Melitopol Mayor abducted by Russian Forces, Ukraine says

The Russian forces have made advancements in southern Ukraine's Melitopol and have captured the city's mayor. "A group of 10 occupiers kidnapped the mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov," Ukraine's parliament said on Twitter. "He refused to cooperate with the enemy," it added. Ukraine says Russian forces kidnapped him after falsely accusing him of terrorism. Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, raised the alleged abduction in an address to the UN Security Council, asking the Russian delegate for help securing Federov’s release.

The Russian forces expanded their offensive in Ukraine during the day as they conducted airstrikes in new areas in the country's west, while Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the recruitment of “volunteers” from Syria and elsewhere to join the fight. Russian forces bombarded cities across the country and appeared to be regrouping for a possible assault on Kyiv, with satellite images showing them firing artillery as they closed in on the capital. The governor of the Kharkiv region, along the Russian border, said a psychiatric hospital had been hit, and the mayor of the city of Kharkiv said about 50 schools there had been destroyed.