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Recently, at a closed ski resort in Ukraines Carpathian Mountains, Roman Davydov leaned into a microphone and announced the latest news from the war. Kryvyi Rih, in southern Ukraine, was being attacked; a U.S. journalist had been shot; and the British Foreign Secretary had announced new sanctions on Russian oligarchs in London. Davydov, who is forty-three, with dark hair and an oft-furrowed brow, is the voice of Kraina FM, an independent radio station that, after Russian bombing began in Kyiv, relocated to an undisclosed location. (The staff of Kraina FM asked me not to identify the village, for security reasons.) Outside Davydovs improvised booth, a corner office lent to Kraina FM by a local accountant, an odd sense of normalcy reigned. Beyond the ski-rental shop, where a cluster of sandbags had been piled, a man in a blue jacket and ski goggles operated a small lift for a childrens slope in the bright sunshine.

The area, which is several hours south of Lviv, has become a shelter for displaced people, Bogdan Bolkhovetsky, Davydovs colleague, told me. Bolkhovetsky, Kraina FMs station general manager, said that he and Davydov had arrived in the village by pure chance. The west of the country is full of refugees, and there are few places for families to stay as they make their way toward the borders of Europe. We found this place because it was the only place vacant, Bolkhovetsky said. They arrived in the evening on February 27th; just days later they were setting up the station in a sloped-ceilinged, wood-panelled space that barely fit their two desks. They acquired laptops and a mixer from the supply of aid making its way from the rest of Europe to Ukraine. We called our friends in Austria and they were so quick, Bolkhovetsky said. Guys weve never met just sent us the equipment, and a friend of ours brought this equipment in. I mean, they brought us these German laptops and the mixing console and weve never seen these people before.

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Kraina FM is an independent radio station that grew out of a now defunct channel called Radio EU. Until the Russian invasion, the station mainly played Ukrainian rock and pop, although it also featured childrens programming and occasional news flashes that, when the channel was launched, in 2016, Davydov said would be the most independent among Kyivs radio stations. Kraina FM was more funny and easy, Davydov told me later, in an e-mail. Now its mostly just rock and not happy information. Like millions of other Ukrainians who have fled their homes, most of the stations staff left Kyiv after the fighting began. Everyone was scattered for two or three days, Bolkhovetsky told me. You look at Google Maps, you see the name of the city and you just start calling hotels to stay overnight.

Bolkhovetsky, who is forty-nine, had awoken from a terrible nightmare on February 24th, when he saw a news alertPutin addresses the nationand heard the first low thuds of Russian bombs exploding around the capital. I just started packing the bags, throwing everything in, he said. With his wife and nine-year-old son, he fled to a summer house outside Kyiv. Within days, Russian helicopters were attacking nearby. Some flew low enough for him to see the pilots in the cockpit. The faces look like you, he said. Just people on the job, like fucking robots. His son spent most of the day in the basement, still in his pajamas. At one point, when the helicopters flew off, Bolkhovetsky piled his family into the car. Once he had reached a town that was not being attacked, he called Davydov, and together they searched for a safe place to set up the station.

Davydov had fled Kyiv with his wife and three-year-old daughter, heading to his wifes office in central Kyiv, where they thought they would be safe. But Russian shelling forced them to seek shelter underground for days. Davydov had a microphone and a connector in the trunk of his car, a setup that he had previously used to record soccer news late at night for early-morning bulletins. Despite the shelling, Davydov kept the broadcasts going, recording one-man news items and uploading them remotely during pauses in the explosions. For two or three days we broadcast only with my one microphone, he said. In the background of these first recordings, one can hear children and dogsDavydov was recording them in the crowded shelter with his head enveloped in a plaid shirt to muffle the sound.

Both Bolkhovetsky and Davydov have spent most of their careers working in radio. Davydov studied economics, but, when he was eighteen, he started doing humor programs for a station in what is now called Kamianske, a city of more than two hundred thousand people on the Dnieper River, and never looked back. He has worked just about every job on the air sincecopywriter, traffic manager, music director, brand voices, program director. In 2004, he moved to Kyiv. Bolkhovetsky, who was born in Luhansk, an eastern region of Ukraine claimed by Russia-backed separatists, worked as an English and French teacher before going into radio in the late nineteen-nineties. He moved to Kyiv in 2005 and worked at a succession of different radio stations.

Once they got Kraina FM up and running at their mountain location, a representative from the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting in Ukraine requested that they play a national broadcast. Everybody else switched to the national station, Bolkhovetsky told me. It was a continuous broadcast of just one program on TV stations and everywhere. Bolkhovetsky and Davydov decided to continue their own programming. I mean, you tune in to any station and it is the same, Bolkhovetsky told me. Whats the point? Lets have one which is different. They decided to re-create Kraina FM as the station of national resistance.

At the moment, Kraina FM is broadcasting to some twenty cities and online. During the first week, the programming was almost exclusively news about the Russian advance. By the second week, the station had morphed into something profoundly different, cordinating humanitarian logistics and explaining which towns needed what. And a lighter side also crept into the programming. In the first week, we didnt think about something funny, Davydov said. And now its humor about Russiansaggressive humorpoetry, patriotic poetry, some little features about Ukrainians. They broadcast a famous Ukrainian Father Christmas telling childrens tales at night and a psychologist who gives advice for how to care for children during days marked by shelling and air strikestalk to them kindly, show love, listen, and dont contradict what the child says.

A network of around fifteen people, in Ukraine, Poland, and Russia, helps them put out Kraina FMs programs remotely. They use Ukrainian news agencies and the app Telegram to source and put together bulletins. The Internet connection is awful, and theyre often unable to upload stories and recordings. Usually, Kraina FMs programming reaches about a million people, but these days they have no idea how many people are listening. The person who would normally monitor that is likely still in Kyiv, presumably with more urgent matters to contemplate. Perhaps the real measure of the stations popularity has been its drives to locate supplies for the Ukrainian military, first responders, and other humanitarian groups. One day a television producer in Kyiv told them that the military needed a hundred laptops. Davydov and Bolkhovetsky announced the request on air. We made the announcement, like, every fifteen minutes or twenty minutes, Bolkhovetsky said. About two hours later, the military called back; they had enough laptops. Nevertheless, laptops continued to flood in. When I asked why they continued to produce the show, Bolkhovetsky pointed to this experience. What other reason do you need in this moment?

The ski village is something of a transit hub for people fleeing across the border. People come, people go, Bolkhovetsky told me. Thats how it works here.At a certain point, the time came for their own families to leavetheir wives and children had been anxiously spending their days in the resorts hotel rooms while Bolkhovetsky and Davydov got the station running. Both families fled to other parts of Europe. Its better to be by ourselves, Bolkhovetsky told me. They will take care of themselves and well take care of business and ourselves. Still, saying goodbye, he said, was terrible, like never before. Its not compared to anything in my life, to anything.

Under Ukraines current martial law, military reservists between the age of eighteen and sixty have to register to be conscripted into the Army, and all other men in that age group are not supposed to leave the country. Even if Bolkhovetsky and Davydov wanted to leave, they would not be able to. I asked Bolkhovetsky and Davydov whether, if called up, they would fight against the Russians. On one of their first days in the village, Bolkhovetsky told me, We went to the local military station and we said, We are here. What do you want us to do?

What can you do? the local soldiers asked them.

We can do radio, Bolkhovetsky replied.

On hearing this, the unit chief looked at him. So go and make radio, he said.

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Ukraines Radio Station of National Resistance - The New Yorker

Refugees from Ukraine, which has a high rate of tuberculosis, are often screened for the disease. Above: Dr. Natalie Whrle analyzes the X-ray images of the lungs from a screening in Gauting, Germany, on March 12. Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images hide caption

Refugees from Ukraine, which has a high rate of tuberculosis, are often screened for the disease. Above: Dr. Natalie Whrle analyzes the X-ray images of the lungs from a screening in Gauting, Germany, on March 12.

"We have 20 patients we can't find, so we don't know if they are alive or not," says Dr. Olha Konstantynovska.

She's referring to the tuberculosis patients under her care in Kharkiv, where, as in much of Ukraine, the Russian war has disrupted lives including her own. She and her three daughters evacuated to her father's home about 20 miles away after a bomb hit a building down the street from their apartment.

Before she evacuated from Kharkiv because of Russian attacks on the city, Dr. Olha Konstantynovska treated tuberculosis patients at local hospitals. Olha Konstantynovska hide caption

Before she evacuated from Kharkiv because of Russian attacks on the city, Dr. Olha Konstantynovska treated tuberculosis patients at local hospitals.

TB a serious bacterial infection of the lungs is a big problem in Ukraine. According to the World Health Organization, the country has the fourth highest incidence of the disease in Europe. And it has one of the highest rates of multidrug resistant TB anywhere in the world.

In the tuberculosis hospital in Kharkiv, where Konstantynovska treats TB patients, about 70 of the 200 residential beds are filled. That's because at the beginning of the war, her team discharged as many people as possible to allow them to evacuate.

"I called to the hospital to speak with one doctor and she said that hospital has no potato and bread," says Konstantynovska. "We have drugs, but we have no food."

She says that before the war, "people from the whole city of Kharkiv two and a half million citizens [went] to this dispensary to be checked for tuberculosis." It's also where those with TB could receive medication, treatment and even surgery if necessary. Konstantynovska is a member of the small army of people in Ukraine who've mounted a stiff resistance against the disease, one that's been supported by the government.

But now, Konstantynovska says doctors are having a hard time getting to the hospital in Kharkiv. It's too dangerous to move about outside, and the roads are ravaged. One of the physicians walks a total of three hours each day to get to and from work. The head of a local dispensary is living in her office because her apartment was destroyed.

The view from inside the apartment of Dr. Tetiana Synenko, a TB specialist in Kharkiv, and a glimpse of the wreckage on her way to work. She's now living with 12 others in a nearby cellar. Tetiana Synenko hide caption

The view from inside the apartment of Dr. Tetiana Synenko, a TB specialist in Kharkiv, and a glimpse of the wreckage on her way to work. She's now living with 12 others in a nearby cellar.

Without intervention, people can live with tuberculosis and spread it, through the air for years. At some point, however, usually due to the stresses of hunger and injury; or a weakened immune system, it can turn fatal. Treatment consists of an antibiotics regimen that takes anywhere from six months to two years.

The contagiousness of TB is why Konstantynovska is especially worried about those missing patients. If they're on the move, she says, they're taking their TB with them, giving the disease more opportunities to spread through the air. "Eleven patients right now are in other regions of Ukraine," she adds. "They are trying to find the drugs because they stop[ped] treatment two weeks ago."

Interrupting an antibiotic regimen aimed at TB is worrisome for two reasons. First, drugs prevent someone from infecting others. So without meds, the disease has more opportunities to spread. And second, TB can become insensitive to the drugs if they're not taken regularly because insufficient dosing gives the tuberculosis bacteria time to mutate, selecting for populations of the bug that can dodge the meds. This is called multidrug resistant tuberculosis.

There's even extensively drug-resistant TB when the bacteria don't respond to the first or second lines of drugs. And once that form of resistant TB emerges, it can be passed from person to person, transmitted through the air just like regular TB. In 2020, a third of Ukraine's TB cases were drug-resistant, one of the highest rates in the world. And that number is likely to grow.

That's why Loyce Pace, the assistant secretary for global affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says her office is coordinating with the CDC and USAID "to track patients [within and beyond Ukraine] to understand where they are, what they need in terms of their meds and ensure that there's no gap."

To understand why Ukraine has so many TB cases, we need to rewind a hundred years.

For much of the twentieth century, when Ukraine was a republic of the former Soviet Union, tuberculosis was managed rather well, according to Tom Nicholson, executive director of the non-profit Advanced Access and Delivery. "The medical care system was quite comprehensive and was based on community medicine," he says. "It had a system of rural health posts, even in the most far-flung areas." There may not have been doctors on-site, but there were often nurses and medical technicians who could do a chest X-ray to screen for TB and dispense drugs to treat it.

The situation deteriorated with the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991. The economy in its republics tanked. Unemployment soared. Crime escalated, which sent a lot of people to prison. And that created a kind of "epidemiological pump," says Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee, director of the Center for Global Health Delivery at Harvard Medical School.

"Some people had TB," he explains. "It spread in the jails and in the prisons. And then they went back to their community, of course, when they were released. So the TB also went back to the communities." Tuberculosis rates soared, he says, including in some parts of Ukraine, which regained independence that same year.

During his work at a prison in Tomsk, Russia, Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee received this honey pot carved out of wood by a few of the prisoners. "It has a lot of meaning because this is where we showed that it was possible to bring [TB] mortality down close to zero if you got people the right treatment," he says. Salmaan Keshavjee hide caption

During his work at a prison in Tomsk, Russia, Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee received this honey pot carved out of wood by a few of the prisoners. "It has a lot of meaning because this is where we showed that it was possible to bring [TB] mortality down close to zero if you got people the right treatment," he says.

With government resources, Ukraine has since worked hard to build back its infrastructure for treating TB, registering a decade of declines between 2010 and 2020. But then COVID hit. Lockdowns early on in the pandemic shuttered hospitals where routine screening would take place.

Olha Konstantynovska's three daughters, afraid of an air attack, sleep in their apartment bathroom in Kharkiv. After an explosion down the street, the TB doctor and her family fled. Olha Konstantynovska hide caption

Olha Konstantynovska's three daughters, afraid of an air attack, sleep in their apartment bathroom in Kharkiv. After an explosion down the street, the TB doctor and her family fled.

"Sometimes it was impossible to check patients for TB," says Dr. Olha Konstantynovska, the physician currently living with her extended family outside of Kharkiv.

Without proper screenings and treatment, when tuberculosis did manifest and people came to the hospital, they'd be in bad shape severely underweight, a wracking cough, bleeding in the lungs.

In 2020, the percent of people receiving treatment fell dramatically from 75% the year prior to just over half. And now, in many parts of the country, the war's upended everything further.

In the chaos of battle, diseases find opportunity, disproportionately affecting people at the margins of society. Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee says, "In these moments of deprivation as a result of war, as a result of being refugees, as a result of being crowded in, not having enough food, et cetera, your TB rates go up." This isn't just true of Ukraine.

"I've spent many years working [with TB] with prison and other populations in Russia," says Keshavjee. "I have grave concerns that many of them are going to be dying. My guess is that they're trying to maintain their TB treatment programs. But Russia's under sanction. As funds and things get diverted to other efforts, you will see that the drug supply is going to drop."

Dr. Vasyl Petrenko visits a tuberculosis clinic in Kyiv before the war. Tatiana Butkivska. hide caption

Dr. Vasyl Petrenko visits a tuberculosis clinic in Kyiv before the war.

For now, Ukraine's stockpile of tuberculosis drugs is sufficient, provided they can be distributed. For instance, in Kyiv, Dr. Vasyl Petrenko, head of the physiatry and pulmonology department at Bogomolets National Medical University, says that Russian assaults on the city are limiting treatment options for patients.

When he's able to do his rounds, he tells his patients not to worry. "We are going to win," he reassures them. "The victory will be ours." He says it's crucial for morale. "It gives a lot of power, energy to every single person here."

The question is, how long will his optimism last?

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Russia's war with Ukraine is devastating for Ukraine's war on TB - NPR

LONDON Three European leaders staged a defiant show of support for Ukraine on Tuesday, traveling to its besieged capital, Kyiv, even as a relentless Russian artillery bombardment left apartment towers in the city ablaze, forcing terrified residents to flee into the street with only the clothes on their backs.

The dramatic visit by the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia, which unfolded in tight secrecy as they crossed the Ukrainian border by train after dawn, was a strikingly personal gesture. But it caught other European leaders off guard, angering some and baring uncomfortable divisions in how best to demonstrate Western solidarity with Ukraine.

It also came as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia disparaged the second consecutive day of negotiations with Ukraine, undercutting the faint glimmers of hope raised from talks the day before that both sides were looking for a way to halt the war.

The Kremlin slapped retaliatory sanctions on President Biden and other senior American officials. Mr. Biden announced his own plans to travel to Europe next week to showcase the unity of the NATO alliance in the face of Russian aggression.

A spokesman for Polands prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said the three visitors were de facto representing the European Union in Ukraine. In Brussels, however, officials said the trio did not have the E.U.s blessing, and some European diplomats complained that the trip was too risky, given the Russian forces encircling Kyiv.

Others said they admired the audacity of the group, which also included Prime Minister Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic and Prime Minister Janez Jansa of Slovenia, casting it as a powerful symbol of the backing for Ukraine among countries on Europes eastern flank, where the specter of Russian aggression looms larger than in Paris or London.

Still, for all the symbolism of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraines leaders under the threat of Russias rockets, Ukraine was facing the devastating barrage largely on its own. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, imposed a 35-hour curfew, starting on Tuesday evening, which suggested the capital was entering an even more difficult phase of its grinding struggle to hold off Russian troops and tanks.

This is their attempt to annihilate the Ukrainian people, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in an emotional video address to the Canadian Parliament, repeating his plea for NATO to enforce a no-fly zone over the country. It is an attempt to destroy our future, our nation, our character.

Mr. Zelensky asked the lawmakers to imagine if the CN Tower in Toronto were shelled like the towers in Kyiv. His language has become more pointed, even scolding, with each speech to a Western audience, revealing his frustration with leaders who have resisted more direct military involvement out of fear that it would entangle them in a wider conflict with Russia.

The Ukrainian leader, who has become a hero to many in the West, is scheduled to speak via video to Congress on Wednesday, where he is expected to amplify his pleas for more help and increase the pressure on the United States and its allies.

Mr. Biden is planning to announce $800 million in new security assistance to Ukraine on Wednesday, according to White House officials. The administration last week announced $200 million in security assistance for Ukraine and has made available a total of $2 billion in such funding.

On Tuesday evening, the Polish state broadcaster carried video of the Czech, Slovene and Polish leaders meeting Mr. Zelensky and other officials across a long table, with Ukraines blue-and-yellow flag behind them.

They are here to support us, Mr. Zelensky said at a news briefing after the meeting, which also was shown on Ukrainian television. It is a great, courageous, right, friendly step. I am confident that with such friends, such countries and neighbors and partners, we can really win.

A photograph posted earlier on Mr. Morawieckis Twitter account showed the three men poring over a map, seated in what appeared to be a train carriage en route to the Ukrainian capital.

It is here, in war-torn Kyiv, that history is being made, Mr. Morawiecki said in the Twitter post. It is here, that freedom fights against the world of tyranny. It is here that the future of us all hangs in the balance.

The White House announced that Mr. Biden would fly to Brussels for an extraordinary summit meeting of NATO on March 24. That may result in further economic and military aid for Ukraine but will likely fall short of Mr. Zelenskys request for a no-fly zone. Administration officials declined to say whether Mr. Biden planned to meet with the Ukrainian president, whom he has called a hero. But they said Mr. Biden may go on to somewhere in Eastern Europe to meet with refugees streaming out of Ukraine.

The river of people fleeing the war continued unabated on Tuesday, as Russia claimed to have seized control of the strategic Kherson region in the south. Russian forces kept up their pounding of civilian targets in Kyiv, where Ukrainian troops were fortifying intersections with sandbags, tires, and iron spikes.

A pre-dawn rain of rockets on Kyiv shattered windows, left craters in buildings, and turned a 16-floor apartment house into a towering inferno. The fire spread quickly after a missile struck the building, blowing a jagged hole at its entrance. Firefighters rescued residents from windows by ladder through billowing smoke. By midafternoon, they had carried out two bodies encased in black bags.

I came out with nothing, said Mykola Fedkiv, 85, a retired geologist. I left everything, my telephone, my medicines, everything.

When the missile struck, Mr. Fedkiv fled his 12th-floor apartment and made his way down the stairs. He climbed through the blasted entrance hall and found himself in the bomb crater. People pulled him out by his arms. He stood outside for hours, hoping to re-enter his apartment to collect personal documents. Asked where he planned to stay the night, he responded, God knows.

Conditions were even more desperate in the coastal city of Mariupol, which has been pummeled by Russian forces in a two-week siege that has left some residents crushed in the rubble and many others dying in a winter freeze with no heat, food, or clean water. Officials can no longer account for the number of dead and missing.

Officially, 2,400 civilians killed in Mariupol have been identified, but Pyotr Andryushchenko, an adviser to the city government, said he believed the toll was far higher, possibly as many as 20,000. Ukrainian estimates of the number of people trapped have ranged from 200,000 to 400,000.

Mr. Andryushchenko said 2,000 vehicles had managed to escape Mariupol on Tuesday and that another 2,000 were packed and ready to leave. Officials told civilians to delete all messages and photos from phones in case Russian soldiers searched them for signs of support for Ukrainian forces.

The perils of reporting accurate information from Ukraines combat zones were further underscored Tuesday with news that a Fox News cameraman and a Ukrainian colleague had been killed in an attack on Monday outside Kyiv raising to at least three the number of journalist fatalities in Ukraine in the past few days.

In Kherson, a southern city under Russian occupation, the mayor said that members of Russias national guard were rounding up activists who opposed Russias presence, possibly trying to recruit them through coercion.

Theyre all in the city, in the jail, the mayor, Igor Kolykhaev, wrote in several text messages, referring to the activists. Russian troops, he said, collect them, hold them, work them over and release them.

Kherson was the first major city to fall to Russian forces after the Feb. 24 start of the invasion. Although Kremlin officials had predicted that the Ukrainian people would welcome their liberation by Russian troops, residents of Kherson have been defiant, regularly gathering in the central square to protest the Russian presence, even when Russian troops fire into the air to disperse them.

Russia claimed to have captured the entire Kherson region, potentially strengthening its ability to push west toward the strategic port cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa. A senior Ukrainian military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that Russian forces were in control of much of the Kherson region, but said Ukrainian forces were attacking their positions and inflicting losses.

Negotiations via video link between Russia and Ukraine continued for a second day on Tuesday, though Mr. Putin doused prospects of any imminent breakthrough. In a phone call with the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, Mr. Putin complained that Kyiv is not demonstrating a serious attitude toward finding mutually acceptable solutions, according to the Kremlin.

Mr. Putin also continued to struggle in the information battle with Ukraine. On Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron of France said his country could offer diplomatic protection to a Russian state television employee who was detained and fined over an on-air antiwar protest on Monday.

The employee, Marina Ovsyannikova, burst onto the live broadcast of Russias most-watched news program on Monday evening, yelling, Stop the war! and holding a sign that read, Theyre lying to you here.

Russia also faced further isolation from Britain, which imposed sanctions on more than 370 people it labeled oligarchs, political allies of, or propagandists for Mr. Putin. Among those blacklisted: Dmitri A. Medvedev, the former president of Russia; Mikhail Mishustin, the current prime minister; and Mikhail Fridman, the billionaire founder of Alfa Bank, one of the countrys largest private banks.

Russia, for its part, said it had sanctioned 13 Americans including Mr. Biden, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III in response to American sanctions against Mr. Putin and other officials. Also on its list was Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former secretary of state, and Mr. Bidens son, Hunter Biden.

Mr. Bidens press secretary, Jen Psaki, shrugged off the news, suggesting in jest that the Kremlins announcement might have missed its intended mark. The president, Ms. Psaki said, is a junior, so they might have sanctioned his dad by mistake.

Mark Landler reported from London, and Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels. Reporting was contributed by Carlotta Gall and Lynsey Addario from Kyiv, Ukraine; Michael Schwirtz from Odessa, Ukraine; Anton Troianovski from Istanbul; Andrew Higgins from Warsaw; Ian Austen from Ottawa; Steven Erlanger from Brussels; David E. Sanger, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Glenn Thrush from Washington; and Michael M. Grynbaum from New York.

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What Happened on Day 20 of Russias Invasion of Ukraine - The New York Times

A Ukrainian service member unpacks Javelin anti-tank missiles, delivered by plane as part of the U.S. military support package for Ukraine, at the Boryspil International Airport outside Kyiv, Ukraine February 10, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

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Ukraine, March 19 (Reuters) - Ukraine will receive a new shipment of U.S. weapons within days, including Javelin and Stinger missiles, Ukraines National Security and Defence Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said in a televised interview on Saturday.

The (weapons) will be on the territory of our country in the nearest future. We are talking about days, Danilov said.

Ukraine's allies have delivered planeloads of weapons shipments to bolster its military against the Russian invasion. Russia has criticised such deliveries from NATO member states.

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Reporting by Max Hunder; editing by Matthias Williams

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Ukraine to receive more U.S. Javelin and Stinger missiles within days, Ukraine official says - Reuters UK

LVIV, Ukraine Russian forces are pressing their assault on Ukrainian cities, striking on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv and the western city of Lviv, as world leaders push for an investigation of the Kremlin's repeated attacks on civilian targets.

Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said Friday on Telegram that several missiles hit a facility used to repair military aircraft and damaged a bus repair facility, though no casualties were immediately reported.

The plant had suspended work ahead of the attack, the mayor said.

The missiles that hit Lviv were launched from the Black Sea, but two of the six that were launched were shot down, the Ukrainian air force's western command said on Facebook.

Lviv is located just a few dozen miles from Ukraine's western border with NATO ally Poland.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, rescue workers are still searching for survivors in the ruins of a theater that was serving as a shelter in the besieged southern city of Mariupol.

While officials have not yet announced the number of casualties from the theater attack, CNN reports that more than a thousand people were sheltering in the facility at the time of the bombing. Prior to the attack, Ukrainians had spelled out the word "children" in Russian in large letters outside of the building.

In Merefa, near the northeast city of Kharkiv, at least 21 people were killed when Russian artillery destroyed a school and a community center Thursday.

The World Health Organization has verified 43 attacks on hospitals and health facilities in Ukraine.

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Russia targets Lviv with airstrikes