Russian forces occupying several towns and cities in Luhansk after steady shelling.
A Ukrainian court sentenced a 21-year-old Russian soldier to life in prison Monday for killing a Ukrainian civilian, sealing the first guilty conviction for war crimes since Moscow's invasion three months ago.
Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin pleaded guilty to shooting a Ukrainian civilian in the head in a village in the northeastern Sumy region in the early days of the war.
He testified that he shot the man after being ordered to do so. He told the court that an officer insisted that the Ukrainian man, who was speaking on his cellphone, could pinpoint their location to the Ukrainian forces.
The sentencing in Kyiv came as the three-month-old war helped push the number of people displaced worldwide to the highest level on record, according to the United Nations, with more 100 million people driven from their homes across the globe. According to the UN, the war in Ukraine has displaced about eight million people within the country, and forced six million people to leave it.
Call for tougher sanctions
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the World Economic Forum as it opened in Davos, Switzerland, calling for "maximum" sanctions against Russia.
He said sanctions need to go further to stop Russia's aggression, including an oil embargo, blocking all of its banks and cutting off trade with Russia completely.
"This is what sanctions should be: They should be maximum, so that Russia and every other potential aggressor that wants to wage a brutal war against its neighbour would clearly know the immediate consequences of their actions," Zelensky said.