Deal lifts Turkish objection to Sweden, Finland joining NATO; 'Hollowed out' Russian forces could face trouble: Ukraine live updates

Though relatively small in population -- both under 11 million -- Sweden and Finland have strong, modern armed forces and have expressed a commitment to boost their defense budget after the Russian invasion, which also prompted their pursuit of NATO membership after decades of nonalignment. .

Ukrainian forces are consolidating on higher ground in Lyschansak, the last major city in the Luhansk region not controlled by Russia, and continue to disrupt Russian command and control with strikes deep behind enemy lines, the British Defense Ministry said in an assessment Tuesday.

Over the last few days, Russia launched "unusually intense" strikes across Ukraine using long-range missiles, the ministry said.

On Monday, a missile strike that hit a shopping mall in central Ukraine killed at least 18 people and injured dozens more.

"These weapons were designed to take on targets of strategic importance, but Russia continues to expend them in large numbers," the assessment said.

"The Russian armed forces are increasingly hollowed out," the assessment says.

The deadly Russian missile strike at a crowded Ukraine shopping mall was one of the "most defiant acts of terrorism in European history," Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Zelenskyy spokesman Kirill Timoshenko said at least 20 had died in Monday's blast while local officials in the central city of Kremenchuk said at least 18 were killed.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has suggested a middle-ground approach to ending the war in Ukraine that wouldn't embarrass Russia, has hardened his stance after Monday's missile strike in a crowded mall left at least 18 people dead and 59 wounded.

The airstrike on a mall with more than 1,000 people took place as leaders from the Group of Seven nations met in Germany, and it rekindled images of the bombing of a theater in Mariupol that killed an estimated 600 people, horrifying much of the world.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday that it added 25 people to the list of Americans banned from entering Russia "as a response to the ever-expanding U.S

Control of the region gives Russia a crucial "land bridge" connecting its mainland to Crimea, which Russia took from Ukraine in 2014