Ukraine imposed sanctions on three Chinese companies on Friday, claiming they were involved in the production of advanced Iskander missiles. The sanctions list, which also includes Russian companies, names Beijing Aviation & Aerospace Xianghui Technology, Rui Jin Machinery and Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber Xining, all registered in China.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on X: “Today, we have expanded our Ukrainian sanctions against nearly a hundred more entities – natural and legal persons – most of whom are involved in the production of such missiles – Iskanders – like those that struck our Kharkiv. Many of these entities are Russian, but unfortunately, some are also from China.” On Thursday, Zelenskyy accused China of supplying Russia with artillery and gunpowder, which Beijing has denied.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the Trump administration was ready to abandon its efforts to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia “within days”. “We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end. So we need to determine very quickly now, and I’m talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks,” Rubio said in Paris after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders on Friday.
Following Rubio’s comments, Donald Trump said the US is ready to “pass” on brokering a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine unless a settlement is reached “very shortly”. The US president declined to give a “specific number of days” for when the US would stop trying to negotiate a truce. “But quickly. We want to get it done.” Asked if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was stalling, Trump replied: “I hope not.”
The Guardian has obtained the memorandum of intent signed by Ukraine and the US over a minerals deal. It envisages setting up a joint investment fund between the two countries and lays out a deadline of 26 April to finalise negotiations. The document recognises the “significant financial and material support” Washington has given Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale 2022 invasion.
The US is prepared to recognise Russian control of the Ukrainian region of Crimea as part of a broader peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv, Bloomberg News has reported, citing people familiar with the matter. According to Bloomberg, the people said a final decision on the matter hadn’t yet been taken, and the White House and state department did not respond to a request for comment.
A Russian missile attack on the north-eastern city of Kharkiv killed one man inside his home and wounded at least 112 others, including nine children, on Friday. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Russia launched four missiles at Kharkiv, three of them ballistic and carrying cluster warheads. Zelenskyy added later that the Iskander missiles had been used in the attack. “This is how Russia began this Good Friday – with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, Shaheds,” he said on X.
A Russian drone strike early on Friday hit a bakery in northern Ukraine where traditional Easter cakes were being prepared, killing one man, Ukrainian officials said. Images shared by Ukrainian emergency services – which said they were filmed at the scene of the strike in the city of Sumy – showed trays of Easter cakes covered in grey dust, and a smashed window nearby. The person killed was a local businessman who was at the bakery to collect his order when the drone struck at 5am, according to Sybiha.
Russia and Ukraine will conduct a new prisoner swap on Saturday mediated by the United Arab Emirates, a source close to the negotiations told Reuters. Nearly 500 Russian and Ukrainian prisoners and 46 injured soldiers will be exchanged in the latest swap to be mediated by Abu Dhabi. The exchange will involve 246 prisoners from each side, the source said.
Kyiv said on Friday it had received the bodies of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers killed during battles with Russia, the second such repatriation in the space of three weeks. “As a result of repatriation activities, the bodies of 909 fallen Ukrainian defenders were returned to Ukraine,” the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a government agency, said in a statement on social media.
A 19-year-old Russian activist has been sentenced to two years and eight months in prison after using 19th-century poetry and graffiti to protest against the conflict in Ukraine, according to a Reuters witness in the St Petersburg court on Friday. Darya Kozyreva was found guilty of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian army after she put up a poster with lines of Ukrainian verse on a public square and gave an interview to Sever.Realii, a Russian-language service of Radio Free Europe.
