For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.
The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EDT.
10:00 p.m.: The Washington Post has the story of Elizaveta Dmytrieva, a 4-year-old girl with Down syndrome who lived in Vinnytsia, Ukraine after she and her mother fled Kyiv following the Russian invasion. Her mother, Iryna, used Instagram to document her life parenting "Liza", but now the social media channel has become a chronicle of Iryna's grief and recovery after a Russian missile attack in July killed Liza and critically injured her mother.
8:45 p.m.: European Union foreign ministers are unlikely to unanimously back a visa ban on all Russians, as would be needed to put in place such a ban, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told Austria's ORF TV on Sunday, Reuters reports.
"I don't think that to cut the relationship with the Russian civilian population will help and I don't think that this idea will have the required unanimity," Borrell, who chairs EU foreign ministers' meetings, told the national broadcaster.
The bloc’s foreign ministers are meeting later this week to informally discuss a visa facilitation agreement with Russia that was reached in 2007.
6:20 p.m.: A New York Times article looks at the success the Ukraine military has had in its fight against Russia by using the weapons it has in creative ways. By mounting missile systems on trucks to make them more mobile and putting rockets on speedboats, Ukraine 'MacGyvered' the weapons it has to make them more effective.
5:30 p.m.: In his nightly address to the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to retake the separatist areas captured by Russia since its invasion began six months ago.
"Now Donbas is almost destroyed by Russian strikes, devastated," he said. "The proud and glorious Ukrainian Donetsk was humiliated by the Russian occupation and robbed. Russia brought the most terrible thing there - an absolute disregard for the value of any life, absolute disrespect for anyone. … And they believe that they are there forever. But it's a temporary thing for them. And Ukraine will return. For sure."
4:22 p.m.: The United States said on Sunday that Russia did not want to acknowledge the grave radiological risk at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, adding that was the reason it blocked a nuclear non-proliferation treaty deal's final draft, Reuters reported.
3:15 p.m.: Britain's defense ministry said on Sunday it was not yet clear how Russia would achieve a large increase in its armed forces, but the boost was unlikely to substantially increase its combat power in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree last week to increase the size of Russia's armed forces from 1.9 million to 2.04 million.
The British defense ministry said it was not clear if this would be achieved by recruiting more volunteers or by increasing conscription.
Either way, it would likely not have a big impact on the war in Ukraine given "Russia has lost tens of thousands of troops; very few new contract servicemen are being recruited; and conscripts are technically not obliged to serve outside of Russian territory," the ministry said on Twitter.
3:03 p.m.: European Union member states are preparing to suspend a 2007 visa facilitation agreement with Russia over the Ukraine war, the Financial Times has reported.
EU foreign ministers are set to give the suspension political backing at a two-day informal meeting in Prague on Tuesday and Wednesday, the British newspaper said, citing three officials involved in the talks.
2:16 p.m.: The war in Ukraine brings new roles and dangers to the women who have become an important force in the fight in so many ways. Some are increasingly joining the military. But with men still making up a majority of combatants, women are taking on extra roles in civilian life, like running businesses, in addition to looking after their families. This article from the New York Times examines how they are increasingly bearing the worst of the conflict.
1:10 p.m.: Russia did not want to acknowledge the grave radiological risk at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the U.S. State Department said in a statement on Sunday. The statement said that was the reason on Friday Russia blocked the final draft of a nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
"The Russian Federation alone decided to block consensus on a final document at the conclusion of the Tenth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," the statement said. "Russia did so in order to block language that merely acknowledged the grave radiological risk at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine."
12:16 p.m.: Russian rocket and artillery strikes hit areas across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday, amid continuing fears the facility itself could be hit and cause a radiation leak.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Ukrainian forces had shelled the plant twice over the past day and that some shells fell near buildings storing reactor fuel and radioactive waste.
Heavy firing during the night left parts of Nikopol without electricity, said Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
11:04 a.m.:
10:54 a.m.: Chechen soldiers will be heading to the front lines in Ukraine, vowing to continue the fight against Russia that raged for years in their North Caucasus homeland. The Associated Press has the story.
10:07 a.m.: Ukrainian military forces have continued to stop Russian attempts to break through to the strategic city of Bakhmut to extend control over the Donbas region, reported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Russian armies, which took over Syevyerodonetsk and Lysychansk weeks ago, are now focusing on the key city of Bakhmut.
The town was shelled on Saturday, as well as nearby Soldedar and Zaitseve, according to a Ukrainian military report.
It said Ukraine halted advances near two other major towns, Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
8:58 a.m.: Russian artillery fired at Ukrainian towns across the river from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant overnight, local officals said on Sunday, as reports of shelling around the plant fueled fears of a radiation disaster.
Russia's defense ministry said there was more Ukrainian shelling of the plant over the past 24 hours, Reuters reported.
Moscow and Kyiv are blaming each other for targeting Europe's biggest nuclear plant. Ukrainian nuclear company Energoatom said it had no new information about attacks on the plant.
Regional governor Oleksandr Starukh said on Telegram on Sunday that Russian forces struck residential buildings in the region's main city of Zaporizhzhia, about a two-hour drive from the plant, and the town of Orikhiv further east.
8:01 a.m.: Russian air forces hit workshops at a Motor Sich (MSICH.UAX) factory in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine where helicopters were being repaired, Russian state news agency RIA quoted the defense ministry as saying. Reuters also reported the defense ministry said Russian forces destroyed fuel storage facilities in Ukraine's Dnipro region which supplied the Ukrainian army in the Donbas region, Interfax news agency reported.
5:37 a.m.: The latest Ukraine assessment from the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said Russian forces conducted a limited ground attack north of Kharkiv City and limited ground attacks southwest of Izyum, northeast of Siversk, northeast and south of Bakhmut, and west and southwest of Donetsk City.
Ukrainian forces, the update said, targeted Russian airborne command-and-control elements in western Kherson Oblast.
5:07 a.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree introducing financial benefits for people who left Ukrainian territory to come to Russia, including pensioners, pregnant women and disabled people, Reuters reported from Moscow.
The decree, published on a government portal, establishes monthly pension payments of $170 for people who have been forced to leave the territory of Ukraine since Feb. 18. Disabled people will also be eligible for the same monthly support, while pregnant women are entitled to a one-off benefit.
The decree says the payments will be made to citizens of Ukraine and the self-styled Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics -- two breakaway Russian-backed entities in eastern Ukraine that Moscow recognized as independent in February in a move condemned by Ukraine and the West as illegal.
4:07 a.m.: In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Voldoymyr Zelenskyy said, “Today is Aviation Day. It is traditionally celebrated in our country on the last Saturday of August. It is a professional holiday of people without whom the present cannot be imagined. And without which we cannot imagine the independence of our state.
“Russia hoped to destroy our aircraft in the first hours of the full-scale invasion. And, of course, this enemy had a completely insane goal, like many other such goals. The Air Force of Ukraine was preserved, and since the first day of the invasion, it has been honorably performing combat missions,” Zelenskyy said.
3:12 a.m.: The Joint Coordination Center (JCC) authorized the movement of seven outbound vessels carrying a total of 210,294 metric tons of grain and food products under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, according to a statement.
The seven commercial vessels authorized to move Sunday are: SSI Invincible II, from Chornomorsk to China, carrying 49,500 metric tons of barley; Silver Lady, from Yuhzny/Pivdennyi to Italy, carrying 39,494 metric tons of corn; FPMC B 201, from Odesa to Egypt, carrying 33,000 metric tons of wheat; Aeolos, from Odesa to Rotterdam, Netherlands, carrying 30,000 metric tons of corn; Melina, from Yuzhny/Pivdennyi to Constanta, Romania, carrying 27,500 metric tons of corn; DS Sofie Bulker, from Odesa to Cartagena, Spain, carrying 27,000 metric tons of barley, and Anastasia, from Chornomorsk to Turkey, carrying 3,800 metric tons of wheat.
As of Aug. 27, the total tonnage of grain and other foodstuffs exported from the three Ukrainian ports is 1,043,286 metric tons. A total of 103 voyages (57 inbound and 46 outbound) have been enabled so far.
2:08 a.m.: Bomb disposal teams are finding scores of unexploded shells in areas of Ukraine near the front line -- though sometimes children discover them first. The team keeps busy collecting live shells and exploding them safely in nearby fields. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has the story.
1:06 a.m.:
12:02 a.m.: Children are painting the walls in a bomb shelter beneath their school in Lviv, western Ukraine, helping parents, teachers, and others get the building ready for lessons to resume in September. Across Ukraine, schools are gearing up for an academic year like no other, as the country seeks to get its children back into class after the disruption of war. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has the story.
Some information in this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
