Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

* Deliveries of Western weaponry to Ukraine mean that the NATO alliance is "in essence engaged in war with Russia" and Moscow views these weapons as legitimate targets, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. FIGHTING The following reports could not be immediately verified by Reuters: * Russia's defence ministry said its high-precision missiles destroyed six facilities powering railways used to deliver foreign weapons to Ukrainian forces in the embattled eastern Donbas region.

Russia told the world not to underestimate the risks of nuclear war, which it said it wanted to reduce, and warned that conventional Western weapons were legitimate targets in Ukraine, where battles raged in the east. DIPLOMACY, SANCTIONS, AID * The United States will host more than 40 countries on Tuesday for Ukraine-related defense talks in Germany that will focus on arming Kyiv Washington pledged $713 million in new aid for Ukraine on Monday. * Deliveries of Western weaponry to Ukraine mean that the NATO alliance is "in essence engaged in war with Russia" and Moscow views these weapons as legitimate targets, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

FIGHTING The following reports could not be immediately verified by Reuters: * Russia's defence ministry said its high-precision missiles destroyed six facilities powering railways used to deliver foreign weapons to Ukrainian forces in the embattled eastern Donbas region. * Russia said it had hit 56 Ukrainian military infrastructure facilities overnight. * Two people were injured in shelling in Russia's Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, the region's governor said. Officials have in the past few weeks reported cross-border shelling. * Ukraine's general staff said Russia was shelling its second biggest city, Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine and towns and villages to the south but that Ukrainian forces had repelled assaults on three settlements. * Russian forces carried out strikes on Ukrainian positions in the Azovstal steel plant, the main remaining Ukrainian stronghold in Mariupol where more than 1,000 civilians are also sheltering, Ukrainian officials said. * Britain said Russia had made minor advances since shifting its forces to fully occupying the Donbas but had tied up many units with its focus on Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant. * Ukrainian human rights ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova said the Russian military had destroyed 347 health facilities including all of those in the Luhansk part of the Donbas, threatening thousands of lives. All of Luhansk province was without electricity on Monday after Russian attacks, the governor said.

WAR CRIMES PROBE * The International Criminal Court will take part in the joint team investigating allegations of war crimes in Ukraine, the European Union's agency for criminal justice cooperation said. QUOTES * "In terms of Russia's war aims, Russia has already failed and Ukraine has already succeeded," Blinken said. * "What the Americans are doing is pouring oil on the flames," Moscow's ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. (Editing by Cynthia Osterman)