Ukraine says 87 killed in strike on barracks, worst military loss of war

The city, on the Siverskiy Donets River, has been the main Russian target in recent days as Moscow tries to encircle Ukrainian forces and fully capture Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.With Moscow having captured Mariupol last week after a three-month siege but losing territory elsewhere, the war in Ukraine is entering what some Western military analysts describe as a new phase: a major Russian push to capture the eastern region known as the Donbas, before Moscow is expected to shift to defending and imposing its rule over territory it controls.In Kyiv, a court handed down a life prison sentence on a Russian soldier who had pleaded guilty to killing a Ukrainian civilian at the first war crimes trial of the conflict. Ukraine believes tens of thousands of people died in the siege of the city of more than 400,000 people.Russia has focused its "special military operation" on the east since its troops were driven out of the area around the capital Kyiv and the north at the end of March.Since last month, Moscow has said its main effort is capturing all of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, together known as the Donbas, which Russia claims on behalf of separatists.Despite pouring its forces into those areas and launching massive artillery bombardments, it has made only small territorial gains, meanwhile continuing to lose territory in a Ukrainian counter-attack further north around Kharkiv.But the full capture of Mariupol last week gives Russia its biggest victory for months.