Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 431

A Ukrainian soldier fires a Rocket Propelled Grenade towards Russian positions at the front line near Avdiivka, an eastern city where fierce battles against Russian forces were taking place, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on April 28, 2023 [Libkos/AP]

Here is the situation as it stands on Sunday, April 30, 2023:

Fighting

• A drone attack has caused a massive fire at a fuel storage facility in the Crimean port of Sevastopol. A Ukrainian military intelligence official said more than 10 fuel tanks with a capacity of about 40,000 tonnes, and intended for use by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, were destroyed.
• Two people were killed when a Ukrainian missile hit a Russian village near the border with Ukraine, the regional governor of Bryansk said. Missiles hit the village of Suzemka, to the east of the frontier between the two countries.
• Russian forces have not cut off Ukraine’s supply routes to the heavily destroyed city of Bakhmut, a spokesperson for the Eastern Group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said. Although the connecting road from Bakhmut to Chasiv Yar is being fought over, Russian forces have not succeeded in disrupting the logistics of Ukrainian forces, he said.
• The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has threatened to withdraw his troops from the battle for the city of Bakhmut due to high casualty rates. “Every day we have stacks of thousands of bodies that we put in coffins and send home,” Prigozhin said in an interview with Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov published on Saturday.

Diplomacy and politics

• Pope Francis met Ukrainian refugees on the second day of his visit to Hungary on Saturday, telling them a different future was possible as they described the hardships they have faced since the war began.
• Russia has promised to respond harshly to what it said was Poland’s illegal seizure of its embassy school in Warsaw, an act it called a flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.
• The United States said it was “deeply disappointed” by Russia’s rejection of a US embassy request to visit detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in prison.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree giving people in parts of Ukraine under Moscow’s control a path to Russian citizenship. He also increased the maximum sentence for treason in Russia to life in jail.