President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian troops recapturing areas around Kyiv and Chernihiv did not allow the Russians to retreat without a fight, but “bombed them. Destroyed whoever they could.”
Zelensky, in his speech to the nation on Saturday night, said that Ukraine knows that Russia has the power to put even more pressure on eastern and southern Ukraine.
“What is the goal of the Russian troops? They want to occupy Donbass and southern Ukraine,” he said.  “What is our goal? To defend ourselves, our freedom, our land and our people.”
He said a significant portion of Russian forces were stationed around Mariupol, where the city’s defenders were still fighting.
“Thanks to this resistance, thanks to the courage and resilience of our other cities, Ukraine has gained invaluable time, time that allows us to thwart the enemy’s tactics and weaken its capabilities,” Zelensky said.
Zelensky again called on the West for more modern weapons, such as anti-missile systems and aircraft.
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Ukrainian troops moved cautiously to retake territory north of Kiev on Saturday, even amid fears that Russian forces had dropped explosives.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the outgoing Russian troops were creating a “catastrophic” situation for civilians by leaving mines around houses, abandoned equipment and “even the corpses of the dead.”  His allegations could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian troops took up positions in the city of Bucha and parked at the entrance to Antonov Airport in Hostomel after seizing territory from Russian forces.
In Bucha, AP reporters counted at least six civilian bodies scattered along a street and in the front yard of a house.  Ukrainian soldiers, backed by a column of tanks and armored vehicles, tied wires to the bodies and pulled them off the road for fear of being trapped.  Soldiers also cleared roadblocks and inspected suspicious objects, placing red rags on unexploded ordnance to draw attention to the possibility of explosions.
Residents of the town said the civilians were killed by Russian soldiers without apparent provocation.
Ukraine and its Western allies have reported growing indications that Russia is withdrawing its forces from Kyiv and building the strength of its troops in eastern Ukraine.  The visible shift did not mean that the country was facing a postponement after more than five weeks of war or that more than 4 million refugees who had fled Ukraine would return soon.
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The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine says that 765 residents managed to leave Mariupol by private vehicles on Saturday.
Iryna Vereshchuk said residents had arrived in Zaporizhzhia, a town 226 kilometers northwest.
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross said a team of three vehicles and nine staff members were planning to enter Mariupol on Saturday to evacuate residents.  The Red Cross said it could not conduct the operation on Friday because it had not received assurances that the route was safe.  City officials said the Russians had blocked access to the city.
Until late Saturday, there was no information if the Red Cross escort had arrived in Mariupol, the scene of some of the worst attacks of the war.  About 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city on the Sea of ​​Azov, out of a population of 430,000 before the war, and face severe shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.
The Mariupol city council said earlier on Saturday that 10 empty buses were heading to Berdyansk, a town 84 kilometers west of Mariupol, to pick up people who managed to get there on their own.  About 2,000 arrived from Mariupol on Friday, city officials said.
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A Russian political watchdog says 208 people have been arrested in protests across the country on Saturday in protest of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
The OVD-Info group said that demonstrations took place in 17 Russian cities, from Siberia to the most populous western region.  More than 70 people were arrested in Moscow and a similar number in St. Petersburg, the group said.
Video released by another group monitoring the protests, Avtozak, shows some detainees being transported to police custody as they smile and carry flowers.  Others turned out to be forced harder on the vehicles, bent over with their hands behind their backs.
The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin has cracked down on dissent even before Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
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BUCHA, Ukraine – Ukrainian troops moved north of the capital, Kyiv, on Saturday, taking up positions in the city of Bucha after retaking ground from Russian forces.  AP reporters counted 6 civilian bodies scattered along a street and in the front yard of a house.
The Ukrainian soldiers, backed by a column of tanks and armored vehicles, attached wires to the corpses and pulled them off the road, fearing they might be trapped with explosives.
Residents of the town said the civilians were killed by Russian soldiers without apparent provocation.
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CHISINAU, MOLDOVA – Authorities in the tiny breakaway region of Transnistria in Moldova have denied “completely untrue” allegations by Ukraine on Saturday that Russian troops stationed there are gathering to carry out “provocations” along the border.
Earlier on Saturday, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that Russian troops in Transnistria were already preparing for a “demonstration of readiness for an attack and, possibly, hostilities against Ukraine.”
“The information provided by the General Staff of Ukraine is completely untrue,” the Transnistrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that the leaders had repeatedly “stated the absence of any threat to Ukraine.”
Moldova’s foreign ministry also said on Saturday that “there is no information confirming the mobilization of troops in the Transnistrian region” and that “state institutions are closely monitoring the security situation in the region”.
Transnistria is a Russian-backed region of Moldova that seceded after a brief civil war in the early 1990s and is not recognized by most countries.  An estimated 1,500 Russian troops are stationed there.
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KIEV, Ukraine – A prominent Ukrainian photojournalist who went missing last month in a battle zone near the capital has been found dead.
The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine said in a statement on Saturday that Max Levin had been killed by two gunshots, allegedly by Russian soldiers.  Levin’s body was found in the village of Huta Mezhyhirska on Friday.
Levin, 40, has worked as a photojournalist and videographer for many Ukrainian and international publications.
Levin has been missing since March 13, when he contacted his friend from Vishorod near Kyiv to report fighting in the area.
An investigation has been launched into his death.
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LVIV, Ukraine – A series of explosions hit the Ukrainian city of Enerkhodar, near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.  Ukraine’s state nuclear service reported Saturday’s attacks on its official Telegram channel.
Both the city and the plant, which generates more than a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity and is one of the largest nuclear power plants in Europe, have been under Russian control since March 4, according to Interfax Ukraine.
A video accompanying the Telegram post by Energoatom of Ukraine appeared to show loud explosions and flying debris.
A second post on the state-run channel claimed that explosions and mortar shells were heard in the area of ​​the Sovremennik cultural center, where residents rallied in favor of Ukraine.
“As the protesters began to disperse, the intruders arrived in police vehicles and began to put locals inside,” the post read.  “A few minutes later, the city was shaken by huge explosions and bombings.”
The agency reported that four people were injured and received medical assistance.
Energoatom also claimed that Russian forces had begun blocking telephone and internet communications throughout Enerhodar.  The agency’s allegations could not be verified immediately.
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HELSINKI – Finland’s prime minister says her country will have to decide on NATO membership “during this spring” after the government and lawmakers carefully assessed the pros and cons of joining the military alliance. – a topical issue in the Nordic nation after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Saturday that “both NATO and non-NATO membership are choices that have consequences. We must assess both the short-term and long-term effects. At the same time, we must keep in mind our goal: security of Finland and the Finns in all situations “.
Marin said Finland’s relationship with neighboring Russia has changed irreversibly since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last month and “it takes a lot of time and work to restore trust.”
Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia, the largest of any member of the European Union.
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WARSAW, Poland – The Polish government says it has issued more than 625,000 national identification numbers to Ukrainian refugees since Russia launched its invasion.
The ID number, something that all Polish citizens have, gives people the right to access health care, school or other government services.  Poland, the country that has received the largest number of Ukrainian refugees, recently decided to extend these rights to Ukrainians fleeing the war.
More than 4 million Ukrainians have fled and more than 2.4 of them have crossed into Poland.  Others have taken refuge in Romania, Moldova, Slovakia and Hungary.
It is not clear, however, exactly how many of them live in the countries that first …