Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

Russian missiles hit an apartment building and a resort near Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa killing at least 17 people and wounding dozens, Ukrainian authorities said. FIGHTING * Russian missiles struck a nine-story block of flats and a resort facility near Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa, killing at least 17 people and wounding dozens, authorities said.

Russian missiles hit an apartment building and a resort near Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa killing at least 17 people and wounding dozens, Ukrainian authorities said. FIGHTING * Russian missiles struck a nine-story block of flats and a resort facility near Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa, killing at least 17 people and wounding dozens, authorities said. * Russia says it withdrew from Snake Island as a "gesture of goodwill." * Oleksii Hromov, a brigadier general in Ukraine's armed forces, said Russian equipment on the island had been destroyed. There were no Ukrainian forces on the island but there would be, he said. * Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.

DIPLOMACY AND ECONOMY *Russia summoned the British ambassador to voice a strong protest against "offensive" and "false" British statements, "in particular about alleged Russian 'threats to use nuclear weapons." * Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov said a new "iron curtain" was descending between Russia and the West. * Indonesia's president ended a trip to Ukraine and Russia saying he hoped for progress in reintegrating global food and fertilizer supply lines disrupted by the conflict and offered to be a diplomatic bridge between the two countries. * The United States has not seen China evade sanctions or provide military equipment to Russia, a senior U.S. official said, adding that enforcement measures taken this week targeted certain Chinese companies, not the government. * U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner goes on trial in Russia on Friday on drug charges that could see her face up to 10 years in prison, in a case caught up in the fraught relations between Moscow and Washington. * Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the launching of power transmissions to Romania was the start of a process that could help Europe reduce its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons. QUOTES * "In polite society, it is customary to apologize for such statements" - Russian foreign ministry in a memorandum to Ambassador Deborah Bronner over what it said were "frankly boorish statements of the British leadership." 

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