Dispatches from Ukraine, provided by Forbes Ukraine’s editorial team.
As Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues and the war rages on, reliable sources of information are critical. Forbes Ukraine’s reporters gather information and provide updates on the situation.
Thursday, April 21. Day 57. By Daryna Antoniuk
National
Ukraine has extended martial law until May 25. The Ukrainian parliament imposed the measure after Russia began its full-scale war in Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Martial law enables military authorities to impose curfews, block rallies, ban political parties and enforce restrictions on the movement of civilians. Ukraine, for instance, doesn’t allow men aged 18-60 to leave the country.
Regional
Mariupol. Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered his troops not to storm the Azovstal steel plant in the besieged city of Mariupol. Instead, Putin ordered Russian troops to blockade the area of the Azovstal “so that a fly can’t get through.” Nearly 1,000 Ukrainian civilians are sheltered there.
Satellite images published on Thursday show an alleged mass grave outside Mariupol. These images were collected and analyzed by Maxar Technologies
Russian soldiers have been taking the bodies of people killed in Mariupol to the village of Manhush. More than 20,000 civilians have been killed in Mariupol so far, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Kharkiv. The city was under intense bombardment today, withstanding about 15 attacks in which at least five civilians were injured.
Zaporizhzhia. Russia attacked Ukraine’s south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia. No casualties were reported. The southern part of the Zaporizhzhia region is already occupied by Russia.
Dnipro. Five people were injured as a result of a Russian missile airstrike which targeted the railway in the Dnipro region.
World
Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, arrived in Washington, D.C. today. He met with U.S. President Joe Biden and House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The U.S. will provide Ukraine another $800 million military assistance package. It will include heavy artillery weapons, ammunition, and tactical drones. The new assistance package will help Ukraine prepare for Russia’s offensive “that is going to be more limited in terms of geography, but not in terms of brutality,” according to U.S. President Joe Biden.
The U.S. also announced a separate tranche of $500 million in assistance for the Ukrainian government.
Next week Biden will launch a program allowing the U.S. to accept up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. Within this program, Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion of their home country can come to the U.S. temporarily if they have American sponsors.
Estonia and Latvia have become the first countries to recognize Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “genocide.” These actions, according to the Estonian parliament, have consisted of murders, enforced disappearances, deportations, imprisonment, torture, rape, and the desecration of corpses.
Latvia also named killing, torture, and sexual abuse of Ukrainian civilians as examples of genocide.
Russia closed the consulates of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The Kremlin accused the three former Soviet Baltic nations of providing military assistance to Ukraine “and covering up the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists against the civilian population of Donbas and Ukraine.”
Earlier this month, Latvia and Estonia also ordered the closing of two Russian consulates, and Lithuania expelled its Russian ambassador.
