The Latest Breaking News from Kharkiv

Seven Sri Lankans held captive by Russian forces in an agricultural factory in eastern Ukraine say they were beaten and tortured for months before escaping on foot as the Russians withdrew from the Kharkiv region

Arrests made in 32 cities at rallies against mobilisation; border crossings from Russia to Finland have doubled and 10km queue reported at frontier with Georgia

Protests after Russia calls up reservists and repeats nuclear threats; ‘referendums’ announced for four occupied regions; and life after liberation

Moscow to ‘use sham votes to further escalate war’, warns Jens Stoltenberg

Ukraine says three more grave sites have been located in areas retaken by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine launched a major counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region on September 6. This operation surprised Russia and led to the withdrawal of Russian soldiers from several strategic cities in eastern Ukraine, such as Izium. Our reporters Gulliver Cragg and Gwendoline Debono met with Ukrainian soldiers who took part in the…

Russia’s war call-up comes as troops suffer battlefield losses and amid plans to annex more Ukrainian territory.

Villagers describe allegations of abuse and officials say they found a torture chamber in Kozacha Lopan, in the Kharkiv region, which Russian forces invaded and took over at the start of the war.

Ukraine is beginning work to demine 12,000 square km (4,633 square miles) of territory wrested back from Russian control in the eastern Kharkiv region, an emergency service official said on Wednesday.

Alexander Glushko says he spent the last fortnight of the Russian occupation of his hometown of Izium in northeast Ukraine jailed by Russian soldiers in the dank ruins of a police station where he was tortured with electric wires.

Those returning, and those who never left, are weighing their fortunes. ‘We don’t have power,’ one says. ‘But we are alive’