- Prostitutes, prospectors drive spread in DR Congo mpox capital
- Oil extends rally after Iran attack, Hong Kong resumes surge
- Extreme heat another form of death sentence in Texas jails
- Can music help plants grow? Study suggests sound boosts fungus
- Nike earnings drop, says turnaround will take time
- US dockworkers launch mass strike a month before election
- Iron Dome: Israel's key anti-missile shield
- Cranes stand still as US dockworkers fight for 'future'
- GM reports US sales dip, but says EVs grew
- Sheinbaum takes office as Mexico's first woman president
- Webb telescope detects carbon dioxide on Pluto's largest moon
- Stock markets slump, oil jumps on Middle East concerns
- French PM vows more taxes and spending cuts ahead of budget fight
- Germany inaugurates IBM's first European quantum data centre
- Stock markets diverge as eurozone inflation drops further
- France's richest man takes control of Paris Match magazine
- Anger meets tear gas as Nigeria hardship protests fizzle out
- US dockworkers launch mass strike month before election
- Evacuations from Lebanon: what we know
- Feathers fly at Chanel's Paris fashion return
- UAE oil giant ADNOC swoops on German chemicals firm Covestro
- Eurozone inflation falls under 2% for first time since 2021
- Coldplay ticket scalping fiasco sparks backlash in India
- Droughts drive Spanish boom in pistachio farming
- Tokyo recovers some losses to lead Asian markets higher
- Rural schools empty in North Macedonia due to exodus
- US dockworkers launch strike after labor contract expires
- Thousands evacuated as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan
- Kenya airport whistleblower fears for his life
- Sheinbaum to take office as Mexico's first woman president
- Scientists fear underfunded Argentina research on verge of collapse
- US port officials gird for strike despite last-minute bargaining
- With 118 dead from Hurricane Helene, Biden defends US government response
- Breeder who tried to create enormous trophy sheep jailed in US
- Qatar Airways seeking 25% stake in Virgin Australia
- US port officials gird for strike as labor talks stay stuck
- As toll crosses 100, Trump puts Hurricane Helene at election center stage
- US Fed Chair sees 'further disinflation' in economy
- Epic Games sues Google and Samsung over app store
- Officials see no shortages from likely US port strike
- UK families of Gaza hostages warn Lebanon attack 'takes focus away'
- Shares in Stellantis, Aston Martin skid on profit warnings
- Dali prints found in London garage sold at auction
- ECB chief backs bank mergers amid UniCredit, Commerzbank talk
- China stocks soar on stimulus, but US and Europe retreat
- 100 dead in storm Helene damage, flooding across US southeast
- China stocks soar on stimulus, Europe slides on automaker woes
- German antitrust watchdog steps up monitoring of Microsoft
- Nepal's urban poor count cost of 'nightmare' floods
- E.Guinea, Gabon clash at ICJ over oil-rich islands
Burning fields betray Russia's creeping Ukraine advance
Ukrainian biology professor Oleksiy Polyakov is reading a book on the stoop of his cellar, trying to ignore the Russian mortar shells smashing into the hill overhead.
Braving the road being pelted since the morning by the advancing Russians, a fireman pushes his red truck to the site of a bushfire ignited by the blasts.
The 84-year-old professor puts down his book about overseas travel and cranes his neck to see how close the flames have got to his wooden door.
They still seem to be out a good distance and the fireman has just taken a few confident steps up the burning hill -- and that much closer to the invading Russians on the other side.
But another earsplitting mortar explosion kicks up dust and ultimately forces the professor to scuttle back inside to his 81-year-old wife.
"We are sitting here waiting for our guys to launch their counteroffensive -- for the Ukrainians to push forward," Galina says from the dark depths of a cellar stacked with potatoes and jars of pickles.
"Then the front will move further out from here and we will be free," the bespectacled professor agrees.
- 'Time to run' -
The hard truth is that Ukrainian forces -- heroes worshipped for their defence of Kyiv and rout of the Russians around the northern city of Kharkiv -- are retreating across swathes of the eastern front.
The losses often come after weeks of battles over towns and small cities that get pulverised by the time the Russians surround them in a slow-moving wave.
White smoke from burning fields such as those licking at the doorstep of the professor's cellar in the village of Sydorove often mark the pace of Russia's advance from afar.
"I tell everyone that there is no reason to worry when the banging is from outgoing fire," constructor Volodymyr Netymenko said, while packing up his sister's belongings before evacuating her from the burning village.
"But when it is incoming, it is time to run. And things have been flying at us pretty hard for the past two or three days."
- 'My war' -
Ukrainians' resilience in the third month of Russia's invasion often comes through clearest in moments of their most painful loss.
Army volunteer Yaroslava sat on a slab of concrete jutting out from the remains of a school raised by a Russian precision attack a short walk from the professor's cellar the previous evening.
The 51-year-old knew that her husband's unit had set up camp at the abandoned school only hours before the strike imploded a section of the building occupied by the gym.
The woman kept looking at the spot where rescuers and de-miners had spotted a motionless hand reaching out from the rubble overnight.
"We had settled in London before the war but felt like we had no choice but to come back," Yaroslava said, still staring at the spot of the buried body.
"My two sons have just signed three-year contracts with the army. We will fight. We will still fight," she said without moving her eyes. "My war is not over."
- 'A lot of pro-Russians' -
The professor's cellar sits near the bank of a winding river that the Russians have been trying to push south for more than a month.
One such attempt near the village of Bilogorivka further east last week ended in a fiasco that saw the Russians lose dozens of armoured vehicles and an unknown number of troops.
But the Kremlin's forces have had much better luck in the hilly forests surrounding the professor and his wife.
The Russians' advance past Sydorove would give them a clear run across 20 kilometres (12 miles) of open fields to the militarily important city of Slovyansk and Ukraine's eastern administrative centre in Kramatorsk.
Both are being targeted almost daily by long-range missile fire that has taken out disguised weapons storage sites and barracks.
What worries many across the region is how the Russians know where to attack.
The school where Yaroslava probably lost her husband had stood vacant until the day the Ukrainian unit moved in -- and was immediately hit.
"There are a lot of pro-Russians here," said volunteer soldier Oleksandr Pogasiy while helping clear out the school debris. "The guys had just arrived and it was hit."
Y.Ponomarenko--CPN