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The United States has assessed members of Russia's forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken says, adding that Washington's conclusion was based on a "careful review" of available information from public and intelligence sources.

Blinken said there had been "numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks, and attacks deliberately targeting civilians, as well as other atrocities" by Russia's forces in Ukraine, specifying incidents in the besieged city of Mariupol.

Russia has denied targeting civilians.

In a statement, Blinken said the United States will continue to track reports of war crimes and will share information it gathers with allies and international institutions.

A court of law would be ultimately responsible for determining any alleged crime, he said.

"We are committed to pursuing accountability using every tool available, including criminal prosecutions," Blinken said.

President Joe Biden last week said Russian President Vladimir Putin was "a war criminal" for attacking Ukraine, which Russia's foreign ministry countered was a statement "unworthy of a statesman of such high rank".

Moscow has yet to capture any of Ukraine's biggest cities following its invasion that began on February 24, the largest assault on a European state since World War Two.

Putin calls his offensive a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "de-Nazify" the country.

Civilian casualties are thought to be in the thousands while the United Nations estimates more than 3.5 million people have fled Ukraine.

Investigators from the International Criminal Court set off earlier this month to start looking into possible war crimes in Ukraine.

Washington has said it welcomed the decision, although it has no co-operation duties since it is not a member of the court.

Beth Van Schaack, ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice at the State Department, said Washington was looking at the broad range of activities that Russia's forces are engaged in within Ukraine.

The destruction of a theatre in Mariupol last week "appears to have been a direct attack upon a civilian (target)", she said.

"This was very clearly marked with the word 'children' ... It's not a military objective," she said at a briefing at the State Department.

Russia has denied bombing the theatre.

Van Schaack said evidence like signals intelligence and accounts from Russian insiders could be used by courts to show civilians were intentionally targeted.

Such evidence was being preserved for that purpose, she said.

Legal experts say a prosecution of Putin or other Russian leaders would face high hurdles and could take years.

© RAW 2022

China says one of two black boxes from the China Eastern plane crash has been found in a severely damaged condition.

The recorder is so damaged that officials are not able to tell whether it is the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.

Mao Yanfeng, the director of the accident investigation division of the Civil Aviation Authority of China, told a news conference on Wednesday that an all-out effort is being made to find the other black box.

Recovering the so-called black boxes is considered key to figuring out what caused the crash.

The search for clues into why a Chinese commercial jetliner dove suddenly and crashed into a mountain in southern China had been suspended on Wednesday as rain slickened the debris field and filled the red-dirt gash formed by the plane's fiery impact.

Earlier, searchers had used hand tools, drones and sniffer dogs under rainy conditions to comb the heavily forested slopes for the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, as well as any human remains.

Crews also worked to pump water from the pit created when the plane hit the ground, but their efforts were suspended around midmorning because small landslides were possible on the steep, slick slopes.

Video clips posted by China's state media showed small pieces of the Boeing 737-800 plane scattered over the area. Mud-stained wallets, bank and identity cards have also been recovered. Each piece of debris has a number next to it, the larger ones marked off by police tape.

Relatives of passengers began arriving on Wednesday at the gate to Lu village just outside the crash zone, where they, along with reporters on the scene, were stopped by police and officials who used opened umbrellas to block the view beyond.

China Eastern Flight 5735 was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew from Kunming in Yunnan province to Guangzhou, an industrial centre on China's southeastern coast, when it crashed Monday afternoon outside the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region. All 132 people on board are presumed killed.

Investigators say it is too early to speculate on the cause. The plane went into an unexplained dive an hour after departure and stopped transmitting data 96 seconds into the fall.

An air-traffic controller tried to contact the pilots several times after seeing the plane's altitude drop sharply, but got no reply, a grim-faced Zhu Tao, director of the Office of Aviation Safety at the Civil Aviation Authority of China, said at a Tuesday evening news conference.

"As of now, the rescue has yet to find survivors," Zhu said.

China Eastern is headquartered in Shanghai and is one of China's three largest carriers with more than 600 planes, including 109 Boeing 737-800s. China's Transport Ministry said China Eastern has grounded all of its 737-800s, a move that could further disrupt domestic air travel already curtailed because of the largest COVID-19 outbreak in China since the initial peak in early 2020.

The Boeing 737-800 has been flying since 1998 and has a well-established safety record. It is an earlier model than the 737 Max, which was grounded worldwide for nearly two years after deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Monday's crash was China's worst in more than a decade.

© RAW 2022

A physically and emotionally "spent" Ash Barty has revealed she's been wrestling with retirement ever since winning Wimbledon last year.

Aged just 25, the world No.1 delivered the bombshell announcement on Wednesday that she was walking away from tennis just two months after her hoodoo-busting Australian Open triumph.

The three-time grand slam champion - who hasn't played since breaking the 44-year local title drought at Melbourne Park in January - posted the news on social media.

"Today is difficult and filled with emotion for me as I announce my retirement from tennis," Barty posted on Instagram.

"I am so thankful for everything this sport has given me and leave feeling proud and fulfilled.

"Thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way. I'll always be grateful for the lifelong memories that we created together."

Barty's farewell ranks as Australian sport's most unexpected retirement since Mark Ella - also then 25 - quit rugby union after captaining the Wallabies on their famous grand slam-winning tour of the UK in 1984.

The stunning revelation marks the second time Barty has walked away from tennis, following the Queenslander's 16-month sabbatical after a demoralising first-round loss at the 2014 US Open.

But, unlike then when she was a homesick teenager, this time Barty says she's finished for good.

"I will be retiring from tennis. It's the first time I've said it out loud and it's hard to say but I'm so happy and so ready," she said.

"I just know at the moment in my heart for me as a person this is right.

"I've done this before but it's a very different feeling."

Last time she stopped playing, Barty played professional cricket for the Brisbane Heat in the WBBL.

Bookmakers were quick to react to her latest retirement, framing a market on what's next for the sporting super talent with cricket again the favourite.

"I want to chase after some other dreams that I've always wanted to do. I'm really excited," Barty told former doubles partner Casey Dellacqua in a video interview.

"There was a perspective shift in me in the second phase of my career that my happiness wasn't dependent on the results and success for me is knowing that I've given absolutely everything I can.

"I'm fulfilled, I'm happy and I know how much work it takes to bring the best out of yourself.

"I said it to my team multiple times I don't have it in me any more. I don't have the physical drive, the emotional want and everything it takes to challenge yourself at the top level any more, and I know that I'm spent.

"I know people may not understand that ... but Ash Barty the person has so many dreams she wants to chase after that don't necessarily involve travelling the world, being away from my family, being away from my home."

Whatever she pursues, Barty's tennis legacy is secure.

Two weeks after winning the 2019 French Open, Barty became the first Australian woman to reach world No.1 since her mentor and Indigenous idol Evonne Goolagong Cawley 43 years earlier.

She followed that up with victory at the 2019 WTA Finals in Shenzhen, in doing so pocketing $6.4 million - the biggest cheque in tennis history.

Her crowning glory came last year at Wimbledon before Barty defied intense pressure and expectation from home fans to win the Australian Open.

"(Retirement) is something I've been thinking about for along time and I've had a lot of incredible moments in my career that have been pivotal moments," Barty said.

"Wimbledon last year changed a lot for me as a person and for me as an athlete.

"You work so hard your whole life for one goal and I've been able to share that with so many incredible people but to be able to win Wimbledon was my dream.

"The one true dream that I really wanted in tennis. That really changed my perspective and I just had that gut feeling after Wimbledon and had spoken to my team about it."

But after a semi-final and two quarter-final defeats at Melbourne Park, Barty had one more piece of unfinished business to tend to.

"There was a little part of me that wasn't quite satisfied, wasn't quite fulfilled and then came the challenge of the Australian Open and that for me feels like the most perfect way, my perfect way to celebrate what an amazing journey my tennis career has been."

She would have been chasing a career grand slam at this year's US Open in September.

Instead Barty leaves the sport having held the top ranking for 114 consecutive weeks - the fourth-longest streak ever behind only legends Serena Williams, Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova - and 121 weeks in total.

© AAP 2022