Russia

Follow the latest updates on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The announcement came as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken also pledged an additional $2 billion in long-term support for Ukraine and other countries at risk of Russian invasion.

The U.S. will send an additional $675 million in military supplies to Ukraine, Austin says.

With the latest aid, total U.S. assistance to Ukraine would reach $13.5 billion.

The body of a British aid worker captured by Russian proxies showed signs of torture, a Ukrainian official says.

The C.I.A. director said Russia's invasion looks like a ‘failure.’

The U.S. accuses Moscow of forcibly deporting up to 1.6 million Ukrainians.

The U.S. announces sanctions on Iranian companies involved in Russia drone sales.

A top military official acknowledges that Ukraine was behind an attack on a Russian air base in Crimea.

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Emphasizing that the United States was prepared to support Ukraine "for the long haul," Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said Thursday that Washington will send an additional $675 million in military supplies to Ukraine, including air-launched missiles designed to destroy enemy radars.

The new shipment — which will also include 105-millimeter howitzers, artillery ammunition, vehicles, anti-armor weapons and guided rockets — was announced as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken pledged an additional $2 billion in long-term support for Ukraine and other countries at risk of Russian invasion.

In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said both aid packages would help in "making a common cause, defending freedom."

"Each of these steps of our partners has a real impact on the strength of our state and the whole of Europe in defense against Russian terror," he said.

Russian officials — who requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to discuss western arms supplies to Ukraine — have long blamed the United States and NATO for instigating the conflict. Even so, the Russian ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, told the Council it was a "fantasy" to think that Western powers could determine the course of the fighting with its weapons supplies.

"Western weaponry is not playing a decisive role in the battlefield regardless of what the Ukrainians are saying," Mr. Nebenzya said.

As the conflict nears its seventh month, President Biden met by videoconference on Thursday with allies and partners, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain, underscoring the international commitment to maintain support for Ukraine.

Mr. Biden authorized the additional drawdown of military goods from Pentagon stockpiles — the 20th since the invasion began — on Wednesday, Mr. Austin told dozens of defense ministers at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Addressing members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a coalition of 50 countries that are helping Ukraine with military and humanitarian aid, Mr. Austin urged the nations to increase their production of munitions to help repel the Russian invasion. He proposed bringing together under the group's auspices the high-level officials who oversee defense acquisitions and serve as the main liaisons of their governments to their domestic defense industries.

"​​That means reinvigorating our defense industrial bases to match both Ukraine's priorities and our own needs," Mr. Austin said. "And it means coming up with new ways to accelerate our production of key capabilities."

The Ukraine Defense Contact Group was formed in late April as Russia's ground forces stalled near Kyiv and shifted to massing artillery against troops and towns in eastern Ukraine. According to defense officials, representatives from 42 nations attended Thursday's meeting in person, while eight joined via videoconference.

Flanked by Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine's defense minister, Mr. Austin said Ukraine's armed forces had "inspired the world with their determination to defend their democracy" and pledged his continued support in their fight against Russia.

"We’re here to renew our commitment, and intensify our momentum, to support the brave defenders of Ukraine for the long term," he added.

Britain has sent a second round of armored Multiple Launch Rocket System vehicles as well as guided artillery rockets, Mr. Austin said. Ukrainian forces now have 26 advanced rocket systems between the MLRS launchers and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, that had already been supplied to Ukraine, he said.

The rockets fired by these launch vehicles, called GMLRS, each contain a warhead with 200 pounds of explosives and have been used by Ukrainian forces to destroy Russian arms depots as well as command and control centers.

"I know that we’re all going to leave Ramstein this time with even greater momentum," Mr. Austin said. "We’ve done so much and we’re determined to do even more, and I know that we’re going to deepen our shared resolve to help the people of Ukraine in their fight for freedom."

Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, uses older Soviet-era artillery and more modern Western howitzers. Col. Dave Butler, a spokesman for General Milley, noted that supplying munitions for both types of weapons to Kyiv complicates the Pentagon's logistics and resupply efforts.

"Russia is firing its artillery at a much higher rate than Ukraine is, but Ukraine's artillery fires are more effective," Colonel Butler added.

Of the 50 nations in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Colonel Butler said, "close to 20" were providing either NATO-standard 155-millimeter ammunition or Soviet-designed 152-millimeter ammunition.

Some members have sent money to Ukraine instead of weapons, he said.

Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.

— John Ismay

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said during a visit to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, on Thursday that he would notify Congress that the United States intends to send another $2 billion in long-term military support to Ukraine and 18 other countries that are at risk of Russian invasion.

Separately, President Biden has approved a further $675 million in military support for Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said, as the United States seeks to bolster Ukraine's defenses and its efforts to reclaim territory lost to Russia.

The combined aid makes for a total of $13.5 billion in assistance to Ukraine from the Biden administration since Russia's invasion in February.

Mr. Blinken's visit to Kyiv was his second since the Russian invasion began. In the afternoon, he navigated the dark hallways with sandbagged windows in Ukraine's presidential administration building to meet with the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Mr. Blinken told the Ukrainian leader that a counteroffensive that Ukraine had recently announced marked a "pivotal moment" in the war with Russia, and that the military operation was "proving effective."

The State Department did not publicly disclose Mr. Blinken's travel in advance for security reasons.

His visit came as Mr. Austin met with allied defense ministers at a monthly gathering of the Ukraine Contact Group, which aims to coordinate the flow of military aid to Ukraine. The arrival of Western equipment, particularly longer-range HIMARS missile systems, has enabled Ukrainian forces to attack Russian military infrastructure behind the front lines and supported a counteroffensive in the south — although some military experts argue that the aid so far is insufficient to turn the war decisively in Ukraine's favor.

"Ukrainian forces have begun their counteroffensive in the south of their country, and they are integrating the capabilities that we all have provided to help themselves to fight and reclaim their sovereign territory," Mr. Austin said at the start of the meeting, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

"This contact group needs to position itself to sustain Ukraine's brave defenders for the long haul," he said. "That means the continued and determined flow of capability now."

Russian forces are struggling to capture new territory but show no sign of backing down from the invasion, which has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties on both sides, according to U.S. estimates, and left vast areas of eastern and southern Ukraine in ruins. On Wednesday, President Vladimir V. Putin delivered a defiant address that whitewashed the war's huge toll and his army's faltering performance, proclaiming to an economic conference in Russia's far east: "We have not lost anything, and will not lose anything."

In Germany, Mr. Austin said that the new package of weapons included air-launched HARM missiles designed to seek and destroy Russian air defense radar; guided multiple-launch rocket systems known as GMLRS; howitzers and other artillery; armored ambulances; and small arms.

The State Department said the $2 billion package, which will be drawn from pools of money already authorized by Congress but whose specific allocation Congress must approve, would be divided roughly in half between Ukraine and 18 other nations. They are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The money will be used "build the current and future capabilities" of Ukraine's armed forces and those of the other countries, including by strengthening their cyber and hybrid warfare capabilities, specifically to counter Russian aggression, the State Department said.

The money will also help integrate non-NATO members with the alliances's military forces.

Also on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Blinken met with Ukraine's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba. Earlier in the day, he visited the U.S. Embassy and a children's hospital that is treating children injured in Russian attacks.

Mr. Blinken was also introduced at the hospital to Patron, a Jack Russell terrier that Ukrainian forces have credited with helping unearth hundreds of Russian land mines. Mr. Blinken declared the dog "world famous."

— Michael Crowley and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

KYIV, Ukraine — The head of the United Nations nuclear energy watchdog on Friday stepped up his calls for the creation of a safe zone around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine after renewed shelling caused a widespread blackout in the town where the plant's workers live.

"This is an unsustainable situation and is becoming increasingly precarious," Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in a statement. "The power plant has no offsite power. And we have seen that once infrastructure is repaired, it is damaged once again."

Mr. Grossi said that shelling had destroyed the power infrastructure feeding the plant's satellite town, Enerhodar, leading to a blackout. There was "no running water, no power, no sewage," he said.

"This is completely unacceptable," he added. "It cannot stand."

Ukrainian engineers at the plant are relying on its one active reactor to run the station's critical safety and cooling systems — a precarious stopgap measure that reflects the desperation of the moment, Petro Kotin, the head of the Ukrainian national energy company, Energoatom, said on Thursday.

Mr. Kotin said in an interview on Thursday that while the emergency measure was known to the engineers and outlined in technical documents, it has never been tried for more than a few hours — and has already gone on for days.

The plant has been using the measure since it was disconnected from external power on Monday, leaving diesel generators as the last fail safe, a risky situation in a war zone where fuel supplies could be compromised.

Reconnecting to external power requires spare parts, Mr. Kotin said, and workers were racing to bring them from Ukrainian-controlled territory, crossing the front line to reach the Russian-controlled station. Even so, Mr. Kotin said the "degradation" of the facility continued to grow "worse and worse and worse."

A team of inspectors from the I.A.E.A. visited the plant last week and called for the creation of a safe zone around the facility. Mr. Grossi has said for days that his biggest concern was the station's ability to rely on external power.

While the reactors themselves are designed to withstand a plane crash, power is needed for essential cooling systems that are much more vulnerable. And since Monday, the plant has been running in what is referred to as island mode, using one "hot" reactor pumping out 140 megawatts of power — less than half its normal generation — to provide energy for essential plant equipment.

Mr. Kotin said that the reactor's technical specifications do not envision this mode being used for more than an hour.

Edwin Lyman, a nuclear power expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group in Cambridge, Mass., said the situation was not unprecedented, but was also not standard practice. The I.A.E.A., which sets reactor safety standards for nuclear plants, published a technical document in 2018 that details the backup procedure, also known as "house load operation."

Even plants that have the capability to run in island mode, the I.A.E.A. document noted, may face "a time limit, generally of a few hours."

There are four high-voltage cables running from the plant to the Ukrainian grid and one lower-voltage backup line connected to a nearby fossil-fuel plant. But artillery fire around the plant — Ukraine and Russia each blame the other for the continued shelling — has severed those connections, plus two more lines that run to a small on-site power plant.

On Aug. 25, the plant was completely cut off from external power for the first time in its history, briefly plunging it into blackout and forcing the emergency diesel generators to be switched on. Engineers raced to repair the lower-voltage reserve line and reconnected the plant to the grid 14 hours later.

On Monday, that reserve line was severed again. Mr. Kotin said engineers made the difficult decision to keep one reactor running to supply power to the plant rather than switching immediately to the generators.

Ukrainian officials fear they could be forced to cycle down the plant's last running reactor anyway, because it was not designed to work this way indefinitely.

— Marc Santora

A British aid worker who died in custody after being captured by pro-Russian forces in Ukraine appears to have suffered "possible unspeakable torture," according to the Ukrainian government.

The 45-year-old aid worker, Paul Urey, was captured in April with another Briton, Dylan Healy, by Russian forces at a checkpoint near Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine while working to evacuate civilians there.

Mr. Urey died in July, according to a pro-Russian separatist group and a humanitarian organization that was in contact with him while he was detained. Russian officials had previously claimed that Mr. Urey died in detention from "illness" and "stress."

"Detaining and torturing civilians is barbarism and a heinous war crime," Ukraine's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said in a Twitter post on Wednesday, adding that Mr. Urey's corpse bore signs of possible torture after it had been returned by Russian officials.

I express my deepest condolences to relatives and close ones of Paul Urie. He was a brave man who dedicated himself to saving people. Ukraine will never forget him and his deeds. We will identify perpetrators of this crime and hold them to account. They won't escape justice 2/2

"We are disturbed by reports that aid worker Paul Urey may have been tortured in detention," a spokesperson for Britain's Foreign Office told Sky News on Thursday. "It is essential that we see the results of a full post-mortem as soon as possible."

Mr. Urey was reportedly charged in April with "mercenary activities" in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, the Moscow-backed breakaway enclave in occupied eastern Ukraine.

"From our side, he was given the necessary medical assistance," the human rights ombudsperson for the Kremlin, Daria Morozova, said in a Telegram post after his death in July. She attributed his death to health issues including diabetes, respiratory damage and possible depression.

Britain's Foreign Office summoned the Russian ambassador in July to respond to Mr. Urey's death. Liz Truss, who was then serving as Britain's foreign secretary, and took over as prime minister this week, said in July that she was "shocked" to learn of his death "while in the custody of a Russian proxy in Ukraine."

Mr. Urey's mother, Linda Urey, wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday that she was trying to bring his body back to England from Ukraine. "I’m just hoping he can come home now," she said.

She asked people to contribute to a GoFundMe campaign organized by his 20-year-old daughter, Chelsea Coman, to repatriate his body. His family hoped to give him a burial in his home country "with people who love him and celebrate his life," his daughter wrote on the fund-raiser's webpage.

— Cora Engelbrecht

Six months into "a very tough slog of a war," Ukraine has begun to mount a counteroffensive and Russia's invasion can only be seen as a failure, the director of the C.I.A., William J. Burns, said Thursday.

Citing the counterattacks in the south and around Kharkiv in the northeast, Mr. Burns said that Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, had badly underestimated Ukraine's courage and capacity for combat.

While the final chapter of the war is yet to be written, Mr. Burns said it was "hard to see Putin's record in the war as anything but a failure."

Mr. Burns said that Mr. Putin was surrounded by advisers who are unwilling to challenge him and that the Russian leader mistakenly believed that European resolve will waver and American attention will wander the longer the conflict drags on.

"Putin's bet right now is that he is going to be tougher than the Ukrainians, the Europeans, the Americans," Mr. Burns said, speaking at the Billington CyberSecurity conference in Washington. "I believe, and my colleagues at C.I.A. believe, that Putin is as wrong about that bet as he was profoundly wrong in his assumptions going back to last February about Ukrainian will to resist."

That has had profound consequences, Mr. Burns said.

"Not only has the weakness of the Russian military been exposed," he said, "but there is going to be long-term damage done to the Russian economy and to generations of Russians."

— Julian E. Barnes

The United States on Wednesday accused Moscow of deporting up to 1.6 million Ukrainians to Russia or Russian-controlled territory and subjecting them to a "filtration" process involving invasive security screening, interrogation, family separation and detention.

Thousands of children — including 1,800 in July — have undergone the filtration process, and some have been separated from their parents and placed up for adoption by Russians, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Wednesday at a Security Council meeting that was requested by the United States and Albania to discuss the forced displacement of Ukrainians.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador, said that Moscow's reason for deporting Ukrainians was "to prepare for an attempted annexation" and "to provide a fraudulent veneer of legitimacy for the Russian occupation and eventual, purported annexation of even more Ukrainian territory."

Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said Russia's actions amounted to a war crime and a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which mandates the protection of civilians in conflict zones. She called on Russia to grant access to international observers to investigate the camps and detention facilities where Ukrainian civilians are held.

The meeting followed a report by Human Rights Watch released last week documenting the forcible transfer of Ukrainians from Mariupol and the Kharkiv region to Russian territory or areas in Ukraine controlled by Russia. The report said Russia's actions constituted war crimes.

"Forced transfers and the filtration process constitute and involve separate and distinct abuses against civilians, although many Ukrainian civilians experienced both," the report said.

Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, denied the accusations, calling them disinformation and propaganda "unleashed by Ukraine and its Western backers."

The Russian Defense Ministry has framed the deportation of Ukrainians as part of a humanitarian relief effort. Mr. Nebenzya said that there was no legal definition of "filtration" and that the security screening of Ukrainians was "normal military procedure" similar to what migrants undergo at the southern border of the United States. He reminded the Council that the Trump administration had forcibly separated migrant children from their parents, and that the United States had held prisoners without trial for years at Guantánamo Bay.

Ilze Brands Kehris, assistant secretary general for human rights at the United Nations, told the Council that her office had verified cases of the filtration process resulting in "numerous human rights violations, including of the rights to liberty, security of person and privacy."

The organization's human rights agency has also documented a significant number of cases in which Ukrainians were forced to relocate to Russia but, once there, had freedom of movement, and some chose to travel to other countries or return to Ukraine, Ms. Brands Kehris said.

Ferit Hoxha, Albania's ambassador to the United Nations, said the displacement camps were "another face of Russia's brutality."

"If you play allegiance to the occupier, you are free; if you don't, you are detained and may disappear," he said.

Another Security Council meeting is scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Russia requested the meeting to discuss "real threats," including the foreign sources providing military equipment to Ukraine.

— Farnaz Fassihi

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday announced sanctions against Iranian companies involved in the sale of drones to Russia, part of a continuing effort to pressure military supply chains and make it more difficult for Moscow to resupply its forces fighting in Ukraine.

While the overall Russian economy has so far proven resilient in the face of international pressure, U.S. officials said that American sanctions and export controls had forced the Kremlin to turn to Iran and North Korea for weaponry.

Russia took its first delivery of Iranian drones in late August. And on Monday, a declassified American intelligence report said Russia was buying artillery shells and rockets from North Korea. American officials said Russia's reliance on such pariah states that operate outside the system of international trade was a sign of desperation.

The new sanctions are part of an effort to further hamper the operations of the Iranian firms. Some of the Iranian companies, an American official said, have tried to bypass international sanctions to procure drone components, something the United States hopes to block.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control placed sanctions on four companies, including an Iranian air transport provider, and one company executive in connection with Tehran's sale of Shahed drones.

"Russia is making increasingly desperate choices to continue its unprovoked war against Ukraine, particularly in the face of our unprecedented sanctions and export controls," said Brian E. Nelson, the under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the Treasury Department.

Some of the Treasury actions fell under the department's Russian sanctions while others were done under the Iranian sanction authority. The companies selling the drone equipment to Russia also supply Iran's paramilitary organization, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The sanctions targeted Safiran Airport Services, which helped coordinate the Russian military flights that transported the drones; Paravar Pars Company, which helped develop and produce the drones; Design and Manufacturing of Aircraft Engines, which the Treasury Department said is a front company that procures equipment for drone makers; and the Baharestan Kish Company, which worked on drone components. The Treasury also placed sanctions on Rahmatollah Heidari, the managing director of the Baharestan Kish Company.

As a result of the action, any international foreign bank or financial institution that conducts a transaction involving one of the designated companies could be subject to sanctions.

While existing American secondary sanctions are designed to discourage business dealings with Iran, officials said that designating these companies would expose the Iranian entities involved in the drone deal with Russia and demonstrate the depth of U.S. intelligence about the transaction.

— Julian E. Barnes

The commander of Ukraine's armed forces has acknowledged publicly for the first time that Ukrainian forces were behind last month's missile strikes on a Russian air base in Crimea, calling such attacks deep within Russian-controlled territory a key part of Ukraine's war strategy.

Ukraine for weeks refrained from officially claiming responsibility for the Aug. 9 explosions at Saki Air Base deep inside the Russian-occupied peninsula. Senior officials would only say anonymously to journalists that Ukrainian special forces and guerrilla fighters had carried out the attack.

The commander, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, and a colleague wrote in an article published on Wednesday by Ukrinform, a Ukrainian news agency, that as many as 10 Russian warplanes were destroyed in the attack on the base, on Crimea's western Black Sea coast. It was crucial, he added, to shifting the war's center of gravity and bringing home the costs of the conflict to Russian citizens. The peninsula has been illegally occupied by Russia since 2014.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has alluded to attacks on the peninsula, saying: "One can literally feel in the air of Crimea that the occupation there is temporary."

The attack on the base destroyed Russian warplanes and munitions and shattered a sense of security in a region that has served a significant staging ground for Russia's invasion. It was among a series of explosions and drone attacks in the span of a few weeks on Crimea, which President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has called a "holy land" with symbolic significance to his country.

As the war stretches on, General Zaluzhnyi said, such attacks, enabled by the increasingly powerful weapons supplied by Western allies, would be important for Ukraine's military to make the conflict feel "sharper" and "tangible" in lands occupied by Russia.

The commander also warned in the article, written with Lt. Gen. Mykhailo Zabrodskyi, of the possibility of "limited" nuclear conflict if Russia were to deploy tactical nuclear weapons, which he said would threaten Europe and draw other nations into a broader conflict.

"The prospect of the Third World War is already directly visible," he wrote.

— Victoria Kim

Fighting in northeastern Ukraine this week suggests that Kyiv may be attempting to exploit the redeployment of Russian forces defending against a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south as the sprawling conflict continues into its seventh month.

Ukraine launched an attack outside Kharkiv — the country's second largest city — targeting the town of Balakliya, which is about 55 miles outside the city, according to Russian media reports and the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington research group. Ukrainian forces "likely drove Russian forces back" from the town on Tuesday and also likely captured the nearby village of Verbivka, the institute said.

In his nightly address on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky heralded "good news from the Kharkiv region," though he said it was not the moment to name specific communities restored to Ukrainian control.

"Each success of our military in one direction or another changes the general situation along the entire front line in favor of Ukraine," he said, adding that the more losses Russia's military sustains, the better positioned Ukraine will be to push back on all fronts.

In its overnight report, the institute wrote that what appeared to be "opportunistic counterattacks" had allowed Ukraine to retake several settlements in the southern part of Kharkiv Province. The counterattacks were most likely "prompted and facilitated" by Russian redeployments to the south, the report said.

Reports of Russian troop deployments could not be independently verified.

Any push by Ukraine to reclaim ground on the front in the northeast could complicate Russia's ability to distribute its forces in the conflict's other main areas of fighting: the eastern Donbas region, made up of Luhansk and Donetsk Provinces, and Kherson, where Ukraine announced on Aug. 29 it had launched a counteroffensive to reclaim territory lost since the invasion began in February.

The counteroffensive was already posing a test to Russia's ability to coordinate forces on multiple fronts, a British military intelligence report said on Wednesday.

Ukrainian efforts around Balakliya could have repercussions for Russian logistics in the area of Izium, a city about 40 miles southeast of Kharkiv, as well as in towns and villages along a jagged frontline between the two. Moscow has used Izium as a base for its broader attack on the Donbas region, where separatists backed by Moscow have fought Ukrainian forces since 2014.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has prioritized capturing that region. In early July, Russian forces seized the last city in Luhansk, but since then their attempt to advance in neighboring Donetsk has slowed.

Ukraine repelled an attempt by Moscow to seize Kharkiv earlier this year, pushing Russian forces back to positions near the border which, at its closest point, is a mere 30 miles away. But Russian forces remain close enough to launch regular missile strikes, which continue to batter the area.

Russian forces sent shells slamming into the Nemyshlianskyi neighborhood of Kharkiv overnight, according to the city's mayor, Ihor Terekhov, wrecking several cars and setting an industrial facility on fire.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg

A chimpanzee in Ukraine enjoyed about two hours of freedom after escaping from the Kharkiv Zoo earlier this week before she was coaxed into returning to the zoo atop a zookeeper's bicycle.

The 10-year-old chimpanzee, Chichi, roamed through a park and the streets near the central city square in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, before she was found unharmed by a primate keeper from the zoo.

Video of the episode shows the employee, Victoria Kozyreva, sitting with Chichi and unsuccessfully trying to persuade her to return to the zoo with members of the zoo's staff. But later, when it started to rain, Chichi ran back to Ms. Kozyreva, who covered the animal in her own jacket before the two embraced.

Chichi was then wheeled back to the Kharkiv Zoo, perched on a zookeeper's bicycle. Oleksiy Grigoriev, the zoo's director, confirmed to the Ukrainian public broadcaster, Suspilne, that the chimpanzee had been returned safely to her enclosure.

How the animal escaped remained unclear.

Several videos of the efforts to corral Chichi were shared widely on social media, offering a Ukrainian city that has faced unrelenting bombardment by Russian forces a rare moment of levity.

Over the past six months, Kharkiv has endured a nearly constant stream of incoming artillery. Early in the war, Russian forces tried to surround and capture the city, but were eventually forced back by the Ukrainians.

Chichi, who a Zoo spokesman said was known for her warm and friendly nature, has also overcome great odds. In early March, she was evacuated from Feldman Ecopark, an outdoor zoo in an area of northern Kharkiv that began removing animals when the invasion began in February.

According to the zoo spokesman, Vadym Vorotynskyi, all of the animals from Feldman Ecopark have been relocated, many of them to the Ukrainian cities of Poltava, Dnipro, Lviv and Odesa. But shelling during the evacuation effort killed around 100 animals, including two orangutans, a chimpanzee, two bison, a large number of big cats and countless birds.

The zoo's owner, Oleksandr Feldman, has told reporters that at least six people who volunteered to help with the evacuation of the animals from Feldman Ecopark were killed.

But even after being moved, Chichi and the other animals at the Kharkiv Zoo remain in danger and susceptible to stress from the noise of air raid sirens and artillery fire, which remains a constant threat.

Senior Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday that three civilians had been killed by Russian rocket attacks outside Kharkiv. Separately, another rocket badly damaged a mostly vacant apartment building near the city center.

— Lauren McCarthy

A factory making iconic French bistro glasses is idling its furnaces to offset soaring energy costs. Cities around France are turning off streetlamps and other outdoor lighting to curb electricity use. In Normandy, some schools will start heating classrooms by burning wood to conserve natural gas.

As Russia tightens its chokehold on Europe's energy supplies, France is embarking on its biggest energy conservation effort since the 1970s oil crisis. President Emmanuel Macron's government is calling on the French to prepare for a new era of energy "sobriety" to face down the threat of a hard winter, while reassuring households and businesses about the government's ability to protect them.

"We have been confronted with a series of crises, one more grave than the other," Mr. Macron said in a televised speech to the nation late last month. "The picture that I’m painting is one of the end of abundance," he added. "We have reached a tipping point."

The national effort calls for businesses and individuals to embrace energy conservation by increasing car-pooling, lowering thermostats and shutting off illuminated advertising signs at night — to name a few — or face the risk of rolling blackouts or energy rationing.

On Friday, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the energy transition minister, sought to reassure wary citizens, saying the government would try to "avoid restrictive measures" over energy use in the peak winter cold season.

The government has been spending lavishly — over 26 billion euros ($26 billion) since Russia's invasion of Ukraine — to keep gas and electric bills affordable, and last week it announced that its cap on household energy bills would be extended until the end of the year. The moves to control energy costs, including the re-nationalization of the energy provider EDF, have helped give France one of the lowest inflation rates in Europe, at 6.5 percent. (The overall eurozone rate for August was 9.1 percent.)

But with food and fuel costs still straining French families, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne has called on businesses to make the bulk of the nation's energy savings — fast. Companies will be required to cut their energy use by 10 percent or face enforced rationing of electricity and gas.

— Liz Alderman