The Krishi refinery, located deep inside Russian territory near St. Petersburg, was hit during the night, with large flames rising from the damaged industrial complex. A urea production plant was also struck, and a fuel train was attacked near St. Petersburg, apparently as part of Ukrainian sabotage operations.

In less than a month and a half, Ukraine has carried out 17 attacks against 12 refineries across Russia. Together, those facilities account for 45% of Russia's fuel production. Analysts believe that between one-fifth and one-quarter of the country's refining capacity has been knocked out, causing billions of dollars in losses to the Russian economy and to Moscow's war effort. Ukraine has also targeted related infrastructure, including oil pipelines, transfer terminals and rail networks.

While Russia regularly strikes Ukraine's civilian infrastructure in an effort to hinder the country's defense industry and lower public morale, Kyiv has chosen to focus on Russia's oil sector, the biggest source of revenue for President Vladimir Putin's regime.

The toll of Ukraine's campaign is already being felt in Russia, where long lines have formed at gas stations in several major regions. In some places, fuel prices have jumped by dozens of percentage points at the few stations where supplies remain.

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According to HUR, Moscow is arranging for a joint unit of military engineers from the Lao People's Armed Forces to be deployed to Russia's Kursk region, ostensibly to help with mine clearance operations.

Ukraine initially captured 1,300 square kilometers (500 square miles) of Russian territory during a cross-border offensive in the Kursk region, but has since lost most of it to a Russian counteroffensive this year, which has included support from North Korean forces.

Laotian media reported that the country's authorities have agreed to send up to 50 engineers to support Russian efforts. The reports also stated that Laos is offering free rehabilitation services to wounded Russian soldiers.

"Russia, under the pretext of humanitarian rhetoric, is attempting to legitimize the presence of foreign military forces on its territory and is effectively using them to wage war against Ukraine," Ukrainian intelligence said.

This comes as part of a broader Kremlin strategy to recruit foreign manpower. Russia has heavily relied on fighters from Asia and Africa, as well as from North Korea. Ukraine has captured several foreign combatants fighting for Russian forces. An April investigation by the independent Russian outlet Important Stories identified more than 1,500 foreign fighters from 48 countries who have joined Russia's war effort.

Laos, a landlocked country in Southeast Asia bordered by China, Vietnam and Thailand, has not responded to HUR's claim. The country maintains close ties with Moscow and its ally Beijing.

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According to Ukrainian officials, there were no immediate reports of casualties or significant damage from the renewed Russian attacks, which involved missile and drone strikes.

Throughout Sunday, Kyiv and Moscow accused one another of breaking the ceasefire, which the Kremlin said would not be extended. On Saturday, just three hours after the truce began, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv.

In Washington, officials said they would welcome an extension of the ceasefire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated several times that Ukraine was prepared to suspend strikes for 30 days. However, Putin, who launched the invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, did not extend the order halting military operations.

"There were no additional orders," the Russian news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying when asked whether the ceasefire might be extended.

According to reports from the Ukrainian Air Force, Kyiv and central parts of the country were on high alert for about an hour, but no direct strikes were reported in the capital.

Officials also noted that the port city of Mykolaiv was targeted by Russian missiles, though there were no immediate reports of damage.

Air raid alerts also sounded for two hours overnight in Russia's Voronezh region, which borders Ukraine. The border areas of Kursk and parts of Belgorod were also briefly under missile threat.

Despite the absence of air raid sirens during the truce itself, Ukrainian forces reported nearly 3,000 violations by Russia, with the heaviest attacks and shelling occurring in the Pokrovsk area of the front, according to Zelenskyy.

In contrast, Russia's Defense Ministry claimed Ukrainian forces fired on Russian positions 444 times and faced over 900 drone attacks, resulting in civilian casualties and injuries.

US President Donald Trump expressed cautious optimism, saying he "hopes both sides will sign an agreement to end the conflict this week."

His remarks appeared to contradict earlier statements made by both Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had said that "the United States will step back from peace efforts unless there are clear signs of progress soon."

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The British newspaper The Guardian reported that Greenpeace is highlighting another dimension of the threat to Ukraine's power infrastructure. The organization claims that Russian strikes could damage the nuclear reactors that supply electricity to the country. "It is clear that Russia is using the threat of a nuclear disaster as a means to defeat Ukraine. However, they risk causing a nuclear catastrophe for all of Europe," said Shaun Burnie, a nuclear expert working for Greenpeace in Ukraine.

Russia is targeting intermediate stations, some of which aer used for cooling and controling nuclear reactors. Officials in Kyiv fear that damage to one of these stations could lead to meltdowns and other disasters at one of the nuclear power plants. Kyiv is preparing for a significant Russian airstrike, which may include the use of Iranian-made drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. The US Embassy in Kyiv has been closed, and American citizens in the city have been instructed to stay close to shelters.

Overnight, Ukraine launched a drone attack on several Russian industrial facilities, including a large plant that produces margarine and mayonnaise. Additionally, the Ukrainian military reported a "significant" strike on a Russian military command post in the Belgorod region, likely using US-supplied missiles.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an interview to Fox News, stated that if American aid to his country stops, Ukraine will be defeated in the war against Russia. "We will, of course, fight. We have our own production capabilities, but they are not sufficient to win. They are not sufficient for us to survive," Zelensky said in the interview.

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The spat between Israel's Interior Ministry and Ukraine over the treatment of Ukrainians arriving in Israel has intensified in recent days, with Kyiv's envoy accusing Interior Minister Moshe Arbel of "blatant lies." 

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This has even escalated to the point that the ambassador threatened that if the deportation of Ukrainians arriving in Israel as tourists won't stop, Israelis would be banned from making the annual religious visits to Uman, where the gravesite of the Breslov rebbe is located. The embassy says that during the first half of 2023, 2037 Ukrainians were deported (compared to 2705 throughout all of 2022).

Video: Reuters / Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives at the NATO summit in Vilnius

This issue has generated headlines in Ukraine, but Arbel has recently shot back in response, saying that he "fully rejects the claims of humiliation of Ukrainian citizens upon arrival in Israel." He further added, "In cases where there is suspicion of an improper use of the tourist visa for the purposes of labor or residency, the Population and Immigration Authority exercises its prerogative under the law."

Ukraine was outraged by these comments and Ambassador Yevgen Kornichuk said that "the minister's claims are just blatant lies. The calls [by Ukrainians to the embassy] have been recorded, and if needed, we will submit the recordings." 

The embassy shared with Israel Hayom the transcripts of Ukrainian citizens' conversations with its call center, in which they elaborate on the ordeal they have had to go through upon arrival at Ben-Gurion International Airport.

"At passport control, they took us to the offices of the Population and Immigration Authority," Anastasia Avramchuk said in one call, having arrived in Israel on a flight from Krakow on July 8 with her mother and 3-year-old daughter. 

"We were interrogated and fingerprinted. The officer spoke to us in Russian, shouted at us and insulted us, and threatened that we would go to prison; he demanded that we give him our phones, and looked at my conversations on Messenger," Avramchuk said in the transcript.

"After the questioning was over, we were taken to an office where from which we were prohibited from leaving; going to the bathroom was only possible with an escort." Avramchuk said that this lasted some three hours, and when she asked whether she could buy food at a nearby store, she was told, "This is not a restaurant" and "Sit until we tell you that leaving is allowed."

According to Avramchuk, she was informed that all three would be deported, "but the tickets were bought for July 12, and until then we were to be held in detention. We were told we could buy tickets for an earlier date, so we bought tickets the following day. We spent the night together with another ten Ukrainians on chairs." 

What made things worse was that they were only given back their documents upon boarding the plane. Avramchuk added that she found slips of paper stuck in her passport on which the Israeli officials wrote that she and her family members had lied during the interrogation and that they had in fact, supposedly, arrived in Israel to work illegally. "They even wrote this for my 3-year-old daughter," she added.

Tetyana Griziuk, a student at Chernivtsi University, arrived in Israel for vacation on July 7. "My parents asked that I visit the holy sites to pray for victory in the war," she said according to the transcript. "Upon landing in Israel, the agent didn't even check my documents and just declared, and I'm quoting, 'A young woman from a country that is at war cannot allow herself to have some recreation in her country.' She then took my passport and I was taken to a waiting area, where I was told that I would be sent on a plane back to Ukraine the following day."

Another troubling complaint made to the call center was recorded on June 14. Zinaida Panchenco, who had arrived with her daughter on a flight from Chişinău through Istanbul, told the embassy that even when her condition deteriorated during the interrogation, the Israeli official refused to provide medical attention.

"Having waited for ours, I felt ill and informed the Population and Immigration Authority agent before my questioning began," she wrote. "But instead of seeking first aid, the officer continued questioning me, even though I could not answer coherently; he then informed me that I was going to be deported. I was then taken to a hallway with a barrier, where the deportees were waiting for the next flight. It was very cold there and there were only chairs. We waited five hours, during which my condition worsened, and I collapsed in the bathroom and lost consciousness. I only regained it when I was being taken to the hospital." She further says in the transcript that upon arrival at the Shamir Medical Center, the staff said that she had suffered a heart attack and that she had broken some bones.

Panchenco claims that she has guarantors in Israel and that in Kyiv she has a large apartment, a car, and a job, and therefore there is no reason to believe she would not return. Moreover, the daughter goes to school there. "All the textbooks [for the next school year] are waiting to be picked up," she said. 

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Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine early Friday, killing at least twelve people and striking a residential building in central Ukraine, officials said.

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Air raid sirens sounded around the capital in the first attack against the city in nearly two months and Ukraine's air force intercepted 11 cruise missiles and two unmanned aerial vehicles over Kyiv, according to the Kyiv City Administration. There were no immediate reports of any missiles hitting targets in Kyiv but fragments from intercepted missiles or drones damaged power lines and a road in one neighborhood. No casualties were reported.

But in Uman, around 215 kilometers (134 miles) south of Kyiv, two cruise missiles hit a nine-story residential building, killing at least six people and wounding 17, according to Ukrainian national police. Three children were rescued from the rubble, police said.

"All the glass flew out, everything flew out, even the chandelier fell. Everything was covered in glass," resident Olha Turina told The Associated Press at the scene. "Then there was an explosion. ... We barely found our things and ran out."

Turina, whose husband is fighting on the front lines, said one of her child's classmates was missing. "I don't know where they are, I don't know if they are alive," she said. "I don't know why we have to go through all this. We never bothered anyone."

One of the people killed in the Uman attack was a 75-year-old who was in her apartment in a neighboring building and suffered internal bleeding from the shockwave of the blast, according to emergency personnel on the scene.

Three body bags lay next to the building as smoke continued to billow hours after the attack. Soldiers, civilians and emergency crews searched through the rubble outside for more victims, while residents dragged belongings out of the damaged building. One woman, crying in shock, was taken away by rescue crews for help.

A 31-year-old woman and her 2-year-old daughter were also killed in the eastern city of Dnipro in another attack, regional Governor Serhii Lysak said. Four people were also wounded, and a private home and business were damaged.

In Kyiv, the anti-aircraft system was activated, according to the Kyiv City Administration. Air raid sirens started at about 4 a.m., and the alert ended about two hours later. The attack was the first on the capital since March 9.

The missiles were fired from aircraft operating in the Caspian Sea region, according to Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander in Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Overall, he said, Ukraine intercepted 21 of 23 Kh-101 and Kh-555 type cruise missiles launched, as well as the two drones.

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The attacks came as NATO announced that its allies and partner countries have delivered more than 98% of the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine during Russia's invasion and war, strengthening Kyiv's capabilities as it contemplates launching a counteroffensive.

Along with more than 1,550 armored vehicles, 230 tanks and other equipment, Ukraine's allies have sent "vast amounts of ammunition" and trained and equipped more than nine new Ukrainian brigades, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.

Some NATO partner countries, such as Sweden and Australia, have also provided armored vehicles.

The overnight attacks and comments came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping held a "long and meaningful" phone call on Wednesday in their first known contact since Russia's full-scale invasion more than a year ago.

Though Zelenskyy said he was encouraged by Wednesday's call and Western officials welcomed Xi's move, it didn't appear to improve peace prospects.

Russia and Ukraine are far apart in their terms for peace, and Beijing – while looking to position itself as a global diplomatic power – has refused to criticize Moscow's invasion. The Chinese government sees Russia as a diplomatic ally in opposing U.S. influence in global affairs, and Xi visited Moscow last month.

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Russia announced Tuesday it will "fundamentally" scale back military operations near Ukraine's capital and a northern city, as talks to end the grinding war brought the outlines of a possible deal into view.

Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said the change on the battlefield was meant to increase trust at the talks after several rounds of negotiations failed to halt what has devolved into a bloody campaign of attrition.

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The announcement was met with skepticism from the US and others.

While Moscow portrayed it as a goodwill gesture, its ground troops have become bogged down and taken heavy losses in their bid to seize Kyiv and other cities. Last week and again on Tuesday, the Kremlin seemed to roll back its war aims, saying its "main goal" now is gaining control of the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had not seen anything indicating talks were progressing in a "constructive way," and he suggested Russian indications of a pullback could be an attempt by Moscow to "deceive people and deflect attention."

"There is what Russia says and there is what Russia does, and we're focused on the latter," Blinken said in Morocco. "And what Russia is doing is the continued brutalization of Ukraine."

He added, "If they somehow believe that an effort to subjugate only the eastern part of Ukraine or the southern part of Ukraine ... can succeed, then once again they are profoundly fooling themselves."

Even as negotiators from the two sides assembled in Istanbul, Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces hit an oil depot in western Ukraine late Monday and blasted a gaping hole Tuesday morning in a nine-story government administration building in the southern port city of Mykolaiv. At least seven people were killed in that attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

"It's terrible. They waited for people to go to work" before striking the building, said regional governor Vitaliy Kim. "I overslept. I'm lucky."

Fomin said Moscow has decided to "fundamentally ... cut back military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv" to "increase mutual trust and create conditions for further negotiations." He did not immediately spell out what that would mean in practical terms.

Ukraine's military said it has noted withdrawals of some forces around Kyiv and Chernihiv. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told CNN "we haven't seen anything to corroborate" reports of Russia pulling back significant forces from around Kyiv. "But what we have seen over the last couple of days is they have stopped trying to advance on Kyiv."

Rob Lee, a military expert at the US-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, tweeted: "This sounds like more of an acknowledgment of the situation around Kyiv where Russia's advance has been stalled for weeks and Ukrainian forces have had recent successes. Russia doesn't have the forces to encircle the city."

The meeting Tuesday in Istanbul was the first time negotiators from Russia and Ukraine talked face-to-face in two weeks. Earlier talks, held in person in Belarus or by video, made no progress toward ending the more than month-long war that has killed thousands and driven over 10 million Ukrainians from their homes, including almost 4 million who have fled the country.

Fomin suggested there had been progress this time, saying "negotiations on preparing an agreement on Ukraine's neutrality and non-nuclear status, as well as on giving Ukraine security guarantees, are turning to practical matters."

Ukraine's team set out a detailed framework for a peace deal under which the country would remain neutral but its security would be guaranteed by a group of third countries, including the US, Britain, France, Turkey, China and Poland, in an arrangement similar to NATO's "an attack on one is an attack on all" principle.

Ukraine said it would also be willing to hold talks over a 15-year period on the future of the Crimean Peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014. The Kremlin has demanded among other things that Ukraine drop any hope of joining NATO, which it sees as a threat.

Vladimir Medinskiy, the head of the Russian delegation, said on Russian TV that the Ukrainian proposals are a "step to meet us halfway, a clearly positive fact." He cautioned that the parties are still far from reaching an agreement, but said: "We know now how to move further toward compromise. We aren't just marking time in talks."

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The United States will expand its sanctions on Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine, targeting members of the country's parliament and the central bank's gold reserves, the White House announced Thursday.

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At the same time, Washington will increase its humanitarian assistance by welcoming 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and providing an additional $1 billion in food, medicine, water and other supplies.

The White House announced the initiatives as US President Joe Biden and world leaders gathered in Brussels for a trio of summits in response to the Russian invasion, seeking new ways to limit the economic and security fallout from the conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the day's first meeting, an emergency NATO summit, where he called for "military assistance without limitations." He pleaded for anti-air and anti-ship weapons, asking "is it possible to survive in such a war without this?"

"It feels like we're in a gray area, between the West and Russia, defending our common values," Zelenskyy said during the video address. "This is the scariest thing during a war – not to have clear answers to requests for help!"

A US official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Western nations are discussing the possibility of providing anti-ship weapons amid concerns that Russia will launch amphibious assaults along the Black Sea coast.

Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg opened the closed-door summit with a sober warning that the alliance must boost its defenses and "respond to a new security reality in Europe."

"We gather at a critical time for our security," he said, addressing the leaders seated at a large round table. "We are united in condemning the Kremlin's unprovoked aggression and in our support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Stoltenberg said the alliance is "determined to continue to impose costs on Russia to bring about the end of this brutal war."

In addition to the NATO summit, Brussels is also hosting separate summits of the Group of Seven industrialized nations and if the European Union. Biden is attending all three meetings and will hold a news conference afterward.

While the West has been largely unified in confronting Russia after it invaded Ukraine, there's wide acknowledgment that unity will be tested as the costs of war chip at the global economy.

The bolstering of forces along NATO's eastern flank, almost certainly for at least the next five to 10 years if Russia is to be effectively dissuaded, will also put pressure on national budgets.

"We need to do more, and therefore we need to invest more. There is a new sense of urgency and I expect that the leaders will agree to accelerate the investments in defense," Stoltenberg said before the summit.

Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the US wants to hear "that the resolve and unity that we've seen for the past month will endure for as long as it takes."

Meanwhile, the US and its allies on Thursday imposed fresh sanctions on Russia, targeting dozens of Russian defense companies, hundreds of members of its parliament and the chief executive of the country's largest bank as Washington ramps up pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

The US Treasury Department also issued guidance on its website warning that gold-related transactions involving Russia may be sanctionable by US authorities, a move aimed at stopping Russia from evading existing sanctions.

"Our purpose here is to methodically remove the benefits and privileges Russia once enjoyed as a participant in the international economic order," a senior administration official said.

The United States and its allies have imposed several rounds of sanctions, including targeting the country's largest lenders and President Vladimir Putin, since Russian forces invaded Ukraine a month ago in the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two

The energy crisis exacerbated by the war will be a particularly hot topic at the European Council summit, where leaders from Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are hoping for an urgent, coordinated bloc-wide response. EU officials have said they will seek US help on a plan to top up natural gas storage facilities for next winter, and they also want the bloc to jointly purchase gas.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has dismissed calls to boycott Russian energy supplies, saying it would cause significant damage to his country's economy. Scholz is facing pressure from environmental activists to quickly wean Germany off Russian energy, but he said the process will have to be gradual.

"To do so from one day to the next would mean plunging our country and all of Europe into recession," Scholz said Wednesday.

Poland and other eastern flank NATO countries will also be looking for clarity on how the United States and fellow European nations can assist in dealing with their growing concerns about Russian aggression as well as a spiraling refugee crisis. More than 3.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine in recent weeks, including more than 2 million to Poland.

Biden is scheduled to visit Poland on Friday, where both issues are expected to be at the center of talks with President Andrzej Duda. Another significant moment could come shortly before Biden returns to Washington on Saturday. The White House said he plans to "deliver remarks on the united efforts of the free world to support the people of Ukraine, hold Russia accountable for its brutal war, and defend a future that is rooted in democratic principles."

Sullivan said Biden and fellow leaders would aim to "set out a longer-term game plan" for what forces and capabilities are going to be required for the alliance's eastern flank countries.

Four new NATO battlegroups, which usually number between 1,000-1,500 troops, are being set up in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.

All the while, national security officials from Washington to Warsaw are increasingly worried that Putin might deploy chemical, biological or even nuclear weaponry. Sullivan said the allies would consult on how to respond to "potential contingencies" of that sort.

Biden said this week that the possibility of chemical weapons use by Russia was a "real threat."

Stoltenberg declined Thursday to discuss whether such a strike is a red line that would draw the alliance into war with Russia. "I will not speculate beyond the fact that NATO is always ready to defend, to protect and to react to any type of attack on a NATO allied country," he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in a CNN interview this week said that Russia could consider using its nuclear weapons if it felt there was "an existential threat for our country."

Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Union's executive arm, said before Biden's visit that she wants to discuss the possibility of securing extra deliveries of liquefied natural gas from the United States for the 27-nation bloc "for the next two winters."

The EU imports 90% of the natural gas used to generate electricity, heat homes and supply industry, with Russia supplying almost 40% of EU gas and a quarter of its oil. The bloc is looking at ways to reduce its dependence on Russian gas by diversifying suppliers.

Sullivan said the United States was looking for ways to "surge" LNG supplies to Europe to help.

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Biden arrived in Brussels with Americans increasingly accepting of the need for the US to help stop Putin, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

But even as concern among Americans has swelled and support for a major US role in the conflict strengthened in the last month, Biden's negative approval rating has not budged, the AP-NORC poll found. Few are very confident that he can handle a crisis, and a majority thinks he lacks toughness in dealing with Russia.

Biden promised voters that he had the experience to navigate a complicated international emergency like the one unfolding in Europe and his trip will be the latest test of that proposition.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Knesset via Zoom on Sunday as part of his flurry of speeches to legislative chambers around the world in an effort to convince governments to actively support his country in the face of the Russian invasion.  

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With the parliament in recess and undergoing renovations, most MKs and ministers tuned into the virtual event from various locations. Those without access to Zoom, and Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy, who hosted the event, gathered to view the address from a specially designated hall in the parliament. All participants' were muted to prevent interruptions during the speech.

"We want to live but our neighbors want us dead, there is not a lot of room for compromise," Zelenskyy said, paraphrasing former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

"Just like you were wandering around the world, looking for safety, our people are now wandering the world. This is an unjust war, with Russian trying to destroy anything that makes Ukrainians who they are," Zelenskyy continued. "Our history and your history are histories of survival," he continued. "Listen to what the Kremlin is saying, they're using the same terminology of the Nazi party. What they sought to destroy all of Europe, they didn't want to leave any of you, and now from of us. They called it the 'Final Solution'."

"The people of Israel, you saw how Russian rockets hit Babi Yar. You know what this place means, where the victims of the Holocaust are buried," he said. "The Righteous Among the Nations in Ukraine made their choice 80 years ago, and now we expect you to make your choice," he concluded, referring to the Ukrainians who risked their lives to hide Jews from being sent to the extermination camps.

Levy delivered an opening speech just before the president began his remarks. "I want to thank you for dedicating time during these tough months to discuss with us in Israel," Levy said. "I would like to extend our solidarity with the pain of the Ukrainian people," he continued. He said that "We should do everything to end the fighting as soon as possible," and added that he hoped the mediation efforts of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett "bear fruit."

President #Zelensky to Israel's Knesset:

'Listen to what the Kremlin is saying, they're using the same terminology of the Nazi party'

'What they sought to destroy all of Europe, they didn't want to leave any of you, and now from of us. They called it the 'Final Solution'' pic.twitter.com/HjhsKw8pSU

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) March 20, 2022

The Tel Aviv Municipality hosted a live stream of the speech on a large screen in the city's central Habima Square and about 1,000 had gathered well before the speech. The decision to show the speech at the square came before the Knesset address was finalized when officials of the Ukrainian Embassy in Israel asked the city to organize an event that would reach the broader Israeli public. The two events were eventually folded into one.

Israel's parliament is one of many across the world that Zelenskyy has addressed. Last week, he spoke virtually to members of the US Congress, again urging US lawmakers to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, invoking the horrors of Pearl Harbor and 9/11.

Since the beginning of the war on Feb. 24, over three million refugees have fled the besieged country in what has been described as Europe's largest ground war since World War II.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, whose late father was a Holocaust survivor, thanked Zelenskyy for the speech. "We will continue to assist the Ukrainian people as much as we can and we will never turn our backs to the plight of people who know the horrors of war," Lapid said. But Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust memorial, which had previously condemned Putin's Nazi references, also harshly criticized Zelenskyy, without naming him.

"Propagandist discourse accompanying the current hostilities is saturated with irresponsible statements and completely inaccurate comparisons with Nazi ideology and actions before and during the Holocaust," it said. "Yad Vashem condemns this trivialization and distortion of the historical facts of the Holocaust."

The Israeli public has been largely supportive of Ukraine since Russia invaded its western neighbor on Feb. 24. But Israel's government has been much more cautious as it carves out a role as a mediator in the war, in part because of Russia's strong military presence in Syria in support of the Bashar Assad regime. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett paid a surprise visit to Moscow to meet with Putin on March 5. Since then, he has spoken to the Russian leader at least twice and to Zelenskyy at least six times, according to his office.

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The sound of the fighter jets' engines woke me up with my heart racing. Only after 10 seconds did I realize that these were Israeli fighter jets, flying above our apartment in Rehovot, not Vladimir Putin's planes of death from which I had taken cover in underground bunkers in Ukraine a week earlier.

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Covering war zones always has its baggage, and it all resurfaces at night. The faces of Yazidi children in Iraq who became refugees, the survivors of the Rwandan genocide, the Kurdish female fighters in Syria, or the threatening looks of Chechen warlords. There is something in this human evil that stays with you forever after such visits.

However, the most challenging part in covering a foreign conflict is the connection you feel with those you meet while you work, the people whose lives you have to enter, and they, in turn, enter your heart.

You can't stay indifferent to those faces, to their fate, to their wellbeing. Having woken up from the buzz of jets, my mind immediately shifted back to those moments there, thinking of those that I have left behind to deal with the Russian onslaught. This story is, to a large extent, their story, in their words, as they experienced the war that has beset Europe and the world.

My first visit to Kyiv was in late January. Just a moment before boarding the plane, a journalist working with our paper had given me some contact details for "fixers" who can provide me with leads to good stories and offer tips on where to go to properly cover the events while staying safe.

Coincidentally, the first contact who responded to my feelers was a young man by the name of Bogdan, a former volunteer in the Ukrainian armed forces and a great English, speaker. He had an impressive understanding of what has been unfolding. It turned out that I was a lucky man: His decision to respond made him my unofficial guru to anything Ukraine, my mentor and guide to what was taking place. 

A social activist, a community heavyweight, and a man of nightlife, Bogdan turned out to be the ultimate wheeler and dealer. He could arrange an interview with a Ukrainian member of parliament, he could organize a trip to the Donbas front lines, he could even recommend a great coffee place where I can write up stories and where I can get a flack jacket. His network of friends turned out to be a source of endless stories and, when the time came, a lifeline that helped me escape the horrors of war.

During those days of late January, he was not overly concerned about the prospect of a Russian invasion. Like myself and many others, he thought that Putin would not go beyond a limited, local operation in eastern Ukraine to prop up the pro-Russian separatists in the enclaves there.

"You see," he told me every so often, "the Russians know that the Ukrainian military has improved and become sophisticated. They know that total war would take a heavy human toll and may unleash the West's entire gamut of sanctions, so they will probably seek a more complex operation that would involve hybrid warfare in order to place pressure on us." This was a prophecy that was correct and wrong.  

Pizza and the whistling bullets

One of the first things that I have asked from Bogdan during the days ahead of the invasion was to reach the front line of the conflict between the state and the separatists in the eastern part of the country. I wanted to meet the Ukrainian army and to realize from them what was truly unfolding there. But to my dismay after submitting the request to the military, there was no response, as was typical when you don't have someone from the inside who could pull the strings for you. Many other journalists were stuck in limbo. But Bogdan was already hatching a plan to overcome this obstacle.

Together with him and his driver, Dima, I reached Mariupol, a city that is between the separatists and the Azov Sea. This city of more than 500,000 people has a nice town square, small but pretty. Bogdan and Dima's relationship with the city goes way back, I soon figured out. 

"You this local administration building? This was where the separatists hunkered down," Bogdan tells me with nostalgia. "Dima was the crazy guy who set the place ablaze to make sure everyone would get out," he continued, showing me the dilapidated place. A smiling Dima then quoted the lyrics of a famous Ukrainian song, "The roof is burning, there is no need for water, let the SOB burn." It then dawned on me that Dima is more than just a driver.

Our guide in Mariupol was none other than the head of the local patrol force. The force was formed after the revolution in 2014, based on the local community police departments you can find in Germany, the UK, and the US. The goal was to infuse the community with young law-enforcement blood that is well motivated and cares for the values of the local population and ultimately to have the new cadre replace the corrupt old-guard of police officers. 

At the time the winds of war were already clearly felt, and he made sure to give me an alarming piece of information. "We are aware of sleeper cells that have received orders to wait for the invasion and to abet it," he said. "I don't know if Putin wants to invade, but I have no doubt that someone is laying the groundwork for the real deal," he continued. His warning at that point sounded like an attempt to show that he, the worried city's police officer, was not shirking his duties to take on the threat.

In the local bar, which once served as a headquarters for the Gestapo and then for the Soviet intelligence service, some of Bogdan's friends gathered for a long night of drinking. Among those present were several friends from a snipers unit that had just returned from the front lines for a short break. Several foreign journalists were also there, along with a Serbian music producer and a human rights/LGBTQ activist woman named Dianna Berg. As someone who was born in now-separatist-controlled Donetsk, the struggles over Ukraine's national identity and her own personal struggle for the gay community have been one and the same.

"If we fall into the hands of Putin there will no longer be any human rights or gay rights. We would no longer be able to live as Ukrainians," she said. Today, when the city of Mariupol is still under attack, her words keep coming back and the fate she faces. 

The next morning, Bogdan shares with me the plans he has made on how to reach the frontline. Since my embedding request has not been approved yet by the military, there had to be a creative workaround to reach the forces. Bogdan, whose businesses include a pizzeria in Mariupol, suggested we volunteer to deliver pizza to an elite contingent of the marines positioned just a stone-throw away from the separatists in the city. 

The local command post at the city approved this gesture and soon enough I found myself helping the local staff prepare the pizza and loading it on Dima's car. After a very bumpy ride of some 90 minutes in the snow of eastern Ukraine, we arrived at a forward command post in a former Soviet tank factory. 

The special forces, burly bearded men armed with machetes and axes were initially perplexed by the sight of this foreigner who had arrived. But after the rumor spread that a journalist from Israel has arrived, the suspicion faded and every single one of them started asking me about the Israel Defense Forces' weaponry and what kind of systems Ukraine should buy, assuming Israel would agree to sell it. 

I found myself holding a Q&A session in front of a friendly crowd that yearns for antitank missiles and Israeli Tavor rifles. It lasted for about30 minutes. "With such weapons, we could repel the Russian forces to the Ural Mountains," one of the soldiers quipped. 

To thank me for this lecture, one of the soldiers asked me if I wanted to get a panoramic view of the city from the rooftop. I gladly agreed, all but forgetting that I had acrophobia. A rusty metal ladder led to the exposed cement roof of the defunct tank factory and then, with gusts of subzero wind, I got an explanation on the separatist positions around me and how the Russians might help them once they invade.

Several days after he started his explanation a squad from the nearby post started firing at a shooting range. The sound of gunshots penetrated his words. One of the rounds was a near miss, hitting one of the overhead metal beams of the roof. The guide pushed me down and made me lie flat on the cold cement. We heard the bullets fly past us and we could not quite figure out whether this was from the separatists or from a higher command post that was held by the Ukrainians, but regardless, the tour ended in one fell swoop. I will never forget the fast descent on the metal ladder.

And then the world went haywire

By mid-February, Kyiv had become a city on the verge of panic attacks. A tour with a local resident and fighter named Maxim (a friend of Bogdan) had me arrive at the house of Tanya and Dennis. 

By this point, the prospect of an invasion was more than just speculation. For them, and their three-year-old, things could not be tenser. With her sad eyes, Tanya told me how they bought weapons to defend their community from an invasion. "We are not gun enthusiasts, and we are definitely not bloodthirsty, but we have to defend our freedom. We could not live in a country that capitulates to Putin's whims," she said. 

Tanya and Dennis are hardly the only ones who bought arms to prepare the defense of their country and city from invasion. Thousands like them now stand between the Russian army and its military objectives across the country.

Dennis turned out to be a very skilled driver, knowing every nook and cranny. He knows how to reach his destination, and more importantly - how to get out. This is why I asked him to take me, with a local educator named Oxana, to the contested Luhansk District, to a village that no longer has direct access to the rest of Ukraine due to the ongoing shelling.  

We started our 8-hour journey early in the morning. Before leaving Kyiv, he warned us that "there are rumors that something bad is unfolding and we may have gotten ourselves out of harms way very quickly if things escalate. "

When we arrived in the evening at the village, Novotoshkivske, just on the front line with the separatists. During the past eight years of fighting it has been shelled endlessly, making life very complicated for its residents. Darina, a local English teacher, provided warm Ukrainian hospitality with tea, cookies, and candy, despite the town being low on food. 

The young teacher told me how the teaching staff at the village managed to bring some semblance of normalcy to her school, with its 60 pupils enjoying some social life and structure despite the ongoing conflict. She explained how she fears every escalation would undo all the progress she has done and the hard work will go to waste.

Several minutes after they said those things a hell hit a power line no far from the village, cutting off supply. We drove to the city of Severodonetsk and found a motel. Before calling it a day, Dennis said that an acquaintance of his that is privy to what is going on among the separatists said that the units got an order to attack at dawn. We went to sleep fully clothed and then the world just went haywire

The artillery shelling that got me springing out of bed at around 5 a.m. was among the strongest I have ever heard. Luckily, it targeted the outskirts of the city but in light of the billowing smoke and shaking ground it was clear that we had to gt out of there. We saw other journalists, mostly from the UK, who had assembled in the parking lot to consider their next move. 

One of the correspondents was having a heated argument with the local guide, who wanted to return to Kyiv. "You are panicking, nothing major has yet to happen, and this is where all the action is," the correspondent said with condescension to the guide, called Vitali. Meanwhile, there were rumors of a large-scale attack and aerial bombardments on Kyiv and Kharkiv. I saw the horror in Dennis'eyes, having realized that his wife and kids may be in harm's way (they are both in Kyiv), and I realized that it was time to go back. 

We took Vitali with us for the long ride back to Kyiv. On the way, it felt like Dante's Inferno. Several hundred feet from us a shell had landed just before we were to go on the highway. Dust hit our windshield, but Dennis, being the skilled driver that he was, successfully stopped the vehicle on time and we emerged unscathed, apart from a very loud rind in our ears.

Along the highway, we saw the Ukrainian forces scramble to carry out a counteroffensive. Tanks could be seen going on the road with their chains, antiaircraft batteries kept changing their position to avoid Russian targeting and at one point a Grad rocket battery was deployed on the road itself and was about to fire, but we were kicked out before I could snap a picture. 

 In shelters and convoys

Near Kharkiv, we saw black smoke billowing from one of the air force bases that had been attacked. The smell of burnt fuel filled the air and we could hear the Russian plane buzzing above us, preparing for their next attack sortie. Later we saw a vehicle that had been hit, apparently from the air. Next to it lay a person, and by the look of the firs-responders, he did not make it out alive. He was perhaps the first of innocent civilians to suffer the brutal cost of this invasion.

We arrived back in Kyiv shaken. Upon entering my hotel room I realized that the nearby building had been hit by bombs and therefore the elevators would no longer work. On top of that, with my room turning toward the street, I had little protection against any further attacks. Bogdan, who had already joined the fighting forces, called to inform me that I had to leave the city. "IP am a journalist, " I shot back with determination. "My place is here, where things are happening." 

"You will help no one if you get stuck in a besieged city or if you get killed in some raid," he responded with wise words. That night, I thought about his words as I took cover in the parking lot turned into a makeshift shelter. The spirit of solidarity of the people who had gathered there stunned me. Everyone who arrived at the shelter brought something that could help the others. A water urn, a pot of soup, some corn puff snacks, fleece blankets. No one came empty-handed. 

I volunteered to employ my limited skills by preparing tea for the others as the sirens blasted in the background. At the end of the parking lot, behind a luxury car, I found Dasha, a young woman who needed a warm cup of tea and some comforting words. "My parents are in the west and I have just moved to Kyiv a year ago," she told me. "When things got intense, I left my daughter with them, but now I am stuck here and miss her." 

Watching her speak was a heart-wrenching ordeal. Practically everyone present at the parking lot had some kind of story along those lines, about relatives who have been left behind, on the fear that they might not see them again. Upon daybreak, Maxim, who had guided me in Kyiv and on the Belarussian border, arrived. This time he was in uniform and carrying a rifle, having been called up to defend the city.

"I am going to fight, the Russians, have breached the border and are now just north of the city. I want you to get out of here," he told me.

That morning I left Kyiv with a broken heart. The vibrant city that I discovered for the first time a month earlier had become a ghost town, with the military patrolling the streets and the civilians hiding in underground shelters. The convoy of displaced that I joined to leave the city included some of Bogdan's friends, even though he himself had already been in the front and made his way back. Among the people with me was Tanya, Dennis's wife, who drove me to the border. She had left her home with their son Svetoslav. 

The convoy, which comprised mainly women and children alongside a few men with military gear, left Kyiv and passed through one military checkpoint after another showing the various credentials nonstop. Travel was only permitted on back roads because the main arteries were under attack and some of the important bridges had already been destroyed by the Russians or by the Ukrainians, in an attempt to hinder the Russian advance. We were stuck in a never-ending traffic jam with thousands of additional displaced people from Kyiv and other cities. The drivers kept changing, and even I was asked to help drive. The atmosphere was somber, and every one of us kept thinking about the loved ones left behind in the capital that was under attack.

On the second morning of the travel, after driving all night, Ivan, the leader of the convoy assembled everyone in a gas station and announced with great fanfare that all of the people they were worried about are alive and well. He even showed me a picture of Maxim after a day of fighting, resting on a big sofa with a big assault rifle laying next to him. The announcement lifted our spirits.  

Drawing inspiration from Israel

Not long after, I bid farewell to the convoy and made my way westward toward Lviv so that I could cross the border into Poland. But the persistent bombing of the Russians forced the train to stop in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk and all the passengers got out and ran toward the underground shelter. 

I saw local soldiers try desperately to control the frightened civilians. "Children and the elderly first," I shouted in my elementary Russia and repeated it until the soldiers finally created a human corridor for those who need it most. In the underground shelter at the station, which was very well equipped, I found myself talking about my own experience in running for cover during Operation Protective Edge. They were most impressed by how accurate Israel's air defense and sirens were. 

Outside the shelter, a young cinematographer named Vlad caught me and showed me his work on Instagram, telling me how hard it is to deal with this anxiety.
"My apartment in Kyiv was bombed and that's why I went back to my parents' place here. I don't really know what to do with this situation, I don't have any experience in this." It seemed that speaking about this made it easier for him. 

Because the train continued toward Lviv and the news reports said that the lines at the border are so long that they are almost inside Poland, I decided to cross the border into Hungary instead. Vlad approached a tough-looking taxi driver and made sure he would take me to the border, near the town of Chop.

The driver, Vasili, was sitting at the wheel of a rusty Volga car, and could not speak English. But he made a great effort to communicate, especially with Russian swearwords. The drive went through the majestic nature reserve of coniferous forests and snow-capped mountains.  It was a nice change of scenery after three days on the run. 

At the border crossing there the line of cars stretched for more than 2 miles. Vasili told me that there is no chance that he would wait there. I told him that I would continue by foot and took my luggage out, to his bewilderment. I walked all the way to the checkpoint only to discover that there was no passage for pedestrians. 

In a moment of resourcefulness, I asked one of the drivers to let me in, and it turned out that I had picked a warm and beautiful Ukrainian family. They gave me healthy food and presented me to the border guards as if I was just another family member.  

But despite this moment of friendship with the locals, this did not hide the great suffering of the refugees who had to leave their homes and wait more than 24 hours at the border crossing, which was accepting only a few cars every hour. Pregnant women, the elderly, and little children waited there in harsh conditions.

This suffering of the people I have spent more than a month with continues to haunt me, just like when planes hover above me. Every several hours I make sure to check on the latest developments of my friends in the line of fire and I am just glued to the screen.

If there is something this war - the worst in Europe in this century - has taught me is that the most dangerous and difficult part of a journalists' job is not sniper fire or mortars but the small pieces of your heart that you leave behind with each person who welcomes you to their home and the brutal moment when you have to leave. 

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