Joanna Kakissis

The final battle for Mariupol is taking place inside the Azovstal steel plant, a massive coastal complex in the besieged city. Hundreds of civilians are still trapped inside, officials say.

"Like the apocalypse, like a horror film," is how one evacuee describes weeks of sheltering in the vast, Soviet-era steel plant. Her daughter says, "Each day felt like it would be our last one alive."

More civilians are being evacuated Monday from a steel facility in Mariupol, Ukraine. But thousands of soldiers remain, many of whom are injured and have been holed up for weeks.

Heavy fighting continues in the north and south of Ukraine. The U.N. Secretary General was in Kyiv this week to try to set up evacuation routes from the besieged city of Mariupol.

A Polish farming town on the Ukrainian border has organized weekly shipments of protective equipment to exhausted Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline.

It was seen as a way for Russia to prop up its currency and retaliate for Western sanctions, but it could cause global energy prices to spike. One analyst sees it as a warning to the rest of Europe.

Russia's state-run gas company has cut supplies to Poland and Bulgaria. At the heart of this move: the war in Ukraine, the sanctions imposed by the West, and Russia's attempts to wriggle free of them.

The move was widely seen as an effort to prop up the ruble and strike back at Europe amid an onslaught of Western penalties levied against Russian banks.

Spooked by reports that traffickers are waiting at the Ukraine-Poland border, a Polish woman started an all-women car service to drive Ukrainian refugee women and children to homes or shelters.

As the war in Ukraine continues, Poles are joining their nation's military and packing shooting ranges in case they need to defend Poland from Russia, despite Poland's membership in NATO.

More than 150,000 displaced Ukrainians now live in Krakow, increasing the population by 20% in just a few weeks. Now the city is helping them find long-term housing, jobs and spots in schools.

The population of Poland's second-largest city, Krakow, has grown 20% in the last month as 150,000 displaced Ukrainians have arrived seeking housing, jobs and schools.

"While others in Europe looked at Russia as a business partner," the Polish prime minister said, "we saw that Russia uses gas and oil as a way to blackmail."

President Biden is visiting Poland, next door to Ukraine. He gave a speech to U.S. troops stationed there to raise morale and also met with Polish President Andrzej Duda.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has prompted Poland's Trump-loving conservative populists to unite with U.S. Democrats and European Union leaders: pillars of liberal democracy they have fought for years.

Alarmed by the humanitarian crisis caused by Russia's invasion, an economist in Slovakia gathered food and clothes from friends — and found himself leading a convoy carrying tons of aid into Ukraine.

As the U.N.'s refugee agency resists establishing camps in the EU for Ukrainians, Poles are quietly welcoming thousands into their homes.

Citizen-soldiers are joining Ukraine's new international brigade of foreign fighters. They include Poles who compare Russia's invasion of Ukraine to the Soviet Union's brutal occupation of Poland.

Many Polish families are offering temporary lodging for Ukrainians who have fled. Some Poles are fostering Ukrainian children who had been living at a home for orphaned or neglected children.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is visiting Poland as Russia continues its assault on neighboring Ukraine.