Here is the situation as it stands on Tuesday, April 11, 2023:
Fighting
- The Moscow-installed head of the part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region occupied by Russia, Denis Pushilin, said Russian forces control “more than 75 percent” of Bakhmut.
- The commander of Ukrainian ground forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Russian troops had switched to “scorched earth” tactics in Bakhmut.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned Russian air attacks on Orthodox Palm Sunday, including an attack that killed a man and his daughter at home in the city of Zaporizhzhia.
- Ukraine released 106 Russian prisoners of war in exchange for 100 Ukrainians, both countries said.
- The governor of the front-line town of Avdiivka, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, said the town’s population has dropped to just 1,800 from 32,000 before the war.
Diplomacy
- The United States has said it is still assessing an apparent leak of documents containing US military intelligence, which a Pentagon spokesman said could pose “a very serious risk to national security” and lead to the spread of misinformation.
- The US government will seek to rally allies this week to ratchet up economic pressure on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and shore up support for Kyiv, Treasury Undersecretary Jay Shambaugh said.
- Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister began a visit to India, saying Kyiv is seeking a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top officials. Emine Dzhaparova also said that New Delhi should be more involved in resolving the war in Ukraine.
- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Beijing this week to discuss trade and the war in Ukraine.
- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu for an unannounced meeting in Minsk and said he had received indication from Moscow that Russia would defend Belarus “like its own territory” in the event of external attack.
- The Kremlin said it is hard to imagine France playing the role of mediator in Ukraine because Paris had taken the side of one of the parties in the conflict.
- Washington accused Moscow of violating international law in denying US officials consular access to detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. The US formally designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained“.
- Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza said he stood by all of his political statements, including those he made against Russia’s war on Ukraine, which have left him facing 25 years in jail.
- A Russian court sentenced two former officials to 19 years in prison for throwing Molotov cocktails at a town hall in protest against military mobilisation, according to Russian news agencies.
