Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

Ukraine and Russia traded accusations over shaky talks to end a war now in its third month, as Russia pounded areas in the east of the country and U.S. lawmakers vowed a massive new weapons package for Kyiv.

Ukraine and Russia traded accusations over shaky talks to end a war now in its third month, as Russia pounded areas in the east of the country and U.S. lawmakers vowed a massive new weapons package for Kyiv. FIGHTING

* Russia was attacking the entire Donetsk front in the east with rockets, artillery, mortar bombs and aircraft to prevent the Ukrainians from regrouping, Zelenskiy's office said. * Russia said a missile strike on Kyiv destroyed a rocket plant. Ukraine said the attack, when the U.N. secretary-general was in the capital, killed a producer with U.S.-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

* Russia said it used a diesel submarine in the Black Sea to strike Ukrainian military targets with Kalibr cruise missiles, the first time Moscow has announced the use of its submarine fleet to hit its neighbour. Reports of battlefield developments could not be immediately verified by Reuters.

DIPLOMACY * Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said lifting Western sanctions on Russia was part of peace talks to end the war. Zelenskiy said chances were "high" that the talks would end because of Russia's "playbook on murdering people".

* U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she hopes to pass Biden's $33 billion aid package "as soon as possible." * The United States does not believe that there is a threat of Russia using nuclear weapons despite a recent escalation in Moscow's rhetoric, a senior U.S. defence official said.

QUOTE * "We were hungry, the child was crying when the Grad (multiple rocket launcher) shells were striking near the house. We were thinking, this is it, the end. It can't be described," Viktoria Nikolayeva, 54, in Mariupol told Reuters.