China's leader Xi Jinping claps as he listens to Russian President Vladimir Putin via a video link, from the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Dec. 2, 2019. Xi will meet Putin this week on a visit to Moscow. Noel Celis/Pool photo via AP hide caption
In this photo taken from video released by the Russian TV pool on Sunday, March 19, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin talks with local residents during a surprise visit to Mariupol. AP hide caption
Workers at Zaporizhstal iron and steel works on July 22 in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Jason Beaubien/NPR hide caption
Actors for the Donetsk Regional Drama Theater of Mariupol, on stage during a rehearsal for their play Cry of a Nation at the Uzhhorod municipal theater on July 14. Laurel Chor for NPR hide caption
A destroyed building next to flowers on Thursday in Borodianka, Ukraine. The region around Ukraine's capital continues to recover from Russia's aborted assault on Kyiv, which turned many communities into battlefields. Alexey Furman/Getty Images hide caption
Debris covers the inside of the drama theater in April following a March 16 bombing in Mariupol, Ukraine, in an area now controlled by Russian forces. Alexei Alexandrov/AP hide caption
In this still taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on May 20, 2022, a Russian serviceman frisks a Ukrainian soldier leaving the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. AP hide caption
Russian-backed Donetsk militia fighters man "Gvozdika" (Carnation) self-propelled artillery vehicles to fire toward a Ukrainian army position outside Donetsk, in territory held by the separatist Donetsk government in eastern Ukraine, Friday. Fighting has intensified in the Donbas region this week. Alexei Alexandrov/AP hide caption
Ukrainian servicemen from the Azovstal steel plant sit on a bus near a penal colony, in Olyonivka, in territory under the government of the Donetsk People's Republic, on Friday. AP hide caption
A Russian serviceman patrols the destroyed part of the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works in Ukraine's port city of Mariupol on Wednesday. Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
A wounded service member of the Ukrainian forces from the besieged Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol is transported out of a bus on a stretcher under escort of pro-Russian fighters, upon arrival in Novoazovsk, Ukraine, on Monday. Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters hide caption
Wives of Ukrainian soldiers holed up inside the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol meet with Pope Francis during the weekly general audience at the Vatican, Wednesday. Vatican Media/via Reuters hide caption
This satellite image taken by Planet Labs PBC shows damage at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Friday. Planet Labs PBC via AP hide caption
People hold a demonstration in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, demanding the safe passage of civilians and soldiers out of the Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol, on May 4. Andre Luis Alves/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images hide caption
A man who left a shelter in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol walks to a bus between Russian army servicemen and Donetsk People's Republic militia on Friday. Alexei Alexandrov/AP hide caption