fire department history have we lost so many firefighters in a single incident,” Bharat Chandra, a former senior firefighter, told AFP.

“There are still some bodies inside the fire-affected places. I saw eight or 10 bodies,” one volunteer told reporters.

Mujibur Rahman, the director of B.M. Container Depot, the firm operating the facility with around 600 workers, said that the cause of the initial fire was still unknown.

The container depot held hydrogen peroxide, fire service chief Brigadier General Main Uddin told reporters.

“We still could not control the fire because of the existence of this chemical,” he said.

‘Fireballs falling like rain’ 

Mohammad Ali, 60, who runs a nearby grocery store, said the blast was deafening.

“A cylinder flew around half a kilometre from the fire spot to our small pond when the explosion occurred,” he told AFP.

“The explosion sent fireballs into the sky. Fireballs were falling like rain. We were so afraid we immediately left our home to find refuge... We thought the fire would spread to our locality as it is very densely populated,” he added.

Lorry driver Tofael Ahmed was standing inside the depot when the explosion occurred.

“The explosion just threw me some 10 metres from where I was standing,” he said. “My hands and legs are burned.”

Chowdhury, the chief doctor in Chittagong, said the injured had been rushed to different hospitals as doctors were brought back from holiday to help.

Requests for blood donations for the injured flooded social media.

Army deployed 

The army said it had deployed 250 troops to prevent chemicals flowing into the Indian Ocean by using sandbags.

Fires are common in Bangladesh due to lax enforcement of safety rules.

Around 90 per cent of Bangladesh’s roughly 100 billion dollars in trade,  including clothes for H&M, Walmart and others, passes through the Chittagong port at the top of the Bay of Bengal.

Rakibul Alam Chowdhury from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said that about 110 million dollars worth of garments were destroyed in the fire.

“It is a huge loss for the industry,” he said.

GENEVA — The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Sunday that 780 laboratory-confirmed monkeypox cases had been reported to it from 27 non-endemic countries, while maintaining that the global risk level was moderate.

The WHO said the 780 figure, for cases from May 13 to Thursday, was probably an underestimate due to limited epidemiological and laboratory information.

"It is highly likely that other countries will identify cases and there will be further spread of the virus," the UN health agency added.

Few hospitalisations have been reported, apart from patients being isolated.

The WHO listed the non-endemic countries reporting the most cases as Britain (207), Spain (156), Portugal (138), Canada (58) and Germany (57).

Besides Europe and North America, cases have also been reported, in single figures, in Argentina, Australia, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.

One case of monkeypox in a non-endemic country is considered an outbreak.

"Some countries are reporting that new generations of cases are no longer appearing only among known contacts of previously confirmed cases, suggesting that chains of transmission are being missed through undetected circulation of the virus," the WHO said.

"Although the current risk to human health and for the general public remains low, the public health risk could become high if this virus exploits the opportunity to establish itself in non-endemic countries as a widespread human pathogen," it said in a disease outbreak update.

"WHO assesses the risk at the global level as moderate considering this is the first time that many monkeypox cases and clusters are reported concurrently in non-endemic and endemic countries."

The organisation said many cases were not presenting with the classical clinical picture for monkeypox: some have described having pustules appear before symptoms such as fever, and having lesions at different stages of development, both of which are atypical.

The WHO said there had been no deaths associated with outbreaks in non-endemic countries, but cases and deaths continue to be reported from endemic areas.

The WHO listed the endemic states as Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gabon and Ivory Coast, plus Ghana where it has been identified in animals only.

From the first seven of those countries, 66 deaths were reported in the first five months of 2022.

Last week the WHO convened virtually more than 500 experts and over 2,000 participants to discuss monkeypox knowledge gaps and research priorities.

Experts stressed the need for clinical studies of vaccines and treatments to better understand their effectiveness, and called for faster research into the disease epidemiology and transmission.

WASHINGTON — Police in Colombia have arrested five suspects in the execution-style killing of a Paraguayan anti-drug prosecutor during his honeymoon, authorities said on Friday.

Prosecutor Marcelo Pecci was felled by two shots while he was on a beach with his new wife on the Colombian resort island of Baru on May 10.

His widow Claudia Aguilera said that two men landed in a small vessel and one of them shot Pecci twice — in the face and in the back.

The couple had only been married for 10 days and Aguilera is pregnant.

The motive of the killing was not known, but Pecci, 45, specialised in prosecuting cases of organised crime, drug trafficking, money laundering and terror financing.

In a video message as he arrived in Washington on an official visit, Colombian President Ivan Duque said that a joint operation between Colombian and Paraguayan authorities had "captured all of the suspects, including the gunman".

"We believe that with this important step, this horrible crime will be resolved and all of those involved will get what they deserve," he said.

Duque traveled to the United States from Colombia to take part in events marking 200 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Colombian Attorney General Francisco Barbosa said in a video posted on Twitter that authorities had arrested "five people in the city of Medellin for their alleged involvement in the murder" of Pecci.

Paraguayan Interior Minister Federico Gonzalez meanwhile said from Asuncion that four of the suspects are Colombian, while the fifth is Venezuelan.

Colombia, the world's largest cocaine producer, is contending with a wave of violence despite a 2016 peace deal that disarmed the FARC guerrilla group and ended a near six-decade civil conflict.

Fighting over territory and resources continues in parts of the country between dissident FARC guerrillas, the ELN rebel group, paramilitary forces and drug cartels.

For its part, landlocked Paraguay — nestled between Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina — has become an important launchpad for drugs headed for Europe.

Paraguay and Colombia have recently strengthened their alliance in the fight against organised and cross-border crime.