Russian forces stepped up attacks on Saturday, with scattered strikes in Kyiv and western Ukraine in a reminder that no region is out-of-bounds despite Russia’s pivot toward the east.
Russian troops struck a military target in Kyiv that killed one and injured several and shelled an oil refinery in Lysychansk that caught fire.
After Russia’s Black Sea flagship was sunk by Ukrainian missiles, Russia warned Friday there would be more attacks on the capital’s military targets.
The southern Mykolaiv region was battered Friday and Saturday. According to the presidential office, airstrikes Friday killed five and wounded 15. The head of the regional legislature, Hanna Zamazeyeva, also said Saturday that 39 people have been wounded in the past 24 hours.
Zamazeyeva said the targets included several residential blocks “where there are no military facilities.”
Ukraine’s presidential office reported Saturday that missile strikes and shelling over the past 24 hours occurred in eight regions: Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv in the east, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Kirovohrad in the central Ukraine and Mykolaiv and Kherson in the south.
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Latest developments
► Ukraine’s parliament on Saturday confirmed that 21 journalistsincluding renowned Ukrainian photojournalist Maxim Levin and Fox News cameraperson Pierre Zakrzewski, have died while covering the war in Ukraine and expressed “sincere condolences” to the families of the victims.
►The governor of the Kharkiv region says seven people, including a 7-month-old child, were killed in shelling of a residential neighborhood in the city.
► Russia and Ukraine on Saturday agreed upon nine humanitarian corridors across several cities.
►President Joe Biden is not set to visit Ukraine, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told the podcast “Pod Save America” Thursday.
Mariupol is holding out, but the situation is critical
A key strategic city in Ukraine has now endured more than six weeks of a brutal Russian siegeputting up a fierce resistance that has so far helped thwart Moscow’s plans to control eastern Ukraine’s industrial heartland.
But shortages of weapons and supplies are threatening Mariupol’s ability to resist Russian forces.
Once a city of 450,000, now only 120,000 people live there. At least 21,000 people have been killed in Mariupol, Major Vadym Boychenko said. Bodies were “carpeted through the streets.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the city’s fate is being discussed among the country’s leaders: “The details cannot be made public now, but we are doing everything we can to save our people,” Zelenskyy said Friday.
The city was thrust into the international spotlight in early March with the bombing of a maternity hospital, an attack by Western leaders have been described as a war crime. The airstrike killed three civilians, including a child, and left 17 wounded.
Fake security service messages are new Russian cyber attack, Ukraine officials claim
Russian cyberhackers are posing as the Security Service of Ukraine in hopes of tricking Ukrainians into downloading viruses, Ukraine’s information protection agency said Saturday.
The State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine said in a Telegram post that the bad actors are using popular messengers and asking users to download a file with instructions on “how to act during the wartime period,” but the file is a virus. The main targets of the attacks are civil servants, the agency said.
“The enemy does not stop trying to organize cyber attacks in Ukraine,” the agency said. “And although they are usually unsuccessful, each of us must pay attention to information security.”
The information protection agency affirmed that the Security Service of Ukraine does not send out such messages and encouraged Ukrainians to think twice before engaging with similar messages.
– She reads
Ukraine’s richest man pledged to help rebuild Mariupol: Reuters
Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man, is resolved to help rebuild the besieged city of Mariupol so it can again compete globally some day, he said in an interview with Reuters.
The biggest company in Akhmetov’s financial and industrial holding company, System Capital Management, is the mining conglomerate Metinvest, which is headquartered in Mariupol. The steelmaker, which is the biggest in Ukraine, vowed Friday never to operate under Russian occupation.
“My ambition is to return to a Ukrainian Mariupol and implement our (new production) plans so that Mariupol-produced steel can compete in global markets as before,” Akhmetov told Reuters.
Mariupol massacre:‘why? why? Why?’ Ukraine’s Mariupol descends into despair
He added that for Metinvest, the war started in 2014 when the company lost all its assets in Crimea and the temporarily occupied territory of Donbas. Still, that made the business “tougher and stronger,” he said.
As Ukraine’s largest private business, Akhmetov is “confident” System Capital Management will play a key role in rebuilding Mariupol.
– She reads
Rocket strike kills 1 in Kyiv, major says
One person was killed and several wounded in a missile strike that hit Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, early Saturday, Kyiv Major Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post.
“Our anti-aircraft defense forces are doing everything possible to protect us, but the enemy is intruding and ruthless,” he said. “It is no secret that one of the Russian generals has been stating for days that they are ready for missile attacks on the capital of Ukraine. And as we can see, they are doing so.”
In an earlier statement on Ukrainian television, Klitschko said numerous people were hospitalized and doctors are “fighting for their lives.” I have encouraged Kyiv residents to refrain from returning to the city if possible.
– She reads
Italian ambassador back in Kyiv to open embassy
Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi Di Maio said Friday that Italy’s ambassador to Kyiv is officially back in Ukraine’s capital.
“It is the symbol of an Italy that wastes no time, never stops believing in diplomacy and persistently seeks peace,” Di Maio tweeted Friday.
Italy’s embassy in Kyiv will reopen Monday and be “fully operational,” Di Maio added.
The move comes after the European Union earlier this month summarized its diplomatic presence in Kyiv after pulling out of the nation when Russia invaded in February,
– She reads
Russia bans Boris Johnson, other UK officials from Russia
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and 12 other British officials are banned from entering RussiaRussia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Saturday, citing “unprecedented hostile actions” by Britain’s government.
“The Russophobic course of the British authorities, whose main task is to stir up a negative attitude towards our country, bilateral curtail ties in almost all areas, is detrimental to the well-being and interests of the inhabitants of Britain itself,” reads the ministry’s statement. “Any sanctions attacks will inevitably hit their initiators and receive a decisive rebuff.”
Russia’s foreign ministry claimed Britain is “deliberately aggravating the situation around Ukraine,” by providing Ukraine with weapons and coordinating with NATO and other Western allies to impose large-scale sanctions on Russia.
The ministry claimed additional British politicians who “contribute to whipping up anti-Russian hysteria” would soon be added to the list of banned individuals.
– She reads
Ukraine counts 400 COVID cases a day, health minister says
Amid the devastation of an invasion from Russia, Ukrainians also are trying to dodge COVID-19.
Some 400 cases of COVID-19 are recorded daily in Ukraine, Minister of Health Viktor Lyashko said in an interview with Ukrainian television channel TCH.
Lyashko explained that at the start of the war, about 4,000 cases were recorded daily. Numbers have continued to drop since then. Still, about 2,900 patients are currently hospitalized due to COVID-19, he said.
The health minister added that the scope of the nation’s COVID-19 statistics are limited by the ongoing war, noting that eastern regions of Ukraine are not reporting numbers, nor are they required to.
– She reads
Russian holiday could mark key deadline in Ukraine
An upcoming national holiday in Russia could be an important milestone in that country’s invasion of Ukraine, a war that has been more difficult than the Kremlin anticipated.
May 9 is Victory Day, marking the Russian defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 at the end of World War II. Officials in both Ukraine and the West see it as a date by which Russian President Vladimir Putin could target progress in the war.
The date – marking the end of what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War – is one that has gained significance in Putin’s tenure “and has become a foundational moment in the Kremlin’s politics of memory and Russian national identity,” said Hannah Chapman, assistant professor of political science at Miami University.
The Kremlin has staged massive shows of strength to mark the day, with parades and other displays of military might.
But not everyone agrees. Read more.
– Merdie Nzanga
More than 900 civilian bodies found in Kyiv region, police chief says
The bodies of more than 900 civilians were discovered in the Kyiv region following the withdrawal of Russian forces, the regional police chief said in a briefing Friday.
Andriy Nebytov, the head of Kyiv’s regional police force, said the bodies had been abandoned in the streets or given temporary burials. He cited police data indicating that 95% of the casualties had died from sniper fire and gunshot wounds. He added that more bodies were being found every day, under the rubble and in mass graves.
“Consequently, we understand that under the (Russian) occupation, people were simply executed in the streets,” Nebytov said. “The number of killed civilians has surpassed 900 — and I emphasize, these are civilians, whose bodies we have discovered and handed over for forensic examination.”
He added: “The most victims were found in Bucha, where there are more than 350 corpses.”
According to Nebytov, utility workers in Bucha had been gathering up and burying bodies in the Kyiv suburb while it remained under Russian control. Nebytov added that Russian troops were “tracking down” people who expressed strong pro-Ukrainian views.
US confirms 2 Ukrainian missiles sank Russian flagship in Black Sea
Two Ukrainian Neptune missiles struck the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, which later sank, according to a senior US Defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Pentagon officials had previously said they could not confirm the Ukrainian claim, but they also did not refute it.
The warship Moskva, which has a history that goes back to days of the Cold War, sank into the Black Sea on Thursday in the latest blow to Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.
Losing the vessel, built in Ukraine during the Soviet era and named after the Russian capital, represents a military setback and symbolic defeat for Russia as its troops regroup for a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine after stumbling in the north.
– Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY; Associated Press
Contributing: The Associated Press
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism