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Russia-Ukraine war: What happened today (May 10)

5:20pm May 10, 2022

by NPR Staff

An Ukrainian firefighter works near a destroyed building on the outskirts of Odesa, Ukraine, on Tuesday. The Ukrainian military said Russian forces fired seven missiles a day earlier from the air at the crucial Black Sea port of Odesa, hitting a shopping Max Pshybyshevsky / AP

As Tuesday draws to a close in Kyiv and in Moscow, here are the key developments of the day:

Russian missiles struck the outskirts of the southern port city of Odesa overnight. Ukrainian authorities said seven missiles were firedeah and hit a shopping center and warehouse, killing at least one person. They suggested Russian troops were relying on old missiles with faulty targeting systems. The Russian military has said its key targets included storage and transport lines for Western weapons. The Pentagon said it was unclear how well Russian targeting was working, or the objectives of the strikes.

Lithuania became the first country to declare Russia a perpetrator of terrorism, according to Ukraine's Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security. Lithuania's parliament also voted unanimously to designate Russia's actions in Ukraine as genocide, joining Canadian lawmakers in making this formal accusation.

The U.S may soon have an ambassador to Ukraine — for the first time since 2019. Congressional confirmation hearings began for President Biden's nominee, Bridget Brink, a veteran diplomat currently serving as ambassador to Slovakia. If confirmed, she will become the first Senate-approved envoy to Ukraine since former President Donald Trump fired Marie Yovanovitch, who later testified in Trump's first impeachment inquiry.

Leonid Kravchuk — Ukraine's first president, who led the country to independence as the Soviet Union collapsed — died at 88. He was a driving force in Ukraine's declaration of independence from the USSR in 1991 and served as president until 1994. In 2020, he returned to politics to try to negotiate a settlement for the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists had fought Ukrainian forces since 2014.

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The ripple effects of Russia's war in Ukraine are changing the world: stores running out of cooking oil, farmers scrambling for fertilizer, nations rethinking alliances. See the seismic and tangible repercussions in all corners of the globe.