Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

NATO branded Russia the most "direct threat" to allied security after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and vowed to modernise the beleaguered Ukrainian military, saying it stood four-square with Kyiv in "the heroic defence of their country".

NATO branded Russia the most "direct threat" to allied security after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and vowed to modernise the beleaguered Ukrainian military, saying it stood four-square with Kyiv in "the heroic defence of their country". FIGHTING * Eight missiles struck Mykolaiv, a Ukrainian river port just off the Black Sea, its mayor said, including a hit on an apartment building, that killed four people and wounded five. The strikes came days after Ukraine said Russian missiles killed at least 18 people at a mall in the central town of Kremenchuk. * "There is fighting everywhere," said the governor of the eastern Luhansk region, much of which is now in Russian hands. The Russians are taking the city of Lysychansk building by building, he said, as they did before in nearby Sievierodonetsk. * Russian news agencies say Russian and Russian-backed separatist forces have blocked supplies along the Artyomovsk-Lysychansk highway. * Russia-installed officials said their security forces detained Kherson city mayor Kolykhayev after he refused to follow Moscow's orders. The officials have begun preparations for a referendum on the region joining Russia.

* Reuters could not independently verify any of the battlefield accounts. DIPLOMACY AND ECONOMY * NATO invited Sweden and Finland to join the military alliance in one of the biggest shifts in European security in decades after Turkey lifted its veto. * The United States will create a new permanent army headquarters in Poland and deploy additional land, air and sea forces across the length and breadth of Europe in response to threats from Russia, U.S. President Joe Biden said. * Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba praised NATO's "clear-eyed stance" on Russia and called for an "equally strong and active position on Ukraine" to bolster European security. * Russia views the plans by Sweden and Finland to join NATO as a destabilising move that will not improve its member states' security, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying. * The United States added five companies in China to a trade blacklist for allegedly supporting Russia's military and defence industrial base.

QUOTES * "This not a war being waged by Russia against only Ukraine. This is a war for the right to dictate conditions in Europe - for what the future world order will be like," President Zelenskiy told NATO leaders in a video link-up from Kyiv. * "Several villages have been wiped from the face of the earth," said Oleksander Vilkul, governor of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine. (Compiled by Stephen Coates and Himani Sarkar; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Gareth Jones)