INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
At least 10 people were killed Friday in a strike on a Ukrainian apartment building, a day after Russian troops abandoned positions on a
Madrid, with US President Joe Biden announcing $800 million in new weapons for Ukraine."We are going to stick with Ukraine, and all of the
alliance are going to stick with Ukraine, as long as it takes to make sure they are not defeated by Russia," he said.Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov compared the new diplomatic low to the return of the Cold War, telling reporters: "As far as an Iron Curtain is
concerned, essentially it is already descending..
The process has begun."But there may be a possible opening
Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who visited Moscow on Thursday after a trip to Kyiv, said he had given Russian President Vladimir Putin a
message from their Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.Neither side has revealed what was in the note.Hours after the summit ended, a
missile slammed into an apartment building in the southern region of Odesa, completely destroying the nine-story residential structure."The
number of dead in the apartment building missile strike has risen to 10," said Odesa military administration spokesman Sergei
building included children
A recreation center had been hit in a separate missile strike, they said.'Goodwill gesture' The early Friday strikes came a day after
Russian troops abandoned their positions on Snake Island, off the coast of Odesa.The island had become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance in
the first days of the war, when the rocky outcrop's defenders told a Russian warship that called on them to surrender to "go f*ck yourself,"
an incident that spurred a defiant meme.It was also a strategic target, sitting aside shipping lanes near the port of Odesa
Russia had attempted to install missile and air defense batteries while under fire from drones.The decision to abandon Snake Island "changes
the situation in the Black Sea considerably," Zelensky said in his daily address Thursday."It does not yet guarantee security
It does not yet guarantee that the enemy will not return
But it already considerably limits the actions of the occupiers."British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cited Snake Island as he warned the
Russian president that any eventual peace deal would be on Ukraine's terms."We've seen what Ukraine can do to drive the Russians back
We've seen what they did around Kyiv and Kharkiv, now on Snake Island," Johnson said.The Russian defense ministry statement described the
retreat as "a gesture of goodwill" meant to demonstrate that Moscow will not interfere with UN efforts to organize protected grain exports
from Ukraine.But Ukraine officials claimed it as a win."They always downplay their defeats this way," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro
Kuleba said on Twitter.In peacetime, Ukraine is a major agricultural exporter, but Russia's invasion has damaged farmland and seen Ukraine's
Thursday, a ship carrying 7,000 tons of grain sailed from Ukraine's occupied port of Berdyansk, said the regional leader appointed by the
Russian occupation forces.Evgeny Balitsky, the head of the pro-Moscow administration, said Russia's Black Sea ships "are ensuring the
security" of the journey, adding that the port had been de-mined.Separately, the Russian defense ministry said its forces are holding more
than 6,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war who have been captured since the Feb
24 invasion.The conflict in Ukraine dominated the NATO summit in Madrid this week, as the alliance officially invited Sweden and Finland to
join, and Biden announced new deployments of US troops, ships and planes to Europe.Relentless shelling Russian missiles continued to rain
down on cities across Ukraine and a United Nations official said Thursday that 16 million people in Ukraine were in need of humanitarian
separatists fighting alongside Moscow's forces who claim to control half of the city situated across the river from neighboring
Sievierodonetsk, which was captured by the Russian army last week.Also on Thursday, Russia summoned Britain's ambassador to Moscow to
protest Johnson's "offensive" remarks about Putin.Johnson had said on Tuesday that Putin would not have started the war in Ukraine if he was
a woman and said the military operation was "a perfect example of toxic masculinity."The Russian foreign ministry said: "In polite society,
