The United States raised the alarm Wednesday over the "staggering" human cost of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, as the apparent deployment of cluster bombs and other treaty-violating weapons raised fears of a brutal escalation in the week-old conflict.

The American warnings came as Russia revealed 498 of its troops had been killed in the assault on

Russians leaving the country via a dwindling number of available routes are facing lengthy interrogations at airports, according to first-person accountspublished by the MediaZona news website Wednesday.

Several men told the outlet they were flagged at passport control, where some of them were escorted to nearby holding areas and asked about their

Russian troops have seized Kherson, the first major Ukrainian city to fall in a devastating week-old war that has already created one million refugees.

The capture of the Black Sea city of 290,000 people, which just last year hosted NATO-supported war games, appeared a significant boost for Moscow as it readied for potential ceasefire talks on

The UN General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that "demands" Russia "immediately" withdraw from Ukraine, in a powerful rebuke of Moscow's invasion by a vast majority of the world's nations.

After more than two days of extraordinary debate which saw the Ukrainian ambassador accuse Russia of genocide, 141 out of 193 member