BREAKING Canada's GDP rises amid expert fears of rate-hike recession
Statistics Canada says real gross domestic product rose 0.2 per cent in February. The growth followed a 0.5 per cent gain in January.
Three Russian missiles slammed into a downtown area of the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv on Wednesday, hitting an eight-floor apartment building and killing at least 17 people, authorities said.
At least 61 people, including three children, were wounded in the morning attack, Ukrainian emergency services said, as rescue workers searched through partially demolished buildings and tall mounds of rubble.
Chernihiv lies about 150 kilometres (90 miles) north of the capital, Kyiv, near the border with Russia and Belarus, and has a population of around 250,000 people.
The latest Russian bombardment came as the war has stretched into its third year and approaches what could be a critical juncture. A lack of further military support from Ukraine's Western partners increasingly leaves it at the mercy of the Kremlin's bigger forces.
Through the winter months, Russia made no dramatic advance along the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line, focusing instead on attritional warfare. However, Ukraine's shortage of artillery ammunition, troops and armored vehicles has allowed the Russians to gradually push forward, military analysts say.
A crucial factor is the holdup in Washington of approval for an aid package that includes roughly $60 billion for Ukraine. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday that he would try to move the package forward this week.
Ukraine's need is acute, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
"The Russians are breaking out of positional warfare and beginning to restore maneuver to the battlefield because of the delays in the provision of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine," the ISW said in an assessment late Tuesday, adding that "only the U.S. can provide rapidly and at scale."
Ukraine got some good news Wednesday from Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, who said his country has secured 500,000 artillery shells for Ukraine from countries outside the European Union. The first shells are due for delivery in June.
The 27-nation EU promised a year ago to send Ukraine 1 million artillery shells, but the bloc was unable to produce that many.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded with Western countries to provide more air defense equipment, including more surface-to-air Patriot guided missile systems. He said the Chernihiv strike "would not have happened if Ukraine had received enough air defense equipment and if the world's determination to counter Russian terror was also sufficient."
Zelenskyy told PBS in an interview broadcast earlier this week that Ukraine recently ran out of air defense missiles while it was defending against a major missile and drone attack that destroyed one of Ukraine's largest power plants, part of a recent Russian campaign targeting energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba repeated Zelenskyy's appeal as he prepared to attend a Group of Seven foreign ministers' meeting in Italy.
"We need at least seven more Patriot batteries to protect our cities and economic centers from destruction," Kuleba told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an interview published Wednesday. "Why is it so difficult to find seven Patriot batteries?"
Ukrainian forces are digging in, building fortifications in anticipation of a major Russian offensive that Kyiv officials say could come as early as next month.
Ukraine is using long-range drone and missile strikes behind Russian lines which are designed to disrupt Moscow's war machine.
Russia's defense ministry said a Ukrainian drone was shot down over the Tatarstan region early Wednesday. That's the same area that was targeted in early April by Ukraine's deepest strike so far inside Russia, about 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) east of Ukraine.
Ukrainian drone developers have been extending the weapons' range.
Another Ukrainian drone was shot down over the Mordovia region, roughly 350 kilometres (220 miles) east of Moscow, the ministry said. That is 700 kilometres (430 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
About an hour before the Mordovia attack, Russia's civil aviation authority halted flights at airports in two of the country's largest cities, Nizhny Novgorod and Tatarstan's Kazan, because of safety concerns.
Also, unconfirmed reports said a Ukrainian missile struck an airfield in occupied Crimea. Neither Russian nor Ukrainian officials confirmed the strike, but local authorities temporarily closed a road where the airfield is located. Russian news agency Tass quoted the local mayor as saying windows in a mosque and a private house in the region were shattered in a blast there.
------
Associated Press writers Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Karel Janicek in Prague contributed.
Statistics Canada says real gross domestic product rose 0.2 per cent in February. The growth followed a 0.5 per cent gain in January.
Ontario's Special Investigations Unit has been called in following a deadly wrong-way collision on Highway 401 in Whitby on Monday night, say police.
A new cancer treatment recently approved in Canada promises to cut treatment time down to just minutes, but experts have differing opinions on whether it's what's best for patients.
Air Canada has paused a new seat selection fee for travellers booked on the lowest fares just days after implementing it.
A new Canadian dental care program is offering the hope of free care to millions, but while 1.7 million people have signed up for the plan, only about 5,000 dentists have done the same.
An ongoing municipal strike, court battles and revolt by half of council has prompted the province to oust the mayor and council in Black River-Matheson.
One of the winners of a historic US$1.3 billion Powerball jackpot last month is an immigrant from Laos who has had cancer for eight years and had his latest chemotherapy treatment last week.
King Charles III returned to public duties on Tuesday, visiting a cancer treatment charity and beginning his carefully managed comeback after the monarch's own cancer diagnosis sidelined him for three months.
The federal government says the task force it created to monitor and investigate grocery retailers' practices has not conducted any probes and doesn't have a mandate to take enforcement action.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.