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Officials said a grave with dozens of Ukrainian civilians was found in the village of Buzova near Kyiv this weekend, the latest such discovery as Russian forces retreat from their offensive on the capital and shift their assault to the east.
Buzova is 20 kilometres south-west of Bucha, where dozens of civilians were found dead after Russian forces withdrew at the end of March.
Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community that includes Buzova and several other nearby villages, told Ukrainian television that the bodies were found in a ditch near a petrol station, according to Reuters. The number of dead is yet to be confirmed.
The news agency AFP has accompanied a hospital train evacuating 48 wounded and elderly patients from eastern Ukraine to the western city of Lviv.
Organised by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Sunday’s evacuation was the first from the east since a Russian strike killed 57 people among thousands waiting for the train at the eastern railway station of Kramatorsk on Friday.
Air raid sirens have been sounding across Ukraine as the time in Kyiv approaches 5am.
⚡️Air raid alerts go off in almost every region in Ukraine.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 11, 2022
Air raid sirens have been activated in Ternopil, Volyn, Zakarpattia, Chernivtsi, Rivne, Lviv, Ivano Frankivsk, Khmelnytsky, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Sumy, Odesa, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzha oblasts.
Air raid siren in Lviv, first one since Friday. 4:22 am pic.twitter.com/uJk4mvDUG1
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) April 11, 2022
🚨Air raid alert sirens in all the towns and cities of the Zaporizhya and Dnipro regions
— Слава Україні🇺🇦 (@ignis_fatum) April 11, 2022
Everyone there are being asked to take cover and stay sheltered till the all clear sounds #Ukraine #Russia #Putin
🚨Air raid alert sirens in all the towns and cities of the Poltava and Kharkiv regions
— Слава Україні🇺🇦 (@ignis_fatum) April 11, 2022
Everyone there are being asked to take cover and stay sheltered till the all clear sounds #Ukraine #Russia #Putin
Updated
Russian ally Serbia took the delivery of a sophisticated Chinese anti-aircraft system in a veiled operation this weekend, amid Western concerns that an arms buildup in the Balkans at the time of the war in Ukraine could threaten the fragile peace in the region, the news agency AP reports.
Media and military experts said Sunday that six Chinese Air Force Y-20 transport planes landed at Belgrade’s civilian airport early Saturday, reportedly carrying HQ-22 surface-to-air missile systems for the Serbian military.
The Chinese cargo planes with military markings were pictured at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport. Serbia’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment.
The arms delivery over the territory of at least two NATO member states, Turkey and Bulgaria, was seen by experts as a demonstration of China’s growing global reach.
“The Y-20s’ appearance raised eyebrows because they flew en masse as opposed to a series of single-aircraft flights,” wrote The Warzone online magazine. “The Y-20s presence in Europe in any numbers is also still a fairly new development.”
Serbian military analyst Aleksandar Radic said that “the Chinese carried out their demonstration of force.”
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic all but confirmed the delivery of the medium-range system that was agreed in 2019, saying on Saturday that he will present “the newest pride” of the Serbian military on Tuesday or Wednesday.
He had earlier complained that NATO countries, which represent most of Serbia’s neighbors, are refusing to allow the system’s delivery flights over their territories amid tensions over Russia’s aggression on Ukraine.
Although Serbia has voted in favor of UN resolutions that condemn the bloody Russian attacks in Ukraine, it has refused to join international sanctions against its allies in Moscow or outright criticize the apparent atrocities committed by the Russian troops there.
Back in 2020, US officials warned Belgrade against the purchase of HQ-22 anti-aircraft systems, whose export version is known as FK-3. They said that if Serbia really wants to join the European Union and other Western alliances, it must align its military equipment with Western standards.
The Chinese missile system has been widely compared to the American Patriot and the Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile systems although it has a shorter range than more advanced S-300s. Serbia will be the first operator of the Chinese missiles in Europe.
Serbia was at war with its neighbors in the 1990s. The country, which is formally seeking EU membership, has already been boosting its armed forces with Russian and Chinese arms, including warplanes, battle tanks and other equipment.
In 2020, it took delivery of Chengdu Pterodactyl-1 drones, known in China as Wing Loong. The combat drones are able to strike targets with bombs and missiles and can be used for reconnaissance tasks.
There are fears in the West that the arming of Serbia by Russia and China could encourage the Balkan country toward another war, especially against its former province of Kosovo that proclaimed independence in 2008. Serbia, Russia and China don’t recognize Kosovo’s statehood, while the United States and most Western countries do.
Summary
If you’re just joining us, here’s a quick recap of what’s been happening over the past 24 hours
- Vladimir Putin has appointed a new general to direct the war in Ukraine as his military shifts plans after a failure to take Kyiv. Alexander Dvornikov gained prominence while leading the Russian group of forces in Syria. The general is likely to usher in a fresh round of “crimes and brutality” against civilians, the US said.
- Karl Nehammer, the Austrian chancellor, plans to speak about alleged war crimes in Bucha during his visit to meet Putin on Monday. Nehammer will be the first European leader to meet the Russian president since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy hit back against Russian propaganda on war crimes, the invasion of Crimea and the downing of MH17, saying: “They say about the murders in Bucha that it is not them, but allegedly us, although it is obvious to everyone that people were killed while the Russian army controlled the city … The Russian militaries have already lied to the fact that even after more than six weeks of war, they claim that they did not hit any of the civilian objects. Do you know why this is so? Because it’s cowardice.”
- Zelenskiy welcomed talks with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on war crimes and sanctions against Russia, adding: “I am glad to note that the German position has recently changed in favour of Ukraine.” Germany has been under pressure to wean itself off Russian energy and had also been criticised earlier in the war for its failure to supply weapons to Ukraine, a policy that has since been reversed.
- Russian forces pounded eastern Ukraine with heavy shelling over the weekend, killing 10 civilians, including a child and wounding 11 others around Kharkiv. The airport in the east-central Ukrainian city of Dnipro was also destroyed.
- Ramzan Kadyrov, the powerful head of Russia’s republic of Chechnya, has said that there will be an offensive by Russian forces not only on the besieged port of Mariupol, but also on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. Kadyrov, who has descrived himself as Putin’s “foot soldier”, said there should be no doubt about Kyiv: “I assure you: not one step will be taken back.”
- Nearly 3,000 people were evacuated on Sunday through humanitarian corridors, including 213 from Mariupol, said Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk.
- Pope Francis has called for an Easter ceasefire to allow for a push for peace in Ukraine, calling the war a “folly” that was leading to “heinous massacres” and “atrocious cruelty” against defenceless people.
- A total of 1,222 bodies have been found in the region around the capital, Kyiv, so far, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said. Ukrainian authorities are investigating 5,600 cases of alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops since the invasion began.
- Ukraine’s economy is expected to collapse by 45.1% this year, far worse than predicted, the World Bank reported in a dire forecast as the conflict drags on.
- The United Nations refugee agency calculates that more than 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees have fled Ukraine since the invasion began.
- Russian armed forces are seeking to strengthen troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service a decade ago, as losses mount.
- The White House has renewed its condemnation of the Russian targeting of Ukrainian civilians as war crimes, citing recent events including Friday’s missile strike on a railway station as “cruel and criminal and evil”. The death toll from Kramatorsk train station attack has risen to 57, Ukraine said.
- More than 3,500 pro-Ukrainian demonstrators took to the streets of Germany in response to a motorcade of about 600 pro-Russian protesters in 400 cars flying Russian flags.
More from the 60 Minutes interview, in which Zelenskiy says Ukraine is bracing for a “new wave of this war” in the south and east of the country, where Russia has been massing its forces for an expected imminent assault:
We don’t know how much [Russian weaponry] there will be. But we understand that there will be many times more than there is now. [All] depends on [how fast] we will be helped by the United States. To be honest, whether we will be able to [survive] depends on this. I have 100% confidence in our people and in our armed forces. But unfortunately, I don’t have the confidence that we will be receiving everything we need.
When asked if he was ready to give up any part of Ukraine in exchange for peace, the president said, “Had we been willing to give up our territory, there would have been no war,” but also acknowledged that “this is life. Different things happen.”
Overall we are not ready to give away our country. I think we have already given up a lot of [lives]. So, we need to stand firm for as long as we can. But this is life. Different things happen,” he said.
This issue would definitely be raised in the course of negotiations. We understand the Russian side. We understand one of their provisions that is always talked about is to recognize Crimea as Russian territory. I will definitely not recognize that. [And] they would really like to take the southern parts of our country. I clearly understand that questions like this will be raised [in negotiations] – if there ever are any. But we were not ready to give up our territory from the beginning. Had we been willing to give up our territory, there would have been no war.”
Kadyrov says Russia plans offensive on Mariupol, Kyiv, other key cities
Ramzan Kadyrov, the powerful head of Russia’s republic of Chechnya, has said that there will be an offensive by Russian forces not only on the besieged port of Mariupol, but also on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, Reuters reports.
“There will be an offensive ... not only on Mariupol, but also on other places, cities and villages,” Kadyrov said in a video posted on his Telegram channel.
“Luhansk and Donetsk - we will fully liberate in the first place ... and then take Kyiv and all other cities.”
In an interview with CBS’ 60 minutes broadcast on Sunday, Zelenskiy said that the world bore responsibility for what is happening in Ukraine.
I remember, all of us remember, books about the second World War, and about the devil in uniform – Adolf Hitler. Are those countries who did not participate in the war responsible? The countries who let German forces march throughout Europe? Does the world carry responsibility for the genocide? Yes. Yes, it does,” he said.
“When you [have the ability to] close the sky – yes it’s scary, that a world war could start. It’s scary. I understand [that]. And I cannot put pressure on these people because everyone is afraid of war. But whether the world [is responsible] for this, I believe so, yes. I believe so. Stand in front of the mirror every day and ask yourself, were you able to do something? Or were you unable to do something? You will find the answer in the mirror to this question, and to another question – who are you?”
Russian forces bombarded eastern Ukraine over the weekend ahead of an expected onslaught. In Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, at least 10 civilians were killed including a child. Here are a selection of recent images from the city.
More from the Institute for the Study of War assessment which notes that Russia is reportedly offering cash bonuses to incentivise forces withdrawn from northeastern Ukraine to reenter combat operations.
Radio Svoboda published images of a document on April 10 that it reported was issued by the Russian Ministry of Defense on April 2 offering specific bonuses for Russian troops in Ukraine. The document specifies large payments including 300,000 rubles for destroying a fixed-wing aircraft, 200,000 for destroying a helicopter, and 50,000 for armored vehicles and artillery.
Radio Svoboda stated the payments are intended to coerce units withdrawn from the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy regions to reenter combat. We have previously reported several instances of Russian soldiers refusing orders to return to Ukraine after being pulled back.
It also says that Russian forces are “implementing increasingly draconian measures to conscript previously ineligible personnel”.
The Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on April 10 that Russian forces are now conscripting previously ineligible categories of people, including those with childhood disabilities and workers in protected industries. The GUR reported that DNR/LNR authorities are enabling traffic inspectors to issue on-the-spot conscription notices and are establishing checkpoints on key highways. DNR and Russian military police are additionally reportedly destroying documents granting exemptions — such as medical records or work certificates — to forcibly conscript people.
Russian forces have made territorial gains in Mariupol in the past 24 hours and have bisected the besieged port city from its centre to the coast on Sunday, the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest assessment of the conflict.
The move has isolated the remaining Ukrainian defenders in two main locations: the main port of Mariupol in the southwest and the Azovstal steel plant in the east, it said.
Other key points from the assessment were:
- Russian forces again made little to no progress in frontal assaults in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts but continue to cohere further reinforcements.
- Maxar Technologies satellite imagery captured hundreds of Russian vehicles in Kharkiv Oblast redeploying to support Russian operations near Izyum.
- Ukrainian counterattacks may threaten Kherson city in the coming days or weeks.
#Russian forces made territorial gains in #Mariupol in the past 24 hours and continued to reinforce operations along the Izyum-Slovyansk axis but did not make other territorial gains.
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) April 10, 2022
Read the latest report from @TheStudyofWar and @criticalthreats: https://t.co/iVe6XDbLkl pic.twitter.com/2VIG0qrWTD
A bit more from Zelenskiy’s speech earlier, in which he said he was grateful for the recent change in Germany’s position towards the conflict.
I spoke today with Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz. About how to bring to justice all those guilty of war crimes. How to strengthen sanctions against Russia and how to force Russia to seek peace. I am glad to note that the German position has recently changed in favor of Ukraine. I consider it absolutely logical. Because this course is supported by the majority of the German people. And I am grateful to them. But I expect that everything we agreed on will be implemented. And this is very important,” Zelenskiy said.
Germany has been under pressure to wean itself off Russian energy and had also been criticised earlier in the war for its failure to supply weapons to Ukraine, a policy which has since been reversed.
At the end of last week, Scholz said his country would stop using Russian coal by the middle of this year and Russian oil by the end of the year.
However, speaking at a joint press conference with UK prime minister Boris Johnson, he declined to endorse Johnson’s claim that Germany would stop importing Russian gas by the middle of 2024.
Germany depends on Russia for 55% of its gas and 34% of it oil.
Updated
Hello, this is Helen Livingstone bringing you the latest from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In its latest intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence says that further evidence of alleged Russian war crimes continues to emerge after the withdrawal of Russian forces from northern Ukraine.
“This includes the reported discovery of a makeshift grave containing deceased Ukrainian civilians near Burzova,” it wrote.
“Allegations of sexual violence perpetrated by Russian military personnel persist,” it added.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 10 April 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 10, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/jpUzjRW78C
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/IMudaVyuAf
Updated
Prior to his address, Zelenskiy said he signed a decree awarding “18 defenders of Ukraine. Five servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, three employees of the State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection of Ukraine, ten police officers”.
In his latest address, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy hit back against Russian propaganda:
They say about the murders in Bucha that it is not them, but allegedly us. Although it is obvious to everyone that people were killed while the Russian army controlled the city.
They say about the missile strike at Kramatorsk that it is not them, but allegedly us. Although it was their propagandists who announced this strike. Although missiles flew from the territory under their control. And about any of our destroyed cities, about any of our burned villages, they say the same thing, that it is not them either, but allegedly us.
The Russian militaries have already lied to the fact that even after more than six weeks of war, they claim that they did not hit any of the civilian objects!
Do you know why this is so? Because it’s cowardice...
They seized Crimea - and we are allegedly to blame.
They destroyed normal life in Donbas - and we are allegedly to blame.
They shot down a Malaysian Boeing - and we are allegedly to blame.
They have been killing people and children on our land for eight years - and we are allegedly to blame.
They destroyed the most powerful industrial region in Eastern Europe - and we are allegedly to blame.
Zelenskiy said that he was grateful for servicemen, who are defending Ukraine and fighting back Russian troops, first responders and those who “restore life” in recently liberated territories, and also to “those who ensure our victory in the information confrontation”.
He said he was thankful “to all journalists, to editors, to the information marathon “United News”, to all our websites, to all media representatives that do not allow Russian propaganda to win”.
“The truth will win,” he said. “Ukraine will win!”
The European Union may re-evaluate its goals to transition to renewable energy as it aims to phase out Russian oil and gas imports.
“What we will do in the next couple of weeks is work towards what I call the Repower EU initiative, and as part of that we want to accelerate the energy transition. So in that context we might revisit our targets,” the EU’s climate policy chief, Frans Timmermans, told reporters.
The EU may aim to hit a “higher percentage of renewable energy for 2030”, Timmermans said, during a visit to Cairo, Reuters reported. Currently, the EU goal is to transition to 40% renewables by 2030.
Updated
Summary
Here are some of the key developments of the day:
- Russian forces pounded eastern Ukraine with heavy shelling over the weekend, killing 10 civilians, including a child, and wounding 11 others around Kharkiv. The airport in the east-central Ukrainian city of Dnipro was also destroyed.
- Vladimir Putin has appointed a new general to direct the war in Ukraine as his military shifts plans after a failure to take Kyiv. Alexander Dvornikov gained prominence while leading the Russian group of forces in Syria. The general is likely to usher in a fresh round of “crimes and brutality” against civilians, the US said.
- Nearly 3,000 people were evacuated on Sunday through humanitarian corridors, including 213 from Mariupol, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said.
-
Karl Nehammer, the Austrian chancellor, plans to speak with the Kremlin about alleged war crimes in Bucha during his visit with Vladimir Putin on Monday. Nehammer will be the first European leader to meet the Russian president since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
-
Pope Francis has called for an Easter ceasefire to allow for a push for peace in Ukraine, calling the war a “folly” that was leading to “heinous massacres” and “atrocious cruelty” against defenceless people.
-
1,222 bodies have been found in the region around the capital, Kyiv, so far, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said. Ukrainian authorities are investigating 5,600 cases of alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops since the invasion began.
-
Ukraine’s economy is expected to collapse by 45.1% this year, far worse than predicted, the World Bank reported in a dire forecast as the conflict drags on.
- The United Nations refugee agency calculates that more than 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees have fled Ukraine since the invasion began.
- Russian armed forces are seeking to strengthen troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service a decade ago, as losses mount.
- The White House has renewed its condemnation of the Russian targeting of Ukrainian civilians as war crimes, citing recent events including Friday’s missile strike on a railway station as “cruel and criminal and evil”. The death toll from Kramatorsk train station attack has risen to 57, Ukraine said.
-
More than 3,500 pro-Ukrainian demonstrators took to the streets of Germany in response to a motorcade of about 600 pro-Russian protesters in 400 cars flying Russian flags.
My colleague Maanvi Singh will have more on the latest developments in Ukraine
Ukraine’s economy is expected to collapse by 45.1% this year, far worse than predicted, the World Bank reported in a dire forecast as the conflict drags on.
Meanwhile, Russia is expected to see an 11.2% decline in GDP, AFP reported, with the entire region suffering economic consequences from the war, which has caused more than 4 million Ukrainians to flee and sent grain and energy prices soaring.
“The results of our analysis are very sobering. Our forecasts show that the Russian invasion in Ukraine has reversed the region’s recovery from the pandemic,” said Anna Bjerde, the World Bank vice-president for Europe and Central Asia.
The World Bank expects emerging and developing countries in Europe and Central Asia to contract by 4.1% this year because of the conflict, a scenario twice as bad as the pandemic-induced recession in 2020.
Russian forces pounded eastern Ukraine with heavy shelling over the weekend, killing 10 civilians, including a child, and wounding 11 others around Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said.
“The Russian army continues to wage war on civilians due to a lack of victories at the front,” Oleg Synegubov, the Kharkiv region’s governor, posted on Telegram on Sunday.
Russia has been gathering forces in the east for a major assault, Ukraine says, after failing to take any major cities since it launched its invasion in February. Ukrainian leaders have called for civilians to flee as Russia intensifies its assault in the east of the country, but tens of thousands have been unable to evacuate.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said 2,824 people were evacuated on Sunday through humanitarian corridors, including 213 from Mariupol, which has been under siege for weeks. Residents of the besieged Luhansk region would be able to evacuate with nine trains ready for civilians, the region’s governor, Serhiy Gaidai, announced on Telegram.
The majority of Americans support sending more weapons to Ukraine, according to a new poll from CBS News, and further sanctioning Russia.
The poll, conducted last week, found that 72% of those surveyed agreed the US should send weapons and supplies to Ukraine while 78% support economic sanctions on Russia. Of those surveyed, 74% agreed the US should increase sanctions on Russia.
Joe Biden has pledged “further defence cooperation” to Ukraine and the US has already made available $1bn (£760m) worth of military lethal weapons, including Stinger anti-aircraft systems Javelin missiles, light anti-armour weapons.
A resident of Bucha shared a grim account of the murder of her 26-year-old nephew at the hands of Russian forces. Natasha Alexandrovna told the Guardian that Russian soldiers abducted her nephew, Volodymyr Cherednichenko, from his home after examining his phone, which contained photos he had taken of a Russian military column that Ukrainian forces had wiped out.
More from Guardian foreign correspondent Luke Harding:
They escorted her nephew, dressed in a T-shirt and slippers, to No 6, a yellow-painted cottage. Alexandrovna said she peered over the picket fence, half up a tree, and eavesdropped on the conversation. “He was crying and sobbing. They’d done something bad to his hand. He was cradling it. He told them repeatedly: ‘I don’t know any fascists.’”
Later the soldiers shoved Cherednichenko into their armoured personnel carrier, which was parked in the property’s apple orchard. His mother brought him a warm coat and shoes. “They told us they were taking him into town for further interrogation and would bring him back after three days,” Alexandrova said. “Nadezhda begged them. She pleaded: ‘Return my son to me.’”
For three weeks there was no news.
On 29 March, Russian forces withdrew from the Kyiv region, in a staggering setback for Moscow’s plan to conquer Ukraine. It seemed Putin had reckoned on a quick victory that would remove President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his pro-western government. Instead, his forces got bogged down and sustained massive casualties.
Given an order to retreat, the troops rolled chaotically out of Ivan Franko Street and headed north, back towards the Belarusian border. They left behind smashed-up cars adorned with the letter V, a military symbol, some of them flattened by tanks after drunken joyrides. And a lot of bodies. One was found in a dank garden cellar in the neighbouring street, at the bottom of a brick staircase. It was a young man: Cherednichenko.
“He was wearing the same coat his mother gave him,” Alexandrova said.
More than 3,500 pro-Ukrainian demonstrators took to the streets of Germany in response to a motorcade of about 600 pro-Russian protesters in 400 cars flying Russian flags.
Police said the protests were broadly peaceful, Reuters reported, but fences were put up to separate pro-Russian protesters from the rival demonstration. Pro-Russian demonstrators said the motorcade was protesting against discrimination Russian citizens in Germany have experienced since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In Frankfurt, the pro-Russian group marched with a banner that read “Truth and diversity of opinion over PROPAGANDA”.
The death toll from the missile strike on the Kramatorsk train station has risen to 57, Ukraine said on Sunday.
More than 100 people were wounded, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the Donetsk region governor. Volodymyr Zelenskiy has referred to the violence at the station, where thousands of civilians were attempting to flee to safety, as a Russian war crime. The US has also blamed Russia for the attack. Moscow has denied responsibility.
Karl Nehammer, the Austrian chancellor, plans to speak with the Kremlin about alleged war crimes in Bucha during his visit with Vladimir Putin on Monday, AFP reports. Nehammer will be the first European leader to meet the Russian president since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
The Austrian chancellor organized the meeting during a recent visit to Ukraine, a spokesperson said, adding that Nehammer wants “to do everything so that progress towards peace can be made” even if the chances are minimal. On a visit to Ukraine this weekend, Nehammer toured Bucha, where mass civilian graves and street killings by Russian forces were discovered last week.
Ukraine carried out the first staff rotation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in three weeks, the country told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Sunday.
Russian troops left the power station north of Kyiv earlier this month, after occupying the area for more than a month, and headed toward the border with Belarus, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company said.
The site’s analytical laboratories for radiation monitoring were “destroyed and the analytical instruments stolen, broken or otherwise disabled”, Ukraine told the IAEA.
“While it is very positive that Ukrainian authorities are gradually restoring regulatory control of the Chernobyl site, it is clear that a lot of work remains to return the site to normality,” Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA director general, said in a statement.
I’m Dani Anguiano and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments in the war in Ukraine over the next few hours.
Russia is boosting its campaign to recruit men who are not eligible for conscription to fight in the eastern Donbas region, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence service.
Posting an update on Telegram, the agency said that employees of “strategic enterprises” are now being drafted. They were previously exempt from active service.
Russia aims to mobilise around 1,700 employees of the Alchevsk steelworks, it said, as well as powerline maintenance workers in the locality.
Earlier, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhaylo Podolyak told Ukraine that it must push back enemy forces in the eastern Donbas region in order to bolster negotiating power for President Volodmyr Zelenskiy.
That’s all from me, Jenn Selby, today. My colleague Dani Anguiano is taking over now.
Updated
The newly appointed general in command of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine is likely to usher in a fresh round of “crimes and brutality” against civilians, the US has said.
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser in Washington, said the appointment of Alexander Dvornikov as theatre commander of Russian forces in Ukraine could not disguise the strategic failure of Vladimir Putin’s war so far.
Ukraine will never be subjugated to Russia; it doesn’t matter which general President Putin tries to appoint,” he told CNN.
Dvornikov’s appointment follows the withdrawal of Russian forces from around the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Dvornikov, 60, came to prominence at the head of Russian troops in Syria in 2015-16, when there was particularly brutal bombardment of rebel-held areas, including civilian populations, in Aleppo.
Read the full story here:
Updated
The Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, will travel to Russia on Monday to meet Vladimir Putin, an Austrian government spokesperson has said, according to Reuters.
Nehammer appeared in Kyiv on Saturday to meet the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and tour the nearby town of Bucha, where mass civilian graves were discovered last week.
He promised more Austrian support for the country’s armed forces, including rescue vehicles and fire trucks. Nehammer also pledged to donate more fuel. He said sanctions against Russia would only escalate until the war stops.
Updated
The US is committed to providing Ukraine with “the weapons it needs” to defend itself against Russia, the national security adviser Jake Sullivan has said.
Speaking on the ABC programme This Week, Sullivan said: “We’re going to get Ukraine the weapons it needs to beat back the Russians to stop them from taking more cities and towns where they commit these crimes.”
The Kremlin continues to reject allegations of war crimes by Ukraine and western allies.
On the NBC News show Meet the Press, Sullivan said the Biden administration was working “around the clock to deliver our own weapons … and organising and coordinating the delivery of weapons from many other countries.”
His pledge follows a £100m commitment to military and financial aid made to Ukraine by the UK on Friday.
Updated
About 600 pro-Russia protesters in a 350-car motorcade set off on a demonstration in Hanover, in the north of Germany, on Sunday.
A counter-demonstration of around 700 people supporting Ukraine in the city centre also took place, local police said.
According to Reuters, the motorcade was protesting against discrimination against Russian citizens in Germany since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
People also gathered to show their support for Russians at a demonstration in Frankfurt.
The protesters marched under the motto “against baiting and discrimination of Russian-speaking fellow citizens/against war”.
Germany has a sizeable Russian minority that grew substantially through immigration after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989.
About 235,000 Russian citizens live in the country, according to government statistics from late 2020. About 135,000 Ukrainians lived in Germany before Russia’s invasion, according to the figures, but an additional 300,000 have arrived as refugees since then.
Updated
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) calculates that more than 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees have fled Ukraine since the invasion began on 24 February.
It said the total was 4,503,954, up more than 62,291 on the previous day. It said Europe had not seen mass displacement of its kind since the second world war.
About 90% of those who have left the country are women and children. Men aged between 18 and 60 have been banned from leaving the country in most circumstances and urged to join the resistance movement.
Poland hosts the largest number of refugees from Ukraine; 2,593,902 people have crossed the border into the neighbouring country since the start of the war.
Updated
Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, has said 1,222 bodies have been found in the region around the capital, Kyiv, so far.
Ukrainian authorities are investigating 5,600 cases of alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops since the invasion began. They have identified more than 500 suspected war criminals, including high-ranking military and government officials in Russia.
Speaking to Sky News, she said: “What we see in all regions of Ukraine is war crimes, crimes against humanity, and we do everything to fix it.”
Venediktova added that she had evidence of Russia’s involvement in the missile attack on a train station in Kramatorsk. Russia has denied responsibility for the strike, which killed more than 50 people on Friday.
Updated
The White House has renewed its condemnation of the Russian targeting of Ukrainian civilians as war crimes, citing recent events including Friday’s missile strike on a railway station as “cruel and criminal and evil”.
However, it stopped short of classifying the attacks as genocide.
Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, took to US political shows on Sunday to decry Russia’s “systematic targeting of civilians, the grisly murder of innocent people, the brutality, the depravity” in Ukraine.
He said recent atrocities “absolutely constitutes war crimes”.
Asked during CNN’s State of the Union whether he believed recent attacks could be described as anything but genocide, Sullivan replied: “The label is less important than the fact that these acts are cruel and criminal and wrong and evil, and need to be responded to decisively.”
Read the full story here:
A health worker has described the harrowing aftermath of the maternity hospital attack in Mariupol on 9 March – and the moment her own medical facility was taken over by Russian soldiers.
Alina Buzunar was forced to tell the husband of a woman who came looking for her following the bombardment that she had died, and took the man to the morgue to identify the body.
“He was absolutely calm until he found her,” she said. “Because he told us that until the last, he hoped it was not her. Then he cried a lot, it was a very sad situation.”
Staff had been sheltering in the basement when, on 11 or 12 March, they heard gunshots.
“Russian soldiers said: ‘Lie down on the floor or we will start throwing grenades at you,’ and that’s when they came into the hospital,” she said.
“They talked to the management, who asked them not to interfere with the work of the hospital. The main thing they asked of us was not to leave. They said that anyone who did would be shot.”
Read the full story here:
Updated
In a televised appearance, the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak told the nation that “Ukraine is ready for big battles” against Russia.
He said the country must push back enemy forces in the eastern Donbas region in order to bolster negotiating power for Volodymyr Zelenskiy before peace talks could take place with Vladimir Putin.
The Interfax news agency quoted Podolyak as saying: “Ukraine is ready for big battles. Ukraine must win them, including in the Donbas. And once that happens, Ukraine will have a more powerful negotiating position.
“After that the presidents will meet. It could take two weeks, three.”
Updated
The US lawmaker Liz Cheney has said European countries need to “understand that they’re funding that genocidal campaign” by continuing to buy oil and gas from Russia.
Cheney told CNN’s State of the Union programme that missile strike on the Kramatorsk Ukrainian train station this week “clearly is genocide”.
At least 52 people died on Friday, including children, and dozens were injured, after Russian forces carried out a missile strike on the railway station as civilians were trying to flee the fighting.
Cheney said:
I understand the economic consequences to countries in Western Europe if they were to impose a kind of oil and gas embargo that the US has imposed against Russian oil and gas – but they need to do it.
Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, added: “They need to understand that every single time, every single day that they are continuing to import Russian oil and gas, they’re funding Putin’s genocide in Ukraine.”
It’s Jenn Selby here, taking over from my colleague Alexandra Topping for the next two hours.
Updated
The British government is facing fresh calls to reveal the identities of eight Russian oligarchs now under sanctions who were allowed to buy “golden visas” to live in the UK.
Stephen Kinnock, the shadow minister for immigration, is demanding that the home secretary, Priti Patel, name the eight Russians on the sanctions list and publish a long-withheld report on the now scrapped visa purchase programme.
The government closed the “tier 1 investor visa” scheme in February as diplomatic relations with Russia came under severe strain. A week later, Russia invaded Ukraine, prompting the US, EU and UK to impose sanctions on many of Russia’s richest people to try to put pressure on Putin’s regime.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Vladimir Putin appoints new war commander
Vladimir Putin has appointed a new general to direct the war in Ukraine as his military shifts plans after a failure to take Kyiv, according to a US official and a European official.
Russia has appointed a new Ukraine war commander, a U.S. official said Sunday.
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 10, 2022
One of Russia’s most experienced military officers, Gen. Alexander Dvornikov has a record of brutality against civilians in Syria, according to U.S. officials. https://t.co/Iv6GmSahC1
Army Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, commander of Russia’s southern military district, has been named theatre commander of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, according to senior sources.
The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said: “No appointment of any general can erase the fact that Russia has already faced a strategic failure in Ukraine.” Sullivan described the general as having a record of brutality against civilians in Syria and said “we can expect more of the same”.
Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, he said:
This general will just be another author of crimes and brutality against Ukrainian civilians. And the United States, as I said before, is determined to do all that we can to support Ukrainians as they resist him and they resist the forces that he commands.
Dvornikov gained prominence while leading the Russian group of forces in Syria, where Moscow has waged a military campaign since 2015 to shore up President Bashar Assad’s regime during a devastating civil war.
Dvornikov, started his career as a platoon commander in 1982. He fought during the second war in Chechnya and took several top positions before being placed in charge of the Russian troops in Syria in 2015.
In 2016, Putin awarded Dvornikov the Hero of Russia medal, one of the country’s highest awards. Dvornikov has served as the commander of the Southern Military District since 2016, reported the Association Press.
A European official told CNN that the appointment “speaks to a Russian acknowledgement that it is going extremely badly and they need to do something differently” .
“They do things in the same old way,” the official added.
CNN reports:
Dvornikov, 60, was the first commander of Russia’s military operations in Syria, after Putin sent troops there in September 2015 to back the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. During Dvornikov’s command in Syria from September 2015 to June 2016, Russian aircraft backed the Assad regime and its allies as they laid siege to rebel-held eastern Aleppo, bombarding densely populated neighborhoods and causing major civilian casualties. The city fell to Syrian government forces in December 2016.
Russian forces have used a similarly heavy-handed approach in parts of Ukraine, striking residential buildings in major cities and demolishing much of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.
Updated
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said the decision by Germany and France not to allow Ukraine to join Nato in 2008 was a “strategic mistake”.
In a Sunday morning interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Kuleba said:
The strategic mistake that was made in 2008 by Germany and France who rejected the efforts of the United States and other allies to bring Ukraine in, is something that we are paying for. It’s not Germany or France that are paying the cost for this mistake, it’s Ukraine. If we were a member of Nato, this war wouldn’t take place.
He added:
Ukraine won the battle for Kyiv. Now another battle is coming.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister: 'Ukraine won the battle for Kyiv. Now another battle is coming'https://t.co/qCW3xpc86P pic.twitter.com/9h0GZzGRlW
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) April 10, 2022
Updated
The airport in the east-central Ukrainian city of Dnipro was destroyed in a Russian strike, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, Valentyn Reznichenko said on Sunday.
And one more attack on the airport in Dnipro. There is nothing left of it already. The airport and the infrastructure nearby have been destroyed. But rockets keep flying.
Reznichenko said information about casualties was being clarified.
The airport has been hit by Russian forces before - Reznichenko said on March 15 that a Russian missile strike had taken out the runway and damaged a terminal building.
Lesia Vasylenko, a Ukrainian MP, said on Twitter:
Russia artillery attack on Dnipro airport leaves no infrastructure and destroys everything around the airport. Such a shame, as the airport was completely renovated just last year. All the investments and all the efforts completely wrecked
#Russia artillery attack on #Dnipro airport leaves no infrastructure and destroys everything around the airport. Such a shame, as the airport was completely renovated just last year. All the investments and all the efforts completely wrecked
— Lesia Vasylenko (@lesiavasylenko) April 10, 2022
Updated
Zelenskiy says Europe, not just Ukraine, is Putin's target – video
In a late-night address after meeting the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, the Ukrainian president said Russia’s aggression was not, and has never been, limited to Ukraine.
The whole of Europe was the target, said Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday, as he again urged the west to impose a total embargo on Russian energy products and to supply Ukraine with more weapons:
Updated
Yurii Sobolevskyi, deputy head of the Kherson regional council, said locals held a “peaceful rally” Sunday in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson that was dispersed by Russian forces.
Posting on Facebook he said:
Today in Kherson a peaceful rally took place in front of the Yubileiny concert hall to commemorate the victims of Russian aggression,” he said on Facebook. “As expected, the occupiers dispersed it.
He said locals were participating in rallies at “great risk,” facing down intimidation and the threat of disappearance.
The Guardian was not immediately able to verify the rally or its turnout.
Also on Sunday the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine on Sunday said Russians in the town of Nova Kakhovka in Kherson region had used local printing houses to prepare brochures, booklets and posters in preparation for an apparent referendum on the establishment of a so-called “Kherson People’s Republic”.
CNN reported:
Separatists in eastern Ukraine held referendums in 2014 on the formation of “people’s republics,” in voting that was dismissed by Ukraine and Western countries as a sham.
Serhii Khlan, a member of the Kherson regional council, said Russian sympathizers holding Russian tricolor flags had tried to organize a rally in the city of Nova Kakhovka, posting a photo on Facebook that he said showed a very small turnout compared with a pro-Ukrainian rally.
“This is all you need to know about the probability of a Kherson People’s Republic in the Kherson region,” he said. “This will not happen, because this is Ukraine!”
Updated
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has tweeted that he has discussed possible new sanctions on Russia, as well as defence and financial support for Ukraine, in a phone conversation with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
He said:
Had a phone conversation with @OlafScholz. We emphasized that all perpetrators of war crimes must be identified and punished,” Zelenskiy said on his official Twitter account.
We also discussed anti-Russian sanctions, defence and financial support for Ukraine.
Had a phone conversation with @OlafScholz. We emphasized that all perpetrators of war crimes must be identified and punished. We also discussed anti-Russian sanctions, defense and financial support for Ukraine.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) April 10, 2022
Updated
Pope Francis calls for an Easter ceasefire
Pope Francis has called for an Easter ceasefire to allow for a push for peace in Ukraine at a service for tens of thousands of people at Saint Peter’s Square in the Vatican today.
The pope called the war a “folly” that was leading to “heinous massacres” and “atrocious cruelty” against defenceless people.
Without naming Russia directly, he asked:
What victory is there in planting a flag on a pile of rubble?
#PrayTogether #Ukraine #Peace pic.twitter.com/X7QncC9EK7
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) April 10, 2022
Updated
British military intelligence: Russians forced to deploy long retired army personnel
Russian armed forces was seeking to strengthen troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service a decade ago, as losses mount from its invasion of Ukraine, British military intelligence said on Sunday.
Russian forces are also trying to recruit from the unrecognised Transnistria region of Moldova, said the Ministry of Defence in a regular bulletin on Twitter.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 10 April 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 10, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/8yjYrVmzHe
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/Xd1tmsCDme
(2/3) In response to mounting losses, the Russian armed forces seek to bolster troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service since 2012.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 10, 2022
(3/3) Efforts to generate more fighting power also include trying to recruit from the unrecognised Transnistria region of Moldova.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 10, 2022
Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who led the prosecution of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević at the international criminal tribunal, has called for Russia to be kicked off the UN security council – or be stripped of veto powers.
Speaking on Times Radio, he said:
A very important step that should be taken is to kick Russia off the security council, or withdraw its veto, or in some other way stop it from having the power to stop itself being tried. That power, just think about this, is the equivalent of Hitler being given the veto power in 1944 to say who would be tried at Nuremberg in 1946.”
He added: “Saying that the present system is a bit broken or incomplete doesn’t mean to say we should not put all our effort into ensuring that it is improved ...
“Another way is to ensure that after this conflict ends that identified Russian potential defendants are handed over by Russia.”
The international community may be more willing to take the step now, he said, because the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shaken the world by bringing it to the brink of nuclear disaster and forcing it to look at the shortcomings of the current system.
Updated
Ukraine is accusing Russian forces who occupied the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant of stealing deadly radioactive substances from research laboratories.
In an update posted on Facebook, the State Agency for Managing the Exclusion Zone claimed that Russian soldiers had entered the storage area of the Ecocentre research base and taken 133 toxic materials.
“Even a small part of this activity is deadly if handled unprofessionally,” the agency said.
It added that the location of the stolen substances is “currently unknown”.
“The degree of preservation and safety of calibration sources and sample radioactive solutions is impossible to be established, and the condition of the damaged will be determined after the appropriate inventory and measurements are carried out.”
The statement has not been independently verified.
It follows comments made by German Gulashchenko, Ukraine’s energy minister, on Friday after he visited the exclusion zone. He said that Russian troops had exposed themselves to “shocking” levels of nuclear radiation.
“They dug bare soil contaminated with radiation, collected radioactive sand in bags for fortification, breathed this dust,” Gulashchenko said via Facebook.
He predicted that some of the soldiers may only have a year to live due to the exposure.
It’s Jenn Selby here, taking over from by colleague Alexandra Topping for an hour.
Updated
Summary
- President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has used his Saturday late night address to say that Russia is targeting “the whole European project”. In his late-night address to Ukrainians on Saturday, the Ukrainian president said Russian aggression “was not intended to be limited to Ukraine alone” and the “entire European project is a target for Russia”.
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Zelenskiy said it was the “moral duty of all democracies, all the forces of Europe, to support Ukraine’s desire for peace”, adding that the country was ready to simultaneously fight and look for diplomatic ways to put an end to the war.
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Zelenskiy’s address came as civilians continued to flee eastern parts of the country before an expected onslaught and firefighters searched for survivors in a northern town no longer occupied by Russian forces.
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Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced nine corridors for evacuation in a Telegram post.
- Officials have said a grave with dozens of Ukrainians civilians was found in Buzova village near Kyiv, the latest such discovery as Russian forces retreat from their offensive on Kyiv and shift their assault to the east.
- Boris Johnson’s visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv “very timely and very important”. said Ihor Zhovkva, a senior diplomatic adviser to Zelenskiy. The UK prime minister “did not come empty handed”, with the pair discussing various types of support the UK could offer, including anti-ship missiles and financial support. He called for more weapons.
- The Ukrainian military’s latest operational report said Russian forces are attempting to break through the Ukrainian defences in Izum in Kharkiv, east Ukraine, while also attempting to establish full control over the city of Mariupol.
- Satellite images released by US private space technology company Maxar Technologies show an eight-mile-long military convoy moving south through the eastern Ukraine town of Velkyi Burluk on 8 April. The town sits to the east of Kharkiv, close to Ukraine’s border with Russia.
- The Russian ministry of defence claimed missile strikes in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions.
A new grave with dozens of civilian Ukrainians was found on Saturday in Buzova, a liberated village near the capital Kyiv that was occupied by Russian forces for weeks, according to a local official.
Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community that includes Buzova and several other nearby villages, told Ukrainian television that the bodies were found in a ditch near a petrol station. The number of dead is yet to be confirmed.
He said:
Now, we are returning to life, but during the occupation we had our ‘hotspots’, many civilians died.
The Guardian could not immediately confirm the report.
Ukrainian presidential adviser: meeting between Zelenskiy and Putin can only happen after Donbas battle
In televised remarks the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has said Volodymyr Zelenskiy would likely meet with Vladimir Putin only after an expected major battle for the eastern Donbas region.
Ukraine is ready for big battles. Ukraine must win them, particularly in Donbas. And after that, Ukraine will get a more powerful negotiating position, from which it can dictate certain conditions. After that, the presidents will meet. That may take two or three weeks.
Moscow has turned its gaze on the Donbas, where a major offensive is thought to be imminent.
Updated
More on the nine evacuation corridors agreed for Sunday:
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced the nine corridors in a Telegram post (see 08.29)
Here are the details:
- One corridor will operate in the Donetsk region from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, by private vehicle only.
- Three other corridors have been established to the Zaporizhzhia region from Berdiansk, Tokmak and Energodar, running by both bus and private transport.
- No corridor from the southern city of Melitopol
- In the Luhansk region, five corridors will be operational. They will all run to Bakhmut from: Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Popasna, Hirske and Rubizhne.
Regional officials have urged the evacuation of civilians from eastern Ukraine in advance of what expected heavy fighting.
Updated
Russia claims missile strikes in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions
The Russian ministry of defence said on Sunday that its forces had carried out missile strikes in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions.
Defense ministry spokesman Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov said in a statement:
During the night in the village of Zvonetske - Dnipropetrovsk region - high-precision sea-based missiles destroyed the headquarters and base of the Dnipro nationalist battalion, where reinforcements from foreign mercenaries arrived the other day.
High-precision air-launched missiles in the area of the settlement of Stara Bohdanivka, Mykolaiv region and at the Chuhuiv military airfield [in Kharkiv region] destroyed launchers of Ukrainian S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems identified by reconnaissance.
The Guardian could not immediately verify those claims. The Russian military has repeatedly claimed it is targeting “foreign mercenaries” and “nationalist” formations in Ukraine and denies targeting civilian infrastructure, despite evidence to the contrary.
Earlier on Sunday Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration in east-central Ukraine, said there had been a series of strikes around the region over the past 24 hours.
He said:
There were sirens almost every hour and, unfortunately, there are incoming shells in different areas.
He added that a Russian strike on the regional capital of Dnipro had destroyed infrastructure, leaving one person injured, with rescuers working for hours to extinguish a fire.
Reznichenko said a rocket hit an industrial facility in the Pavlohrad district, to the east of Dnipro, destroying the premises and causing a fire while a farming building was burned down in the Dnipo district. No casualties were reported in either incident, he said.
Updated
In Germany Bild is reporting that 15 German “Marder” light tanks could be ready to deliver to Ukraine in four months, with 35 delivered by the end of the year. But as Politico Europe reporter Hans von der Burchard asks: will this be too late?
Germany’s Rheinmetall says it can deliver 35 “Marder” light tanks to Ukraine until the end of this year, out of which 15 could be ready in four months, BILD reports. Too late for Ukraine?
— Hans von der Burchard (@vonderburchard) April 10, 2022
(On Friday we reported that Germany ruled out an immediate delivery of tanks from its army) https://t.co/B0j7RPJEAO
Updated
UK policing minister Kit Malthouse has said Britain could impose sanctions on Russian troops and generals suspected of committing war crimes in Ukraine.
Speaking on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme Malthouse said that it was important that evidence of atrocities was gathered as “assiduously as possible” as the conflict continues.
While that is ongoing we can take action domestically around sanctions we are able to put on individuals, including combatants, leading generals and others involved in it, to signal our recognition of their part in this dreadful, dreadful assault upon a free democratic country.
Malthouse called Boris Johnson’s walkabout with Volodymyr Zelensky through the streets of Kyiv during a surprise visit on Saturday “quite a remarkable moment”.
Answering criticism (including by shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper this morning - see this post at 11.12 ) Malthouse said progress admitting Ukrainian refugees to the UK had been disappointing but was now “motoring” .
He said:
I know that people are disappointed with the progress of the visa regime. The Home Secretary has been out this week expressing her frustration and regret that it hasn’t been quicker.
Updated
Iryna Veneditktova, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, has told Sky News today that Russia has committed war crimes across Ukraine
Veneditktova told Sky News:
This morning we have 1,222 dead people in the Kyiv region only.
Of course, what we saw on the ground in all regions of Ukraine is war crimes, crimes against humanity, and we do everything to fix it.
Referring to the missile attack on a railway station in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk which killed more than 50 people, Veneditktova said:
Absolutely, it’s a war crime. It was a Russian missile which killed more 50 people.
These people just wanted to save their lives. They wanted to be evacuated with kids. It was women, it was children, and they just wanted to save their lives.
More pictures are emerging of Russian destruction in the villages near Kyiv:
Updated
Yvette Cooper, the UK’s shadow home secretary, was also on the BBC One’s Sunday Morning show this morning, as well as Sky.
She described delays in Ukrainian refugees getting UK visas as “a total nightmare” and said Labour would only apply security checks to those coming into the UK.
Cooper told the BBC it was “totally shameful” that only 1,200 people have arrived under the Homes for Ukraine scheme despite 200,000 people offering to give a refugee a home.
She told Sky that there should be an emergency Visa, which would “essentially” be a emergency visa with security checks.
That’s what we need to do. You don’t need a lot of this additional fees or requirements, for example, to come on the homes for Ukraine scheme, Ukrainian families are supposed to prove their residence as to where they were living before the first of January.
So people are uploading utility bills or other kinds of details that then has to be checked by caseworkers that then adds to delays.
The point about security checks is ministers and officials have themselves admitted you can do them on the spot. You can do them within a matter of hours, so there’s absolutely no excuse for these weeks of delays.
Updated
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ukraine has said today that his team was unable to reach the besieged city of Mariupol last week despite trying for five days.
Pascal Hundt told Sky News:
The security conditions were not good, the security guarantees we got were were not good either, so at around 20 kilometres from Mariupol we had to go back.
The Red Cross gathered refugees on the way and private cars joined the convoy under the organisation’s flag, with more than 1,000 people finally reaching Zaporizhzhia.
Hundt said:
Many more of such operations will need to take place in the coming days, in the coming weeks.
It’s urgent and we really are in contact with the Russian authorities with the Ukrainian authorities to ensure that safe passage is being provided to these people so that they can move freely and safely to a much safer place.
Hundt also said that following the deadly missile attack on a railway station at Kramatorsk, had worsened the situation with more people using private cars rather than trains to escape the Russian advance.
Updated
Addressing the “free people of a brave country”, Zelenskiy said:
That is why it is not just the moral duty of all democracies, all the forces of Europe, to support Ukraine’s desire for peace. This is, in fact, a strategy of defence for every civilized state.
In his video address, Zelenskiy thanked the leaders of Britain and Austria for their visits to Kyiv on Saturday and pledges of further support, AP reports.
He also thanked the European Commission president and Canada’s prime minister for a global fundraising event that brought in more than 10 billion euros ($11 billion) for the millions of Ukrainians who have fled their homes.
Zelenskiy repeated his call for a complete embargo on Russian oil and gas, which he called the sources of Russia’s “self-confidence and impunity.”
He said:
Freedom does not have time to wait. When tyranny begins its aggression against everything that keeps the peace in Europe, action must be taken immediately.
In an interview with the Associated Press’ inside his heavily guarded presidential office complex, Zelenskiy said he was committed to negotiating a diplomatic end to the war even though Russia has “tortured” Ukraine.
He also acknowledged that peace likely will not come quickly. Talks so far have not included Russian President Vladimir Putin or other top officials.
He said:
We have to fight, but fight for life. You can’t fight for dust when there is nothing and no people. That’s why it is important to stop this war.
Zelenskiy noted the increased support but expressed frustration when asked if weapons and equipment Ukraine has received from the West is sufficient to shift the war’s outcome.
He said:
Not yet. Of course it’s not enough.
Updated
Zelenskiy: Europe is Putin's target
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy gave his late-night address on Saturday.
In it he says Russia’s aggression is not, and has never been, limited to Ukraine, and the whole of Europe is a target.
Zelenskiy again urged the west to impose a total embargo on Russian energy products and to supply Ukraine with more weapons.
Russia’s use of force was “a catastrophe that will inevitably hit everyone”, he added.
With Russian forces gathering in the east of the country, Zelenskiy said Ukraine was ready for a tough battle.
He added:
This will be a hard battle, we believe in this fight and our victory. We are ready to simultaneously fight and look for diplomatic ways to put an end to this war.
Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin would not meet until after Russia was defeated in the east.
Updated
Johnson's Kyiv visit 'timely and very important', says Zelenskiy adviser
One of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s advisers has called Boris Johnson’s visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv “very timely and very important”.
Speaking on BBC One’s Sunday Morning Ihor Zhovkva, a senior diplomatic adviser to Zelenskiy, said that the UK prime minister “did not come empty handed”, with the pair discussing various types of support the UK could offer, including anti-ship missiles and financial support.
Zhovkva said the anti-ship missiles would help defend cities like Odesa under attack by Russian warships.
The message from Zhovkva was clear. Ukraine needed “weapons, weapons and more weapons”, he said.
Updated
A UK crossbench peer offering her home to a fleeing Ukrainian family has said the UK’s visa scheme is “unwelcoming” and adding to refugees’ trauma.
Lady Finlay is offering space in her Cardiff home to a mother and two children, but has been waiting for three weeks for their visas to be cleared through the Homes for Ukraine scheme, PA reports.
Her husband, Professor Andrew Finlay, spent eight hours filling out forms for their visa applications on 18 March, the day the scheme launched, she said.
The father of the family, who were already known to her and her husband, is a doctor and has remained in Kyiv, she said. The couple has also submitted an application for him in the event he also leaves Ukraine due to injury or other reasons.
Finlay added:
He’s decided to stay to serve his country and he’s basically entrusted his wife and two children to us. We’ve said we will do whatever is needed for however long to support them, and we know that it might be years.
Each of the family’s four applications had to be made separately. And despite repeated efforts in person at a visa information centre and over the phone, the only official response has been four separate emails on Thursday to say each applicant is “in the system” to be processed.
She said:
The silence is awful... nobody can help me find out what’s happened to these people’s applications. I think there is a failure of recognition that this uncertainty is adding to the trauma that these people have already experienced.
These aren’t just pieces of paper, these are people... and these are people who have lost everything.
We need to provide an environment where they know that they are welcome and they are safe - how can they feel welcome?
The message from the system is that the country is not welcoming them.
Finlay described the preparations she and her husband have taken to make their home welcoming to the family - including clearing space in their kitchen, installing a radio which can be tuned into Ukrainian radio and washing soft toys for the younger child.
Finlay said the Home Office was “not functioning as it should”.
This feels as if it’s totally reactive, as if nobody had looked carefully at the visa application processes over recent years and said: ‘in the event of a major conflict in the world, where all of a sudden, we have to deal with a mass migration of people, how are we going to do it?’
A government spokesperson said:
We continue to process visas for the Homes for Ukraine scheme as quickly as possible, but accept progress has not been quick enough.
The Home Office has made changes to visa processing - the application form has been streamlined, Ukrainian passport holders can now apply online and do their biometrics checks once in the UK, and greater resource has gone into the system.
Updated
PA has a moving story of the reception two men who drove two ambulances full of medical supplies into Ukraine.
Charles Blackmore, a British executive who founded commercial intelligence specialists Audere International in 2015, drove one of the two vehicles from the UK to Lutsk via Warsaw, arriving in the Ukrainian city on Friday evening.
Blackmore was moved to do something more personal after speaking to his American friend Herb Holtz, whose grandfather left Ukraine in 1905.
Speaking from Warsaw’s Chopin Airport on his way back to the UK, he told the PA news agency that the pair had been given an “incredible reception” by the while Ukrainians welcomed them with speeches, and patriotic songs.
He said:
When you drive through checkpoints, when you drive through cities in curfew, when 70% of the city of Lutsk - which is 200,000 people - have left the city, you’re going into a ghost town.
And when you see what is happening, to be able to bring the aid to the people was a very important journey.
Audere, which provides intelligence to parties wishing to make overseas investments, has already been active in the effort in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion, helping with evacuations and conducting five resupply operations.
Blackmore said:
We had been involved in evacuating people out of Afghanistan last August.
We did not expect some seven months later to be involved in a second evacuation, this time in Europe.
But when it happened we decided that we did actually want, and we had the right operating template, to be able to contribute to the humanitarian aid, to the evacuation and to providing support for the Ukrainian people.
The company has delivered two tonnes of food and 300 litres of liquids, as well as essential items like first aid and clothes, and extensive medical supplies.
Blackmore said he was moved to do something more personal after speaking to his American friend Holtz.
He said, ‘I want to do something meaningful. ‘My grandfather was Ukrainian, he left in 1905. I want to do something more than write a check’.
So I said, ‘Let’s buy a couple of ambulances, one each, and let’s both first take them down, take them into Ukraine, and see the end result’.
The ambulances were sourced were sourced via a charity in the UK and filled with two tonnes of medical supplies.
And although they were delivered to Lutsk, in western Ukraine, Blackmore said he had been assured the vehicles and supplies would be going “right to the front line” including Bucha.
Blackmore said the Ukrainians “really appreciate” the help and support coming from the UK.
He said:
What impressed us most was the cheerfulness and the resolve of the Ukrainian people.
And it’s very important that we stand even closer behind them and give them the more support and we’re going to look to do that ourselves.
Updated
Nine humanitarian corridors to help people escape fighting in the east
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said that Kyiv has agreed the use of nine humanitarian corridors to help people to escape heavy fighting in the east of the country, including in private cars from Mariupol.
In a statement on her Telegram channel on Sunday Vereshchuk said:
All the routes for the humanitarian corridors in the Luhansk region will work as long as there is a ceasefire by the occupying Russian troops.
A total of 4,553 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Saturday, fewer than the 6,665 who escaped on Friday, Vereshchuk said on Saturday.
Good morning from London, I’m Lexy Topping and I’ll be keeping you up to date on news coming out of Ukraine today. Please do get in touch if you want to draw attention to any news we may have missed - I’m on alexandra.topping@theguardian.com, and @lexytopping on Twitter. My DMs are open.
Updated
Quick snap here from Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief.
“Ukraine will prevail and rise back even stronger. And the EU will continue to stand by you, every step of the way,” Borrell tweeted this morning.
#Ukraine will prevail and rise back even stronger. And the EU will continue to stand by you, every step of the way.
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) April 10, 2022
Слава Україні! #StandWithUkraine #StopRussia pic.twitter.com/6WpPqsuzDI
Today so far
It is 10am on Sunday in Ukraine as the country braces for an escalation in attacks in the east and evacuations of civilians continue.
Here’s where things stand:
-
A recently discovered grave with dozens of Ukrainian civilians has been found in Buzova, a liberated village near the capital Kyiv, local officials said.
-
Residents in the besieged region of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine will be able to evacuate the area today with nine trains ready for civilians to flee, the regional governor has said.
- A school and several apartment buildings were hit by shelling in the Luhansk and Dnipro regions early on Sunday morning, wounding one person and causing a fire, officials said.
- Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has warned his country “does not have time to wait”, while pushing for an oil embargo on Russia in his latest national address. “Oil is one of the two sources of Russian self-confidence, their sense of impunity,” he said.
- Zelenskiy said his country is ready for a tough battle with Russian forces amassing in the east of the country. “This will be a hard battle; we believe in this fight and our victory. We are ready to simultaneously fight and look for diplomatic ways to put an end to this war.”
- The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, pledged a major new infusion of British arms and financial aid during a surprise trip to Kyiv on Saturday. Johnson said the UK and its partners and allies will provide support so that “Ukraine will never be invaded again”. The UK confirmed it will send 120 armoured vehicles and new anti-ship missile systems.
- Johnson praised Zelenskiy’s “resolute leadership” and “invincible heroism”. “[Vladimir] Putin’s monstrous aims are being thwarted,” Johnson said. The reputations of the Russian president and his government have been “permanently polluted” by war crimes against civilians in Ukraine, he added.
- Russia’s withdrawal from northern Ukraine has left evidence of “disproportionate targeting” of civilians, mass graves, the use of hostages as human shields, according to the latest British intelligence report. The report also claimed Russian forces continue to use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to inflict casualties, lower Ukrainian morale and restrict freedom of movement.
- In response to mounting losses, the Russian armed forces are seeking to bolster troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service since 2012, the UK’s ministry of defence said.
- The Ukrainian military said its soldiers thwarted eight Russian attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, according to its latest operational report as of 6am this morning. Officials claim Russian forces are attempting to break through the Ukrainian defences in Izum in Kharkiv, east Ukraine, by relocating additional units to the area.
- Satellite images released by US private space technology company Maxar Technologies show a 13km-long (8miles) military convoy moving south through the eastern Ukraine town of Velkyi Burluk, east of Kharkiv, on 8 April.
- Unconfirmed reports allege that another top Russian general has died in battle in Ukraine. Colonel Alexander Bespalov, the commander of the 59th Guards Tank Regiment, was reportedly killed and a funeral was held on Friday in the Russian city of Ozersk, according to local media reports.
- Nato is working on plans for a permanent military presence on its border in an effort to battle future Russian aggression, the Telegraph is reporting, citing Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg.
Updated
Some of the latest images to come out of Ukraine today highlight the continued destruction inflicted upon cities across the country.
Updated
Nato is working on plans for a permanent military presence on its border in an effort to battle future Russian aggression, The Telegraph is reporting, citing Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
Nato was “in the midst of a very fundamental transformation” that will reflect “the long-term consequences” of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions, Stoltenberg said in an interview with the newspaper.
“What we see now is a new reality, a new normal for European security. Therefore, we have now asked our military commanders to provide options for what we call a reset, a longer-term adaptation of Nato,” it cited Stoltenberg as saying.
Stoltenberg, who recently said he would extend his term as head of the alliance by a year, also said in the interview that decisions on the reset would be made at a Nato summit to be held in Madrid in June.
Russian military convoy heads east of Kharkiv, satellite images and Ukraine military report
The Ukrainian military has just published its latest operational report as of 6am this morning.
Officials claim Russian forces are attempting to break through the Ukrainian defences in Izum in Kharkiv, east Ukraine, by relocating additional units to the area while also attempting to establish full control over the city of Mariupol.
A partial blockade of Kharkiv and shelling of the city continues, Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces said.
Satellite images released by US private space technology company Maxar Technologies show an eight-mile-long military convoy moving south through the eastern Ukraine town of Velkyi Burluk on 8 April.
The town sits to the east of Kharkiv, close to Ukraine’s border with Russia.
The “constant arrival of wounded [Russian] soldiers” is putting strain on medical staff and overwhelming medical supplies, the Ukraine defence report added.
In the absence of a stable supply of spare parts and units, Russian troops are forced to “work around the clock” to restore and repair equipment, officials claimed.
In the Luhansk region, the measures of Russian-occupation administrations on forced mobilisation of the population in temporarily occupied territories are being strengthened.
According to the report, in the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukrainian soldiers thwarted eight Russian attacks, destroyed four tanks, eight units of armoured vehicles and 13 air targets including three aircraft, one helicopter, five UAVs and four winged missiles.
A school and several apartment buildings were hit by shelling in Ukraine’s Luhansk and Dnipro regions early on Sunday morning, wounding one person and causing a fire, officials said.
A school and a high-rise apartment building were shelled in the city of Sievierodonetsk in the besieged region of Luhansk, the region’s governor said.
Several apartments burned down and residents were evacuated from the building.
“Two high-rise buildings in a new district of the city, as well as a high school building came under heavy fire from the Russian army,” Serhiy Gaidai wrote on Telegram.
“Fortunately, no casualties,” he added.
In the central city of Dnipro, one person was wounded when a building was hit. The shelling sparked a fire that was eventually put out, regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said in a seperate post.
A missile hit a building in the Pavlograd district of the Dnipro, Reznichenko said.
The Guardian could not immediately confirm the reports.
Residents in the besieged region of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine will be able to evacuate the area today with nine trains ready for civilians to flee, the Luhansk regional governor has said.
Serhiy Gaidai announced the news in an update on Telegram early this morning, with most trains set to leave for cities in the west such as Lviv.
Updated
We are receiving unconfirmed reports that another top Russian general has died in battle in Ukraine.
Colonel Alexander Bespalov, the commander of the 59th Guards Tank Regiment, was reportedly killed in battle by Ukrainian defence forces.
It would be the ninth colonel Russian president Vladimir Putin has lost since Russian invaded Ukraine on 24 February.
A funeral was reportedly held for Bespalov on Friday in the Russian city of Ozersk, according to local media reports.
Ukraine’s ministry of defence estimates that Russia has lost more than 19,000 personnel.
Russian Colonel Alexander Bespalov, the commander of the 59th Guards Tank Regiment (part of the 144th Guards Motorized Rifle Division), has been killed in battle by the Ukrainian Army. pic.twitter.com/jLMFi93hGY
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 10, 2022
Russia seeks to bolster troop numbers with discharged personnel, UK MoD says
In response to mounting losses, the Russian armed forces is seeking to bolster troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service since 2012, according to the latest British intelligence report.
Efforts to generate more fighting power also include trying to recruit from the unrecognised Transnistria region of Moldova, the report added.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 10 April 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 10, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/8yjYrVmzHe
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/Xd1tmsCDme
An earlier report said Russia’s withdrawal from northern Ukrainian has left evidence of “disproportionate targeting” of civilians, mass graves, the use of hostages as human shields.
Russia’s departure from northern Ukraine leaves evidence of the disproportionate targeting of non-combatants including the presence of mass graves, the fatal use of hostages as human shields, and mining of civilian infrastructure.
Russian forces continue to use IEDs to inflict casualties, lower morale, and restrict Ukrainian freedom of movement. Russian forces also continue to attack infrastructure targets with a high risk of collateral harm to civilians, including a nitrate acid tank at Rubizhne.”
An earlier report claimed Russian forces continue to use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to inflict casualties, lower morale, and restrict Ukrainian freedom of movement.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 9 April 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 9, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/U5qWONizow
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/z6k7bDdkq2
Updated
Towns and villages surrounding Kyiv have been left reeling after Russia’s failed campaign to seize the capital.
The Russian retreat has revealed scores of civilian deaths and devastation inflicted upon homes, apartment buildings and civilian infrastructure.
Images from Borodianka, about 50km north-west of Kyiv, reveal the extent of the destruction.
Ukraine is ready for a tough battle in east, Zelenskiy says
Ukraine is ready for a tough battle with Russian forces amassing in the east of the country, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday.
In case you missed his earlier news conference, the president warned that while the threat to the capital had receded, it was rising in the east.
This will be a hard battle, we believe in this fight and our victory. We are ready to simultaneously fight and look for diplomatic ways to put an end to this war.”
Ukranian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said Zelenskiy and Russian president Vladimir Putin would not meet until after the country defeated Russia in the east, which would bolster its negotiating position.
We are paying a very high price. But Russia must get rid of its imperial illusions,” he said, according to the Interfax Ukraine news agency.
Air-raid sirens sounded in cities across eastern Ukraine, which has become the focus of Russian military action after the withdrawal from around Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials have urged civilians in the east to flee.
A recently discovered grave with dozens of Ukrainian civilians has been found in Buzova, a liberated village near the capital Kyiv, local officials said.
Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community that includes Buzova and several other nearby villages, told Ukrainian television that the bodies were found in a ditch near a petrol station. The number of those who died is yet to be confirmed.
“Now, we are returning to life, but during the occupation we had our ‘hotspots’, many civilians died,” Didych said.
The Guardian is not able to immediately verify the reports.
Many towns and villages surrounding the capital, including Makariv, Bucha, Irpin and Dmytrivka, sustained heavy casualties during the first month of war.
As the towns revert back to Ukrainian control, discoveries of mass graves and civilian casualties have triggered a wave of international condemnation, in particular over deaths in the town of Bucha, northwest of the capital.
UK pledges to send more arms
Boris Johnson has pledged a major new infusion of British arms and financial aid to help counter the expected deadly new phase in Russia’s military offensive during a surprise trip to Kyiv on Saturday.
After meeting with Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Johnson said:
Ukraine has defied the odds and pushed back Russian forces from the gates of Kyiv, achieving the greatest feat of arms of the 21st century.
It is because of president Zelenskiy’s resolute leadership and the invincible heroism and courage of the Ukrainian people that Putin’s monstrous aims are being thwarted. I made clear today that the United Kingdom stands unwaveringly with them in this ongoing fight, and we are in it for the long run.
We are stepping up our own military and economic support and convening a global alliance to bring this tragedy to an end, and ensure Ukraine survives and thrives as a free and sovereign nation.”
No 10 said Britain would send 120 armoured vehicles and new anti-ship missile systems to Ukraine. The missiles can do serious damage to Russian warships and could be used to tackle the Russian navy siege of Black Sea ports. The UK pledged £100m in military assistance last week, including another 800 anti-tank missiles, more anti-aircraft weapons, “suicide drones”, which hover over the battlefield before attacking a target, and helmets, body armour and night-vision goggles.
The Ukrainians have the courage of a lion.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) April 9, 2022
President @ZelenskyyUa has given the roar of that lion.
The UK stands unwaveringly with the people of Ukraine.
Slava Ukraini 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/u6vGYqmK4V
Updated
Without oil embargo, Russia has 'sense of impunity', Zelenskiy says
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivered another signature national address, noting that his country “does not have time to wait” while pushing for an oil embargo on Russia.
Ukraine does not have time to wait. Freedom does not have time to wait. When tyranny launches aggression against everything that keeps peace in Europe, action must be taken immediately.
It is necessary to act in a principled fashion. And the oil embargo should be the first step. At the level of all democracies, the whole civilised world.
Then Russia will feel it. Then it will be an argument for them - to seek peace, to stop pointless violence.”
The Ukrainian president urged for “more painful restrictions” on Russia’s cash flow, primarily upon oil and gas.
First of all this applies to the oil business. The democratic world can definitely give up Russian oil and make it toxic to all other states.
Oil is one of the two sources of Russian self-confidence, their sense of impunity.”
Zelenskiy also pushed for gas sanctions, saying over time this “will also be shut down”.
“It’s just inevitable. Not only for safety, but also for environmental reasons,” he added.
Summary and welcome
It is 8.30am on Sunday in Ukraine as the country braces for an escalation in attacks in the east and evacuations continue.
Here’s where things stand:
- Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has warned his country “does not have time to wait” while pushing for an oil embargo on Russia in his latest national address. “Oil is one of the two sources of Russian self-confidence, their sense of impunity,” he said.
- Zelenskiy said his country is ready for a tough battle with Russian forces amassing in the east of the country. “This will be a hard battle; we believe in this fight and our victory. We are ready to simultaneously fight and look for diplomatic ways to put an end to this war.”
- The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, pledged a major new infusion of British arms and financial aid during a surprise trip to Kyiv on Saturday. Johnson said the UK and its partners and allies will provide support so that “Ukraine will never be invaded again”. The UK confirmed it will send 120 armoured vehicles and new anti-ship missile systems.
- Johnson praised Zelenskiy’s “resolute leadership and the invincible heroism”. “Putin’s monstrous aims are being thwarted,” Johnson said. The reputations of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his government have been “permanently polluted” by war crimes against civilians in Ukraine, he added.
- Russia’s withdrawal from northern Ukraine has left evidence of “disproportionate targeting” of civilians, mass graves, the use of hostages as human shields, according to the latest British intelligence report. The report also claimed Russian forces continue to use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to inflict casualties, lower Ukrainian morale and restrict freedom of movement.
- The Ukrainian military said its soldiers thwarted eight Russian attacks in the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, according to its latest operational report as of 6am this morning.
- Five people have been killed in east Ukraine shelling, according to the Donetsk governor. Four were reported killed in the city of Vugledar, and one in the town of Novomikhaylovka.
- Towns and villages surrounding Kyiv have been left reeling after Russia’s failed campaign to seize the capital. In the town of Borodianka, north-west of Kyiv, rescue teams are sorting through the rubble of houses destroyed in Russian bombardments, looking for those missing.
- Ukraine carried out a prisoner exchange with Russia on Saturday, the third such swap since the start of the war, with 12 soldiers confirmed to be coming home, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, wrote online.
- A total of 4,553 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Saturday, fewer than the 6,665 who escaped on Friday, Vereshchuk said. Ten humanitarian corridors to evacuate people from embattled areas across the country had been agreed on Saturday.
- The European Commission is pledging €1bn to support Ukraine and countries receiving refugees fleeing the war following Russia’s invasion, said the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen.
- The Czech Republic has delivered tanks, multiple-rocket launchers, howitzers and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine among military shipments that have reached hundreds of millions of dollars and will continue, two Czech defence sources told Reuters.
- The Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, met Zelenskiy earlier on Saturday, following a visit to the city of Bucha to the north-west of Kyiv, where mass civilian graves and street killings by Russian forces were discovered last week.
- Russia has reorganised the command of its battle operations in Ukraine, installing a new general with extensive experience in Russian operations in Syria, according to western officials. The commander of Russia’s southern military district, Gen Alexander Dvornikov, now leads the invasion. “It speaks to a Russian acknowledgement that it is going extremely badly and they need to do something differently,” an official told CNN while a seperate source told the BBC: “We would expect the overall command and control to improve.”
- Ukraine has banned all imports from Russia, one of its key trading partners before the war with annual imports valued at about $6 billion, and called on other countries to follow suit. Ukraine’s minister for economic development and trade, Yulia Svyrydenko, made the announcement in a statement on Saturday.
- Nato is working on plans for a permanent military presence on its border in an effort to battle future Russian aggression, The Telegraph is reporting, citing Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
- Protesters staged a self-described “die-in” outside Downing St in London on Saturday, holding ‘babies’ and signs covered in fake blood in protest against the massacre in the town of Bucha. A similar protest took place outside the White House in Washington D.C.
