Good evening that concludes our blog coverage for today, you can read all our stories on Ukraine here
A summary of today's developments
A huge fire in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol on Saturday has been put out after what was reported to be a Ukrainian drone strike on fuel tanks at a Russian navy depot. Video footage posted on social media showed a large waterside area on fire, with a column of black smoke rising from the burning fuel. Other images showed a huge pall of smoke hanging over the area. The fire was later extinguished, according to Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhaev.
The death toll from Russia’s aerial attacks on cities across Ukraine early on Friday has risen to at least 25, including five children. Firefighters tackled a blaze at a residential apartment hit by a Russian missile in the central town of Uman and rescue workers clambered through a huge pile of smouldering rubble searching for survivors.
South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, has said it is necessary to ensure Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does not succeed and that Seoul is considering its options when it comes to providing lethal aid to Kyiv. Yoon said the Russian invasion was a violation of international law and the rights of Ukrainians.
There is a realistic possibility the Russian missile strike that struck Ukraine on Friday was an attempt to intercept Ukrainian reserve units and military supplies that were recently given to the country, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Saturday. In its intelligence update on the conflict, the MoD said Moscow launched “the first major wave of cruise missile strikes against Ukraine since early March 2023.” The bombardment killed at least 25 people, and were a departure from Russia’s use of long-range strikes that targeted energy infrastructure over winter, the MoD said.
Russia says it will lodge an official diplomatic protest over what it says is the illegal seizure by the Polish authorities of its embassy school in Warsaw. Moscow’s ambassador to Poland, Sergei Andreyev, told Russian state news agencies on Saturday that the move was illegal, but Poland said it was within its rights to take back the building.
Ukraine’s president said on Friday that he had asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to help bring back Ukrainian children deported by Russia. More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the invasion, according to Kyiv.
Russian occupying authorities in southern Ukraine said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces were subjecting the city of Novaya Kakhovka to “intense artillery fire” that had cut off electricity. The city’s authorities said on Telegram: “Novaya Kakhovka and settlements around the district are under very intense artillery fire from the armed forces of Ukraine.” Novaya Kakhovka is in the part of the southern Kherson region that Russia controls.
A Moscow court has fined a Russian baker who decorated her cakes with pro-Ukraine and peace slogans. Since Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022, authorities have banned all public criticism of the offensive. The Izmailovo district court in Moscow ordered the baker Anastasia Chernysheva to pay a fine of 35,000 rubles (around £350) for “discrediting” the Russian army.
Russia’s embassy in Ireland has warned of possible “ensuing consequences” over tributes paid to an Irishman killed while fighting in Ukraine. Finbar Cafferkey, from Achill Island in Co Mayo, is reported to have been killed while serving as a military volunteer in eastern Ukraine, PA Media reports. In the wake of his death, the Irish deputy premier, Micheál Martin, expressed his sympathies to Cafferkey’s family and said he had obviously been “a young man of clear principles”. In response, the Russian embassy issued a stark warning against encouraging Irish citizens to take part in the conflict in Ukraine.
Five EU countries have agreed on a deal to allow the transit of Ukrainian food exports, the European Commission said, after temporary bans were imposed on the foodstuffs amid protests by farmers. The agreement with Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia comes as limits on Ukraine grain’s export channel via the Black Sea necessitate export overland via the country’s neighbours.
A leaked internal review commissioned by Amnesty International is said to have concluded there were significant shortcomings in a controversial report prepared by the rights group that accused Ukraine of illegally endangering citizens by placing armed forces in civilian areas. The report last August prompted widespread anger in Ukraine, leading to an apology from Amnesty and a promise of a review by external experts.
Ukraine’s forces are concluding preparations for a long-expected spring counteroffensive againstRussian troops and are broadly ready, the country’s defence minister has said. Oleksii Reznikov told an online briefing on Friday: “As soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it.” He gave no date for the start of the counteroffensive, intended to repel Russian forces from the east and south, but said: “Globally speaking, we are to a high percentage ready.”
Vladimir Putin has said Russia needs to act quickly and as a “cohesive team” to counter the west’s “economic aggression”, adding that Moscow would expand ties with countries in Eurasia, Africa and Latin America.
A Ukrainian journalist who formerly worked for the BBC has been killed fighting on the frontline. Oleksandr Bondarenko volunteered for Ukraine’s territorial defence after Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and later became part of the military. Details of how he was killed in action are not yet known, BBC News reports. Bondarenko, known as Sasha or Sashko, worked at the BBC’s Ukrainian service from 2007 to 2011, broadcasting from Kyiv. His colleagues paid tribute to the “extraordinary” reporter and news presenter.
A Russian navy vessel specialising in submarine operations was photographed near the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines just days before the mysterious blasts last September, according to the Danish daily newspaper Information. The prosecutor leading Sweden’s investigation into the sabotage of the pipelines linking Russia to Germany confirmed the existence of the previously publicly unknown photographs.
The UK has signed a £1.9bn ($2.4bn) deal with Poland to provide the country with a British-designed air defence system. About 22 Polish air defence batteries will be equipped with common anti-air modular missiles (Camms) and launchers as part of the arrangement. It expands on pre-existing defence ties with Poland, where Camms are already deployed with the British army following Russia’s invasion.
Russia informed the UN’s nuclear watchdog that equipment spotted at Ukraine’s Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant would be used to fix a power transmission line that leads to Russian-held territory, the watchdog said on Friday. The planned restoration of the downed power line could heighten Ukrainian fears that Russia is preparing to connect Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, to the power grid of territory that it controls.
Vladimir Putin has signed a decree giving people living in parts of Ukraine that are under Moscow’s control a route to Russian citizenship – but it also means that those who decline it, or do not legalise their status, potentially face deportation. The decree – which covers Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – sets out ways that Ukrainian citizens living there can start the process of becoming Russian citizens or legalise their status.
Spain’s foreign ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador over a video shared on the embassy’s social media accounts that falsely portrayed Spanish troops fighting in Ukraine. Spanish media said the video, which has now been taken down, showed what the embassy claimed were Spanish soldiers on the battlefield, set against a clip of Spain’s defence minister, Margarita Robles, saying Spanish troops would never fight in Ukraine.
Around 190,000 Russian soldiers have died since the conflict began, according to Ukraine’s ministry of defence.
"It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most who will conquer."
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 29, 2023
Terence MacSwiney
Total combat losses of the enemy from February 24, 2022 to April 29, 2023: pic.twitter.com/oqTbcAbnxh
A court in Russia has convicted a woman over social media posts condemning the war in Ukraine and punished her with a steep fine despite her asking for a prison sentence.
Marina Novikova, a 65-year-old lawyer, was found guilty of “spreading false information” about the Russian army, which was made a criminal offence after Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine.
Novikova’s posts on the messaging app Telegram decried the invasion and criticised the Russian government, Sky News reported.
Prosecutors had requested a three-year prison sentence and Novikova pleaded with the court to send her to prison rather than be issued with a fine of at least 700,000 roubles (£6,900).
But the court in Seversk instead imposed a fine of one million roubles (nearly £10,000), the Russian human rights and legal aid group OVD-Info quoted her husband, Alexandr Gavrik, as saying.
The fire at a fuel storage facility in the Crimean port of Sevastopol has been extinguished, the city’s Moscow-installed governor said on Saturday.
Experts examined the site and “it became clear that only one drone was able to reach the oil reservoir”, Mikhail Razvozhaev said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that no one had been injured in the fire which was caused by a drone strike.
Another drone was downed, its wreckage found on the shore near the terminal, Razvozhaev added, Reuters reports.
A Ukrainian military intelligence official said more than 10 tanks of oil products with a capacity of about 40,000 tonnes intended for use by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet were destroyed, RBC Ukraine reported.
The official, Andriy Yusov, did not claim Ukraine was responsible for the explosion in comments reported by RBC, instead describing the blast as “God’s punishment” for a Russian strike on a Ukrainian city on Friday.
“This punishment will be long-lasting. In the near future, it is better for all residents of temporarily occupied Crimea not to be near military facilities and facilities that provide for the aggressor’s army,” RBC quoted Yusov as saying.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s armed forces said earlier he did not have any information to suggest Ukraine was responsible for the fire.
Updated
Updated
Updated
Summary
Here is what you might have missed:
A huge fire that was burning in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol on Saturday has been put out after what was reported to be a Ukrainian drone strike on fuel tanks at a Russian navy depot. Video footage posted on social media showed a large waterside area on fire, with a column of black smoke rising from the burning fuel. Other images showed a huge pall of smoke hanging over the area. The fire was later extinguished, according to Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhaev.
The death toll from Russia’s aerial attacks on cities across Ukraine early on Friday has risen to at least 25, including five children. Firefighters tackled a blaze at a residential apartment hit by a Russian missile in the central town of Uman and rescue workers clambered through a huge pile of smouldering rubble searching for survivors.
South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, has said it is necessary to ensure Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does not succeed and that Seoul is considering its options when it comes to providing lethal aid to Kyiv. Yoon said the Russian invasion was a violation of international law and the rights of Ukrainians.
There is a realistic possibility the Russian missile strike that struck Ukraine on Friday was an attempt to intercept Ukrainian reserve units and military supplies that were recently given to the country, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Saturday. In its intelligence update on the conflict, the MoD said Moscow launched “the first major wave of cruise missile strikes against Ukraine since early March 2023.” The bombardment killed at least 25 people, and were a departure from Russia’s use of long-range strikes that targeted energy infrastructure over winter, the MoD said.
Russia says it will lodge an official diplomatic protest over what it says is the illegal seizure by the Polish authorities of its embassy school in Warsaw. Moscow’s ambassador to Poland, Sergei Andreyev, told Russian state news agencies on Saturday that the move was illegal, but Poland said it was within its rights to take back the building.
Ukraine’s president said on Friday that he had asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to help bring back Ukrainian children deported by Russia. More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the invasion, according to Kyiv.
Russian occupying authorities in southern Ukraine said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces were subjecting the city of Novaya Kakhovka to “intense artillery fire” that had cut off electricity. The city’s authorities said on Telegram: “Novaya Kakhovka and settlements around the district are under very intense artillery fire from the armed forces of Ukraine.” Novaya Kakhovka is in the part of the southern Kherson region that Russia controls.
A Moscow court has fined a Russian baker who decorated her cakes with pro-Ukraine and peace slogans. Since Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022, authorities have banned all public criticism of the offensive. The Izmailovo district court in Moscow ordered the baker Anastasia Chernysheva to pay a fine of 35,000 rubles (around £350) for “discrediting” the Russian army.
Russia’s embassy in Ireland has warned of possible “ensuing consequences” over tributes paid to an Irishman killed while fighting in Ukraine. Finbar Cafferkey, from Achill Island in Co Mayo, is reported to have been killed while serving as a military volunteer in eastern Ukraine, PA Media reports. In the wake of his death, the Irish deputy premier, Micheál Martin, expressed his sympathies to Cafferkey’s family and said he had obviously been “a young man of clear principles”. In response, the Russian embassy issued a stark warning against encouraging Irish citizens to take part in the conflict in Ukraine.
Five EU countries have agreed on a deal to allow the transit of Ukrainian food exports, the European Commission said, after temporary bans were imposed on the foodstuffs amid protests by farmers. The agreement with Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia comes as limits on Ukraine grain’s export channel via the Black Sea necessitate export overland via the country’s neighbours.
A leaked internal review commissioned by Amnesty International is said to have concluded there were significant shortcomings in a controversial report prepared by the rights group that accused Ukraine of illegally endangering citizens by placing armed forces in civilian areas. The report last August prompted widespread anger in Ukraine, leading to an apology from Amnesty and a promise of a review by external experts.
Ukraine’s forces are concluding preparations for a long-expected spring counteroffensive againstRussian troops and are broadly ready, the country’s defence minister has said. Oleksii Reznikov told an online briefing on Friday: “As soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it.” He gave no date for the start of the counteroffensive, intended to repel Russian forces from the east and south, but said: “Globally speaking, we are to a high percentage ready.”
Vladimir Putin has said Russia needs to act quickly and as a “cohesive team” to counter the west’s “economic aggression”, adding that Moscow would expand ties with countries in Eurasia, Africa and Latin America.
A Ukrainian journalist who formerly worked for the BBC has been killed fighting on the frontline. Oleksandr Bondarenko volunteered for Ukraine’s territorial defence after Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and later became part of the military. Details of how he was killed in action are not yet known, BBC News reports. Bondarenko, known as Sasha or Sashko, worked at the BBC’s Ukrainian service from 2007 to 2011, broadcasting from Kyiv. His colleagues paid tribute to the “extraordinary” reporter and news presenter.
A Russian navy vessel specialising in submarine operations was photographed near the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines just days before the mysterious blasts last September, according to the Danish daily newspaper Information. The prosecutor leading Sweden’s investigation into the sabotage of the pipelines linking Russia to Germany confirmed the existence of the previously publicly unknown photographs.
The UK has signed a £1.9bn ($2.4bn) deal with Poland to provide the country with a British-designed air defence system. About 22 Polish air defence batteries will be equipped with common anti-air modular missiles (Camms) and launchers as part of the arrangement. It expands on pre-existing defence ties with Poland, where Camms are already deployed with the British army following Russia’s invasion.
Russia informed the UN’s nuclear watchdog that equipment spotted at Ukraine’s Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant would be used to fix a power transmission line that leads to Russian-held territory, the watchdog said on Friday. The planned restoration of the downed power line could heighten Ukrainian fears that Russia is preparing to connect Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, to the power grid of territory that it controls.
Vladimir Putin has signed a decree giving people living in parts of Ukraine that are under Moscow’s control a route to Russian citizenship – but it also means that those who decline it, or do not legalise their status, potentially face deportation. The decree – which covers Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – sets out ways that Ukrainian citizens living there can start the process of becoming Russian citizens or legalise their status.
Spain’s foreign ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador over a video shared on the embassy’s social media accounts that falsely portrayed Spanish troops fighting in Ukraine. Spanish media said the video, which has now been taken down, showed what the embassy claimed were Spanish soldiers on the battlefield, set against a clip of Spain’s defence minister, Margarita Robles, saying Spanish troops would never fight in Ukraine.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
Updated
The American political commentator Noam Chomsky has said Russia is fighting with more restraint in Ukraine than the US and its allies did during the invasion of Iraq.
In an interview with the New Statesman released on Saturday, the celebrated linguist said the destruction seen in Iraq’s capital has not been witnessed in the current conflict.
He said:
Undoubtedly Russia could do it, presumably with conventional weapons. It could make Kyiv as unliveable as Baghdad was, could move in to attacking supply lines in western Ukraine.
Chomsky also said Britain and the US had refused peace negotiations in Ukraine, and that Washington was only supplying weapons to Kyiv in order to weaken Russia.
For the US, this is a bargain. For a fraction of the colossal military budget, the US is able to severely degrade the military forces of its only real military adversary.
Chomsky was challenged on his views on Ukraine in a combative interview with Times Radio host Matt Chorley earlier this week.
Updated
Russian embassy statement on Irishman's death called 'chilling' and 'threatening'
Russia’s embassy in Ireland has warned of possible “ensuing consequences” over tributes paid to an Irishman killed while fighting in Ukraine.
Finbar Cafferkey, from Achill Island in Co Mayo, is reported to have been killed while serving as a military volunteer in eastern Ukraine, PA Media reports.
In the wake of his death, the Irish deputy premier, Micheál Martin, expressed his sympathies to Cafferkey’s family and said he had obviously been “a young man of clear principles”.
In response, the Russian embassy issued a stark warning against encouraging Irish citizens to take part in the conflict in Ukraine.
In a statement posted to its Telegram channel, the embassy said it noted Martin’s comments about Cafferkey’s “clear principles”.
It said:
We do not know what his principles were.
What we do know, though, is that in a very big way it is the Irish government and media to who bear responsibility for the death of Finbar Cafferkey.
It has been the government and media who have been promoting anti-Russian propaganda, distorting the truth about the conflict in Ukraine, misleading people like Finbar Cafferkey.
Commenting on Twitter, the former justice minister Charlie Flanagan said:
Threatening, intimidating & chilling statement by Russian embassy Dublin. These hostile remarks are unacceptable. Beyond time Ambassador Filatov & his crew were asked to leave our country.
🇮🇪 🇷🇺 Threatening, intimidating & chilling statement by Russian embassy Dublin. These hostile remarks are unacceptable. Beyond time Ambassador Filatov & his crew were asked to leave our country. https://t.co/Ez7frUSdIv
— Charlie Flanagan (@CharlieFlanagan) April 28, 2023
Updated
A Moscow court has fined a Russian baker who decorated her cakes with pro-Ukraine and peace slogans, Agence France-Presse reports.
Since President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022, authorities have banned all public criticism of the offensive.
On Friday, the Izmailovo district court in Moscow ordered the baker Anastasia Chernysheva to pay a fine of 35,000 rubles (around £350) for “discrediting” the Russian army, a court representative told the news agency.
Chernysheva, who runs a baking business, has been posting pictures of colourful cakes bearing slogans in opposition to armed conflict on Instagram, where she is followed by more than 25,000 people.
She was briefly detained on Thursday after an ultra-conservative media outlet drew attention to her work in January.
Other cakes, decorated with hearts and flowers, referenced pop culture or read “Love will win” or “I love you!”.
В Москве пришли с обыском и задержали девушку-кондитера из-за торта с надписями «Нет войне» — ОВД-Инфо
— SOTA (@Sota_Vision) April 27, 2023
Анастасия Чернышева уже много лет печет торты под брендом «Хлеб и зрелища», часто украшая свою выпечку цветами украинского флага или антивоенными надписями. Часть своих доходов… pic.twitter.com/GlQQF3Zxpe
Updated
Pope Francis met Ukrainians who had fled the war on Hungary’s eastern border on Saturday, telling the refugees that a different future is possible.
Reuters reports:
Francis met with about 600 refugees, poor and homeless people in a visit to St. Elizabeth’s church in Budapest on the second day of his visit, which began on Friday when he pointedly warned of the dangers of rising nationalism in Europe.
Francis was serenaded by a singing band of Hungarian Roma wearing flower-patterned clothing and seemed to enjoy the music as they hovered around him as he sat in his wheelchair.
But what Francis heard earlier was much more sober.
Oleg Yakovlev told of he and his wife Lyudmila and their five children had to leave Dnipro a year ago after Russian bombings.
“We were welcomed here and we have found a new home (but) many have suffered and suffer still because of the war,” Yakovlev told the pope.
Sitting in the first row of the church with his family, the youngest of Yakovlev children, a boy of about four, was amused by the attention he was getting, making faces at reporters as his father spoke of missiles, crumbled buildings and a 1,500km trip to safety.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, 2022, millions of refugees have fled through Central Europe, including Hungary, and moved to other countries. About 35,000 have applied for temporary protection status in Hungary.
Francis said expressing compassion for those suffering from poverty and tragedy is an integral part of being a Christian, even if those in need are non-believers.
“Even amid pain and suffering, once we have received the balm of love, we find the courage needed to keep moving forward: we find the strength to believe that all is not lost, and that a different future is possible,” he said.
Later the pontiff met with Metropolitan (bishop) Hilarion, representative of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in Budapest.
Hilarion was effectively ousted from the number two post at the ROC headquarters in Moscow last year, a decision seen as indicating discord at the top of the Russian Patriarchate over the war.
The Russian Orthodox Church is by far the biggest of the churches in the Eastern Orthodox communion, which split with Western Christianity in the Great Schism of 1054.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine divided world Orthodoxy and strained relations between the Vatican and the ROC.
ROC Patriarch, Kirill, is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kirill fully backs the war as a bulwark against a West he describes as decadent.
The European Union tried to put Kirill on its sanctions list last year but member states failed to find unanimity on the issue as Hungary opposed his inclusion.
Relations between the Vatican and the ROC have been frosty since Francis said last year that Kirill should not be “Putin’s altar boy”.
Updated
Russian-occupied city of Novaya Kakhovka under 'intense artillery fire' from Ukrainian forces
Russian occupying authorities in southern Ukraine said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces were subjecting the city of Novaya Kakhovka to “intense artillery fire” that had cut off electricity.
AFP reports that the city’s authorities said on Telegram: “Novaya Kakhovka and settlements around the district are under very intense artillery fire from the armed forces of Ukraine.”
Novaya Kakhovka is in the part of the southern Kherson region that Russia controls.
It lies upstream on the Dnipro River from Kherson, the regional capital from which Russia withdrew last November.
Novaya Kakhovka fell to Russian forces on the first day of their invasion.
Updated
When a Northumberland couple opened up their village home to a Ukrainian mother and her two daughters last year, they were responding to the plight of refugees escaping the Russian invasion.
Having been told no more than that this was a musical family, Sheilagh Matheson and Chris Roberts offered two bedrooms and a honky-tonk piano.
Soon they found themselves arranging the loan of a Steinway upright after discovering that these children had an extraordinary musical talent – one that made passersby stop to listen at an open window.
Both girls have now received scholarships to two of the UK’s foremost music schools, less than a year after fleeing their home near Kyiv to start new lives in Corbridge, not far from Newcastle.
Updated
The BBC’s Ukraine correspondent, Myroslava Petsa, reports comments from Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence (GUR) that 10 tanks of petrol were destroyed in the blaze at the Sevastopol fuel depot on Saturday.
A spokesperson said the fire was “God’s punishment” against Russia for the missile strikes against Ukraine on Friday that killed at least 25 people.
Fire at oil reservoir in Sevastopol destroyed 10 tanks of petroleum products with total capacity of 40,000 tons - Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence (GUR).
— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) April 29, 2023
Spox Andriy Yusov’s branded fire a God’s punishment for Uman tragedy, asked Crimea civilians not to be around RU mil facilities.
Updated
Russia says it will lodge an official diplomatic protest over what it says is the illegal seizure by the Polish authorities of its embassy school in Warsaw.
Moscow’s ambassador to Poland, Sergei Andreyev, told Russian state news agencies on Saturday that the move was illegal, but Poland said it was within its rights to take back the building.
Reuters reports that Andreyev told the TASS news agency:
Today the Polish authorities decided to take forceful action, despite the fact that this is a diplomatic building, a school building.
This is an illegal action and a violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations. We of course will lodge a protest.
The Polish state-run news channel TVP Info reported that police were present outside the school on Kieleckiej street in Warsaw on Saturday morning.
The two countries’ already fraught relations have soured further over the war in Ukraine with Warsaw helping to arm Kyiv.
Updated
Fire at fuel depot in Sevastopol is contained, says governor
A fire at a fuel storage facility in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol has been extinguished, the Moscow-installed governor has said.
Reuters reports that Mikhail Razvozhaev said on Telegram:
Open fire was extinguished in an area of 1,000 square metres.
He said earlier that no one had been injured and according to preliminary information that the depot was hit by two drones.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed head of Crimea, said on Telegram that air defence and electronic warfare forces had shot down two drones over the Crimea on Saturday.
He confirmed there were no casualties Russian and blamed the attacks on Ukraine.
A spokesperson for Ukraine‘s armed forces said he did not have any information to suggest Ukraine was responsible for Saturday’s fire.
Updated
Summary
Here is what you might have missed:
A huge fire was burning in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol on Saturday after what was reported to be a Ukrainian drone strike on fuel tanks at a Russian navy depot. Video footage posted on social media showed a large waterside area on fire, with a column of black smoke rising from the burning fuel. Other images showed a huge pall of smoke hanging over the area. More than a dozen fuel tanks are situated at the site in Kozacha Bay.
The death toll from Russia’s aerial attacks on cities across Ukraine early on Friday has risen to at least 25, including five children. Firefighters tackled a blaze at a residential apartment hit by a Russian missile in the central town of Uman and rescue workers clambered through a huge pile of smouldering rubble searching for survivors.
South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, has said it is necessary to ensure Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does not succeed and that Seoul is considering its options when it comes to providing lethal aid to Kyiv. Yoon said the Russian invasion was a violation of international law and the rights of Ukrainians.
There is a realistic possibility the Russian missile strike that struck Ukraine on Friday was an attempt to intercept Ukrainian reserve units and military supplies that were recently given to the country, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Saturday. In its intelligence update on the conflict, the MoD said Moscow launched “the first major wave of cruise missile strikes against Ukraine since early March 2023.” The bombardment killed at least 25 people, and were a departure from Russia’s use of long-range strikes that targeted energy infrastructure over winter, the MoD said.
Ukraine’s president said on Friday that he had asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to help bring back Ukrainian children deported by Russia. More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the invasion, according to Kyiv.
Five EU countries have agreed on a deal to allow the transit of Ukrainian food exports, the European Commission said, after temporary bans were imposed on the foodstuffs amid protests by farmers. The agreement with Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia comes as limits on Ukraine grain’s export channel via the Black Sea necessitate export overland via the country’s neighbours.
A leaked internal review commissioned by Amnesty International is said to have concluded there were significant shortcomings in a controversial report prepared by the rights group that accused Ukraine of illegally endangering citizens by placing armed forces in civilian areas. The report last August prompted widespread anger in Ukraine, leading to an apology from Amnesty and a promise of a review by external experts.
Ukraine’s forces are concluding preparations for a long-expected spring counteroffensive againstRussian troops and are broadly ready, the country’s defence minister has said. Oleksii Reznikov told an online briefing on Friday: “As soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it.” He gave no date for the start of the counteroffensive, intended to repel Russian forces from the east and south, but said: “Globally speaking, we are to a high percentage ready.”
Vladimir Putin has said Russia needs to act quickly and as a “cohesive team” to counter the west’s “economic aggression”, adding that Moscow would expand ties with countries in Eurasia, Africa and Latin America.
A Ukrainian journalist who formerly worked for the BBC has been killed fighting on the frontline. Oleksandr Bondarenko volunteered for Ukraine’s territorial defence after Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and later became part of the military. Details of how he was killed in action are not yet known, BBC News reports. Bondarenko, known as Sasha or Sashko, worked at the BBC’s Ukrainian service from 2007 to 2011, broadcasting from Kyiv. His colleagues paid tribute to the “extraordinary” reporter and news presenter.
A Russian navy vessel specialising in submarine operations was photographed near the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines just days before the mysterious blasts last September, according to the Danish daily newspaper Information. The prosecutor leading Sweden’s investigation into the sabotage of the pipelines linking Russia to Germany confirmed the existence of the previously publicly unknown photographs.
The UK has signed a £1.9bn ($2.4bn) deal with Poland to provide the country with a British-designed air defence system. About 22 Polish air defence batteries will be equipped with common anti-air modular missiles (Camms) and launchers as part of the arrangement. It expands on pre-existing defence ties with Poland, where Camms are already deployed with the British army following Russia’s invasion.
Russia informed the UN’s nuclear watchdog that equipment spotted at Ukraine’s Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant would be used to fix a power transmission line that leads to Russian-held territory, the watchdog said on Friday. The planned restoration of the downed power line could heighten Ukrainian fears that Russia is preparing to connect Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, to the power grid of territory that it controls.
Vladimir Putin has signed a decree giving people living in parts of Ukraine that are under Moscow’s control a route to Russian citizenship – but it also means that those who decline it, or do not legalise their status, potentially face deportation. The decree – which covers Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – sets out ways that Ukrainian citizens living there can start the process of becoming Russian citizens or legalise their status.
Spain’s foreign ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador over a video shared on the embassy’s social media accounts that falsely portrayed Spanish troops fighting in Ukraine. Spanish media said the video, which has now been taken down, showed what the embassy claimed were Spanish soldiers on the battlefield, set against a clip of Spain’s defence minister, Margarita Robles, saying Spanish troops would never fight in Ukraine.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
Updated
Drone footage shows the aftermath of the airstrike in Ukraine on early Friday morning that left 23 people dead and dozens more injured.
The upper floor of a residential building in the central city of Uman, south of Kyiv, was struck as people slept.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, condemned the latest “evil” Russian assault in his evening address on Friday.
Updated
Ukraine‘s foreign ministry said on Saturday that it had passed notes to Polish and EU representatives describing the limits their countries had placed on Ukrainian grain imports as “categorically unacceptable”.
Reuters reports that the ministry said:
Such restrictions, whatever the justification for them, do not comply with the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU and the principles and norms of the EU single market.
There are full legal grounds for the immediate resumption of exports of Ukrainian agricultural goods to Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria, as well as the continuation of unhindered exports to other EU member states.
It comes a day after the European Commission said on it had reached a deal in principle to allow the transit of Ukrainian grain to resume through Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
Updated
“It was an incredible, emotional moment for me to spend time with her,” Andriy Shevchenko says as he describes meeting a little Ukrainian girl called Maryna last month.
The most famous former footballer from Ukraine, who won the Ballon d’Or in 2004 and the Champions League with Milan before he also coached his country at Euro 2020, pauses as he reflects on a simple encounter where he kicked a football back and forth in hospital with the six-year-old.
The images of their kickaround assume a grainy resonance when it is explained that Maryna had become the first child in Ukraine to receive a prosthetic limb after her leg was blown off by a Russian missile last year. For many weeks she barely moved.
Finally, when she was well enough to sit up, her doctors started the slow process of her rehabilitation by using a football. Maryna learned to balance on her prosthetic leg while using her good foot to kick the ball.
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Zelenskiy asks Chinese leader for help to bring back deported Ukrainian children
Ukraine’s president said on Friday that he had asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to help bring back Ukrainian children deported by Russia.
In his evening address, AFP reports that Volodymyr Zelenskiy as saying:
We need to involve everyone ... to put pressure on the Russian aggressor and the terrorists who kidnapped so many of our children.
The UN, many others want to do something, but so far the results have been poor. So I have appealed to the leader of China.
Xi and Zelensky spoke by phone on Wednesday, the first known call between the two leaders since the start of Russia’s invasion.
Beijing says it is neutral in the conflict and Xi has never condemned the invasion.
More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the invasion, according to Kyiv.
It says many of them have been placed in institutions and foster homes, an allegation denied by Russia, which insists it saved Ukrainian children from the horrors of the war.
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Russia’s private Wagner militia, which is leading the assault on Bakhmut in Ukraine and has been active in Africa, could soon cease to exist, its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said in video remarks to a blogger that were released on Friday evening.
It was not immediately clear when Prigozhin had spoken and how serious he was being.
He said earlier in the week he had been joking when he said his forces would stop shelling Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces to show the city to journalists.
Reuters reports that he told Russian war blogger Semyon Pegov:
Now, with regard to the need in general for shells at the front, what we want. Today we are coming to the point where Wagner is ending.
Wagner, in a short period of time, will cease to exist. We will become history, nothing to worry about, things like this happen.
Pegov posted the clip on his Telegram channel. Wagner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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They have popped up like mushrooms after rain,” says Maria Glazunova, who works at the Dovzhenko Centre, Kyiv’s film archive. “They are lovely places where you can drink coffee, read, and just sniff the books.”
After the terrifying early months of 2022, and a brutal winter of drone attacks and blackouts, a crop of new independent bookshops is hardly what one would expect to find in the Ukrainian capital.
But, in defiance of Russia’s ongoing invasion, they are springing up all around Kyiv.
Read more: ‘Like reading under the covers’: books flourish in blackout-hit Ukraine
'Realistic possibility' Russian missile strike was attempt to intercept Ukraine reserve units and military supplies, says UK
There is a realistic possibility the Russian missile strike that struck Ukraine on Friday was an attempt to intercept Ukrainian reserve units and military supplies that were recently given to the country, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Saturday.
In its intelligence update on the conflict, the MoD said Moscow launched “the first major wave of cruise missile strikes against Ukraine since early March 2023.”
The bombardment killed at least 25 people, and were a departure from Russia’s use of long-range strikes that targeted energy infrastructure over winter, the MoD said.
The update added:
There is a realistic possibility that Russia was attempting to intercept Ukrainian reserve units and military supplies recently provided to Ukraine.
Russia operates an inefficient targeting process and prioritises perceived military necessity over preventing collateral damage, including civilian deaths.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 29 April 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 29, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/BsVHWurn0W
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/lQLW4TyK8s
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Video footage of the oil terminal on fire in Russian-occupied Crimea.
Footage apparently taken from the scene shows large flames at the scene and thick smoke billowing into the sky, amid claims of a drone attack.
Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said on his Telegram channel that 18 fire brigades were tackling the blaze on Saturday morning.
South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, has said it is necessary to ensure Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does not succeed and that Seoul is considering its options when it comes to providing lethal aid to Kyiv.
Reuters reports that Yoon said the Russian invasion was a violation of international law and the rights of Ukrainians.
We should prove that such attempts will never reach success, to block further attempts being made in the future.
Yoon made the comments in a speech at Harvard University’s Kennedy School on the fifth day of a state visit to mark the 70th anniversary of the US-South Korean alliance.
Yoon was asked about the possibility of South Korea providing lethal aid to Ukraine and replied:
We are closely monitoring the situation that’s going on the battlefield in Ukraine and will take proper measures in order to uphold the international norms and international law.
Right now we are closely monitoring the situation and we are considering various options.
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Joe Biden is considering visiting new Nato member Finland to coincide with the military alliance’s July summit in Lithuania, NBC News has reported, citing three US officials familiar with the discussions.
The US network said the White House’s discussions of a potential visit by the US president had been ongoing for several months and remained active, according to the officials, who said no final decision had been made.
Any Finland visit would be for a summit of multiple Nordic countries, not for a bilateral visit, an administration official said.
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Toll from wave of Russian missile attacks reaches 25
The death toll from Russia’s aerial attacks on cities across Ukraine early on Friday has risen to at least 25, including five children.
Reuters reports that firefighters tackled a blaze at a residential apartment hit by a Russian missile in the central town of Uman and rescue workers clambered through a huge pile of smouldering rubble, searching for survivors and bodies as anxious people stood by.
“My neighbours are gone. No one is left,” said Serhii Lubivskyi, 58, who survived inside a flat on the seventh floor. He was rescued by firefighters from the balcony where he escaped with his wife after the explosion blocked their front door.
Officials said at least 23 civilians were killed, including four children, with an estimated 109 people living in the part of the block that was hit and 27 flats completely destroyed.
Lubivskyi wept as he looked up at the smouldering gaps in the building where adjacent flats had been blasted away.
An elderly woman, her daughter and two grandchildren lived on the ninth floor. They are gone. A man with his son lived on the eighth floor. They are gone. A woman with her daughter lived on the seventh floor. They are gone. A young family lived on the sixth floor, their son was lucky ... he is alive.
In the south-eastern city of Dnipro, a missile killed a two-year-old child and a 31-year-old woman, said the regional governor, Serhiy Lysak. Video released by the authorities showed a blackened hole where a missile had crashed through an apartment window.
Moscow claimed it had targeted locations of Ukrainian reserve troops and had struck them successfully, preventing them from reaching the front. It supplied no evidence to support this.
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Crimean fuel tank on fire after suspected drone attack
A fuel tank was ablaze in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol in what appeared to be a drone strike, the governor said on Saturday.
Reuters reports that the Moscow-installed governor, Mikhail Razvozhaev, wrote on the Telegram messaging app: “According to preliminary information, the fire was caused by a drone hit.”
Sevastopol, on the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, has come under repeated air attacks since Russia’s full-fledged invasion of its neighbour in February 2022. Russian officials have blamed the attacks on Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. Kyiv almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.
Razvozhaev said no one was hurt in Saturday’s fire.
The situation is under the control of our firefighters and all operative services. Since the volume of fuel is large, it will take time to localise the fire.
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Opening summary
Hello and welcome back to our coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine. This is Adam Fulton with the latest developments to bring you up to speed.
A fuel tank was on fire in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol in what appeared to be a drone strike, the Moscow-installed governor said on Saturday.
“According to preliminary information, the fire was caused by a drone hit,” Mikhail Razvozhaev wrote on Telegram.
Meanwhile, five children are among the dead as the toll from Russia’s wave of missile attacks on cities across Ukraine rose to 25.
Rescue workers were searching for survivors and bodies amid the smouldering rubble of a nine-storey block of flats hit in Uman, central Ukraine. The barrage of more than 20 missiles early on Friday is Russia’s first large-scale air strike in almost two months.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, described Uman as “absolutely peaceful” and condemned the attacks, saying: “Only absolute evil can unleash such terror against Ukraine.”
He added: “Our air force managed to shoot down most of the Russian missiles – 21 out of 23. If not for this, the terrorist state would have managed to claim many more casualties, more lives.”
More on those stories shortly. In other news:
Five EU countries have agreed on a deal to allow the transit of Ukrainian food exports, the European Commission has said, after temporary bans were imposed on the foodstuffs amid protests by farmers. The agreement with Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia comes as limits on Ukraine grain’s export channel via the Black Sea necessitate export overland via the country’s neighbours.
A leaked internal review commissioned by Amnesty International is said to have concluded there were significant shortcomings in a controversial report prepared by the rights group that accused Ukraine of illegally endangering citizens by placing armed forces in civilian areas. The report last August prompted widespread anger in Ukraine, leading to an apology from Amnesty and a promise of a review by external experts.
Ukraine’s forces are concluding their preparations for a long-expected spring counteroffensive against invading Russian troops and are ready, broadly speaking, the country’s defence minister has said. Oleksii Reznikov told an online briefing on Friday: “As soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it.” He gave no date for the start of the counteroffensive, aimed at repelling Russian forces from the east and south, but said: “Globally speaking, we are to a high percentage ready.”
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia needs to act quickly and as a “cohesive team” to counter the west’s “economic aggression”, adding that Moscow would expand ties with countries in Eurasia, Africa and Latin America.
A Ukrainian journalist, who formerly worked for the BBC, has been killed fighting on the frontline. Oleksandr Bondarenko volunteered for Ukraine’s territorial defence after Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and later became part of the military. Details of how he was killed in action are not yet known, BBC News reports. Bondarenko, known as Sasha or Sashko, worked from 2007 to 2011 at the BBC’s Ukrainian service, broadcasting from Kyiv. His colleagues paid tribute to the “extraordinary” reporter and news presenter.
A Russian navy vessel specialising in submarine operations was photographed near the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines just days before the mysterious blasts last September, according to the Danish daily newspaper Information. The prosecutor leading Sweden’s investigation into the sabotage of the pipelines linking Russia to Germany confirmed the existence of the previously publicly unknown photographs.
The UK has signed a £1.9bn ($2.4bn) deal with Poland to provide the country with a British-designed air defence system. About 22 Polish air defence batteries will be equipped with common anti-air modular missiles (Camms) and launchers as part of the arrangement. It expands on pre-existing defence ties with Poland, where Camms are already deployed with the British army following Russia’s invasion.
Russia informed the UN’s nuclear watchdog that equipment spotted at Ukraine’s Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant would be used to fix a power transmission line that leads to Russian-held territory, the watchdog said on Friday. The planned restoration of the downed power line could heighten Ukrainian fears that Russia is preparing to connect Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, to the power grid of territory that it controls.
Vladimir Putin has signed a decree giving people living in parts of Ukraine that are under Moscow’s control a route to Russian citizenship – but it also means that those who decline it, or do not legalise their status, potentially face deportation. The decree – which covers Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – sets out ways that Ukrainian citizens living there can start the process of becoming Russian citizens or legalise their status.
Spain’s foreign ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador over a video shared on the embassy’s social media accounts that falsely portrayed Spanish troops fighting in Ukraine. Spanish media said the video, which has now been taken down, showed what the embassy claimed were Spanish soldiers on the battlefield, set against a clip of Spain’s defence minister, Margarita Robles, saying Spanish troops would never fight in Ukraine.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
