Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

* Russia is engaged in considerable military activity in the east, northeast and south of Ukraine, a statement by the General Staff of the Armed forces said. * Reuters was not able to immediately verify battlefield reports.

Ukraine dismissed comments by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that Russia wanted a "negotiated solution" to the war and said any talks would be contingent on a Russian ceasefire and withdrawal of its troops. ECONOMY

* The first grain ship to leave a Ukrainian port in wartime passed through the Bosphorus Strait en route to Lebanon for a delivery that foreign powers hope will be the first of many to help ease a global food crisis. * Ukraine's forecast for its 2022 harvest has increased to 65 million-67 million tonnes of grain from 60 million tonnes, the prime minister said.

* Russia had no reason to hold up the return of a gas turbine for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline that had been serviced in Canada but has since been stranded in Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said. European governments accuse Russia of throttling gas supplies in revenge for war-related sanctions. * One of the companies affected by the sanctions, U.S. oil producer Exxon Mobil, is making progress exiting its stake in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas development in the Russian Far East, a company spokesperson said.

DIPLOMACY * The U.S. Senate approved Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO, the most significant expansion of the 30-member alliance since the 1990s as it responds to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

* A fact-finding mission will begin into an attack on a prison in eastern Ukraine last week that killed prisoners held by Russian-backed separatists, the U.N. secretary-general said. FIGHTING

* Ukraine said Russia had started creating a military strike force aimed at President Volodymr Zelenskiy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih and that Moscow could be preparing new attacks in southern Ukraine. * Russia is engaged in considerable military activity in the east, northeast and south of Ukraine, a statement by the General Staff of the Armed forces said.

* Reuters was not able to immediately verify battlefield reports. (Compiled by Himani Sarkar and Grant McCool; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)