The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine

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The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EDT.

4:14 a.m.: The latest intelligence update from the U.K. defense ministry said repurposed captured Russian equipment now makes up a large proportion of Ukraine’s military hardware. Ukraine has likely captured at least 440 Russian main battle tanks, the update said, and around 650 other armored vehicles since the invasion. More than half of Ukraine’s currently fielded tank fleet potentially consists of captured vehicles.

3:35 a.m.: Volodymyr Obodzinskiy lost his entire family in early March in a Russian attack. An air strike hit his house, killing his 40-year-old wife, Natalya; 14-year-old son, Volodymyr; 19-year-old daughter, Ivanka, and her 1-year-old twins. Obodzinskiy visited the wreckage of his home and spoke about the tragedy. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has the story.

2:07 a.m.: Tamara Halishnikova doesn't remember how long the attack targeting her and other residents trying to escape the Russian-occupied village of Kurylivka lasted, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

All she remembers are the sounds that rang out as the column of vehicles made its way along a railway embankment that late-September morning.

"There was an explosion, then automatic-weapons fire, then more explosions, then we went to the embankment, then gunfire, gunfire, gunfire," she said, speaking at a press conference to RFE/RL at a hospital in Kharkiv less than two weeks later.

Halishnikova and her daughter, Lyudmyla Potapova, were among seven survivors of a Sept. 25 attack on the vehicles, which carried 31 people attempting to flee fighting in Russian-held territory in northeastern Ukraine. Among the dead were 13 children, a pregnant woman, and Halishnikova's husband.

1:05 a.m.: The United States accused Russian mercenaries on Thursday of exploiting natural resources in the Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan and elsewhere to help fund Moscow's war in Ukraine, a charge Russia rejected as "anti-Russian rage,” Reuters reported.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said the Wagner Group of mercenaries are exploiting natural resources and "these ill-gotten gains are used to fund Moscow's war machine in Africa, the Middle East, and Ukraine."

"Make no mistake: people across Africa are paying a heavy price for the Wagner Group's exploitative practices and human rights violations," Thomas-Greenfield told a U.N. Security Council meeting on the financing of armed groups through illicit trafficking of natural resources in Africa.

Wagner, staffed by veterans of the Russian armed forces, has fought in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic, Mali and other countries. It was founded in 2014 after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and started supporting pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said he regretted that Thomas-Greenfield raised the issue of "Russian support to African partners."

"This exposes their real plans and aims - what they really need from African countries," said Nebenzia, without elaborating.

12:02 a.m.: On a street in the middle of hard-hit Kharkiv, Hamlet Zinkivskiy stops and stares at a series of shattered windows that resembled a mosaic, its shards glinting in the sun, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

"If you don't think about the death and destruction, it looks beautiful," said Zinkivskiy, a street artist who was born in Ukraine's second-largest city and, like others here, has watched and endured as it has been battered by Russian bombs and rockets.

Long before the large-scale Russian invasion began in February, the shaven-headed, chain-smoking 35-year-old became known in Ukraine and beyond for his spare, sometimes brooding black-and-white murals that changed the face of Kharkiv and became emblems of a new generation trying to break away from the city's stagnant post-Soviet identity.

Zinkivskiy's beloved hometown, located just about 30 kilometers from the Russian border, has been hit hard since the invasion began. On its first day, February 24, Russian troops reached the city's northern suburbs, putting its future in question.

Some information in this report came from Reuters.