Ukraine-Russia war: Russia says first phase of Ukraine invasion complete, focus now on Donbas

France is helping launch a new evacuation effort in Mariupol, the southern Ukrainian port city that has been devastated after weeks of Russian bombardment, French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday.

Speaking at the European Union Summit, Macron said the operation is being organized with Turkey and Greece “to evacuate all those who want to leave.” 

Macron said there had been discussions about the effort with the city’s mayor, and he planned on discussing it with Russian President Vladimir Putin within the next two days, he said.

Some previous plans to help civilians flee the besieged city have worked, though several others have failed. Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of shelling escape routes and capturing those fleeing the city.

Officials in Mariupol said earlier Friday that roughly 300 people had died when Russian forces bombed a theater where more than 1,000 people were hiding earlier this month. 

NBC News has not independently verified the claim and Russia has denied targeting civilians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his nightly address, said Friday that the number of Russians killed in the war has surpassed 16,000. 

"Containing the attacks of the enemy, the Ukrainian defenders are bringing the Russian government to the simple and logical idea. We need to talk, talk meaningfully, urgently, honestly, and with a result in mind, not to drag out time," Zelenskyy said.

Estimates of the number of Russian soldiers killed in the conflict have varied, and NBC News has not independently verified the death toll.

A Minnesota man who was detained by Russian forces while trying to flee the Ukrainian city of Kherson and held for 10 days has been released, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Friday.

Tyler Jacob, 28, who was living in Ukraine, was taken by Russian forces around two weeks ago, her office said in a statement.

“I am relieved that Tyler is safely reunited with his wife and daughter. Over the last two weeks, my team and I have been in close contact with his family, the State Department, and the U.S. embassy in Moscow working towards this outcome, and I am grateful that we were able to help bring him to safety,” Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, said in a statement.

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Russian forces have completed “the first stage” of what President Vladimir Putin has described as a “special military operation” in Ukraine and will now focus on the separatist Donbas region, a Russian military official said Friday.

Speaking on the state-owned news channel Russia-24, Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, deputy chief of staff of Russia’s armed forces, said his country’s military is aiming for the “complete liberation” of the region.

The Russian-backed breakaway “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk have been involved in a low-intensity conflict with Ukrainian forces since 2014, when Russia also annexed Crimea. More than 14,000 people were killed in the conflict before Russia's invasion last month.

Rudskoy’s comments come just over a month after Russia’s invasion began — and as its armed forces appeared to settle on a strategy of relentless assault after its military was hobbled by bad planning and stiff resistance from Ukrainians. 

A NATO official said the organization estimates that between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian troops have died and tens of thousands more have been injured, captured or gone missing.

Rudosky claimed that Ukraine’s ability to fight has been “significantly reduced, which makes it possible, once again, to focus the main efforts on achieving the main goal: the liberation of Donbas.”

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A total of 7,331 people were evacuated Friday through two humanitarian corridors to safer areas, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

Of that group, 2,800 people traveled by private cars from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, and 4,000 were evacuated from Berdyansk by bus. She said 80 tons of food was sent to Berdyansk to support people in Mariupol.

Evacuation corridors for the Mariupol, Kyiv and Luhansk regions were scheduled to be open Saturday, she said.

Pope Francis prayed for peace in Ukraine on Friday and said the “vicious war that has overtaken so many people, and caused suffering to all, has made each of us fearful and anxious.”

Francis said we “sense our helplessness and our inadequacy” but that “human reassurance is not enough.”

“We need the closeness of God and the certainty of his forgiveness, which alone eliminates evil, disarms resentment and restores peace to our hearts,” Francis said. “Let us return to God and to his forgiveness.”

Russian troops are no longer in full control of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson after a counterattack by Ukrainian forces, a senior U.S. Defense Department official said Friday.

Russian forces captured Kherson in the first week of its invasion, the first major city to be captured after invading the country last month.

“We can’t corroborate exactly who is in control of Kherson, but the point is, it doesn’t appear to be as solidly in Russian control as it was before. The Ukrainians are trying to take Kherson back,” the official told reporters. “We would argue that Kherson is actually contested territory again.” 

There was now "heavy fighting" underway in Kherson, the official said.

The news came after U.S., British and Ukrainian officials said Ukrainian troops had stymied Russia's assault on the capital, Kyiv, and pushed back the Russians in some areas around the city.

If Russia lost Kherson in the south, it would represent a major battlefield setback and complicate any attempt by it to capture the Black Sea port of Odesa, the Defense Department official said. 

If the Ukrainians took back Kherson, “that would be a significant development, no question about that,” the official added.