Closing summary
It is just past 8pm in Kyiv on Orthdox Easter Sunday, and that concludes today’s Ukraine war live blog. Thanks for following along. Here is a summary of the latest developments:
A row is brewing over Poland and Hungary’s decision to ban grain imports from Ukraine to protect their own agricultural sectors. Reuters reports that a European Commission spokesperson said unilateral action on trade by European Union member states was “not acceptable”.
Following Poland and Hungary’s decision, Bulgaria is considering a similar move. Local news agency BTA reported that the agriculture minister, Yavor Gechev, said the country was mulling over a ban on Ukrainian grain imports.
Ukrainian and Russian armed forces are fighting extraordinarily bloody battles in the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut, but pro-Kyiv forces are still holding on, Ukraine’s military has said.
The death toll from a Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukraine city of Sloviansk has risen to 11. A block of flats was badly damaged and rescue crews were continuing on Saturday to try to rescue people trapped underneath rubble.
Russian shelling in Kherson killed two women on Saturday, the Ukrainian president’s office said.
A Russian official has claimed four people were killed and 10 injured in Ukrainian shelling of a town in Russian-controlled Donetsk. Denis Pushilin said a seven-year-old girl was among those wounded in Yasynuvata.
Russia has been using drones to attack Ukrainian police in Kherson, according to the region’s police force. It said a police car was attacked in the Korabel area, injuring two officers and damaging the car, while in Beryslav one officer was injured and cars damaged.
A new international economic support package of $115bn (£93bn) is giving Ukraine more confidence it can prevail against Russian forces amid growing recognition the war could continue for longer than expected, the Ukrainian finance minister said on Saturday. Serhiy Marchenko said Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers assured him during International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington this week that they would support Ukraine for as long as needed.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Saturday. In two tweets, the Ukrainian president said they had discussed Macron’s recent visit to Beijing to meet China’s president, Xi Jinping.
The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, will visit Baghdad on Monday, his first trip to Iraq since Russia invaded Ukraine. Kuleba is expected to hold talks with the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and the foreign minister, Fuad Hussein.
YouTube is hosting videos that promote the Wagner group, the Russian private military company accused of war crimes, according to a report by the Sunday Times. Dozens of propaganda clips on the platform glorify the mercenary group, encourage viewers to join it, and even raise money for the paramilitary organisation. A YouTube spokesperson told the Sunday Times: “Content intended to praise, promote, or aid violent extremist or criminal organisations is not allowed on YouTube.”
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has called for establishing a group of countries that are not involved in the Russia-Ukraine war in order to broker peace. Lula, who has criticised the role of the US and the European Union in the conflict, spoke of attempting to gather a group of leaders who “prefer to talk about peace rather than war”, citing China’s Xi Jinping and the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, both of whom he met this week.
Thousands of people gathered for a demonstration in Prague on Sunday, calling on the Czech government to resign over the country’s economic woes and its response to the Russia-Ukraine war. Chanting “resign” and “shame”, protesters called for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine and urged the Czech Republic to leave Nato.
Updated
Thousands of people gathered for an anti-government demonstration in central Prague on Sunday, calling on the Czech government to resign over the country’s economic woes and its response to the Russia-Ukraine war, AFP reports.
Chanting “resign” and “shame”, protesters called for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine and urged the Czech Republic to leave Nato.
The protest was organised by the non-parliamentary political party PRO, according to Reuters. PRO has criticised the centre-right government of the prime minister, Petr Fiala, for its handling of the energy crisis that has hit Europe since Russia’s invasion.
PRO has also accused the government of hurting freedom of speech amid efforts to counter disinformation.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Fiala’s government has supported Kyiv with substantial military and humanitarian aid.
Here’s a selection of images from the rally:
Updated
Bulgaria is considering halting Ukrainian grain imports, Reuters reports, after Poland and Hungary decided to ban grain and other food imports from Ukraine to protect their own agricultural sectors.
Poland and Hungary’s move has prompted a row within the European Union, with a European Commission spokesperson telling Reuters such “unilateral actions” are “not acceptable”.
Local news agency BTA reported on Sunday that Bulgaria’s agriculture minister, Yavor Gechev, said the country was mulling over a similar ban.
Updated
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has called for establishing a group of countries that are not involved in the Russia-Ukraine war in order to broker peace, according to reports by Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
Speaking to reporters through a translator in Abu Dhabi, Lula said: “I think we need to sit on a table and say, ‘That’s enough, let’s start talking,’ because war never brought and will never bring any benefit to humanity.”
Lula echoed his previous sentiment that the decision to enter the conflict was “made by two countries”.
“President Putin doesn’t take any initiatives to stop the war. [President] Zelensky from Ukraine doesn’t take any initiatives to stop the war,” he said.
The Brazilian president, who has criticised the role of the US and the European Union in the conflict, spoke of attempting to gather a group of leaders who “prefer to talk about peace rather than war”, citing China’s Xi Jinping and the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, both of whom he met this week.
“We are trying to form a group of countries that have no kind of involvement with the war to talk to Russia and Ukraine, but also the US and EU, to convince people that peace is the best way to establish a process of conversation,” he said.
On Monday, Lula’s administration is slated to host the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Brasilia. The Brazilian leader spoke with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on a call earlier this year.
Updated
The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, will visit Baghdad on Monday, his first trip to Iraq since Russia invaded Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reports.
Kuleba is expected to hold talks with the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and the foreign minister, Fuad Hussein, the Iraqi ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Quoting foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed al-Sahhaf, the statement said the parties would discuss “bolstering bilateral ties, as well as regional and international” issues.
Sudani received a phone call from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, less than a week before Kuleba’s upcoming visit. According to a statement from Sudani’s office, Zelenskiy expressed he was “keen to develop relations with Iraq in all fields” and described it as “a pivotal and influential country”.
Iraq maintains good economic ties with both Kyiv and Moscow, having adopted a neutral stance since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Updated
My colleague Charlotte Higgins has written this article about Orthodox Easter in Ukraine:
Dawn did not break over wartime Kyiv on Orthodox Easter Sunday. It was more that the darkness gradually paled, leaving the pinnacle of the 18th-century bell tower wreathed in a wan mist.
Soon after 5.30am, the faithful began to trickle into Dormition Cathedral, which stands at the heart of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, or Monastery of the Caves.
Families carried wicker baskets, covered with hand-embroidered cloths and filled with sweet Easter bread, eggs dyed with onion skins, salt and meat. Members of the congregation, crossing themselves, lit candles; the great golden candelabra in front of the iconostasis was soon bristling with flames.
Easter has been celebrated on this spot since the 11th century, when monks from Mount Athos first hollowed out the rocky hillside to form their cells and shrines, establishing the lavra as the spiritual heart of eastern Orthodoxy.
But this year, change was afoot. For the first time since the 17th century, the Easter service was being conducted by clergy independent of the Moscow patriarchate. Or to put it another way, it was the Orthodox church of Ukraine (OCU) rather than the Ukrainian Orthodox church (UOC) presiding over the service.
Updated
YouTube is hosting videos that promote the Wagner Group, the Russian private military company accused of war crimes, according to a report by the Sunday Times.
Dozens of propaganda clips appear on the platform that glorify the mercenary group, which is accused of rape, torture and murder in Ukraine and elsewhere.
As well as glamourising the paramilitary organisation, the videos raise money for ammunition and even urge viewers to join the group, which has been sanctioned by several western governments, the Sunday Times says.
Wagner forces, which include tens of thousands of convicts from jails in Russia and Africa, are leading the battle for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, which has become the bloodiest of the war.
A YouTube spokesperson told the newspaper: “Content intended to praise, promote, or aid violent extremist or criminal organisations is not allowed on YouTube. Google is committed to compliance with US sanctions laws and enforces related policies unader its terms of service.”
Updated
Afternoon summary
It’s 4pm in Kyiv on Orthdox Easter Sunday. Here are the latest developments in Ukraine:
A row is brewing over Poland and Hungary’s decision to ban grain imports from Ukraine to protect their own agricultural sectors. Reuters reports that a European Commission spokesperson has said unilateral action on trade by European Union member states is “unacceptable”.
Ukrainian and Russian armed forces are fighting extraordinarily bloody battles in the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut, but pro-Kyiv forces are still holding on, Ukraine’s military has said.
The death toll from a Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukraine city of Sloviansk has risen to 11. A block of flats was badly damaged and rescue crews were continuing on Saturday to try to rescue people trapped underneath rubble.
Russian shelling in Kherson killed two women on Saturday, the Ukrainian president’s office said.
A Russian official has claimed four people were killed and 10 injured in Ukrainian shelling of a town in Russian-controlled Donetsk. Denis Pushilin said a seven-year-old girl was among those wounded in Yasynuvata.
Russia has been using drones to attack Ukrainian police in Kherson, according to the region’s police force. It said a police car was attacked in the Korabel area, injuring two officers and damaging the car, while in Beryslav one officer was injured and cars damaged.
A new international economic support package of $115bn (£93bn) is giving Ukraine more confidence it can prevail against Russian forces amid growing recognition the war could continue for longer than expected, the Ukrainian finance minister said on Saturday. Serhiy Marchenko said Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers assured him during International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington this week that they would support Ukraine for as long as needed.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Saturday. In two tweets, the Ukrainian president said they had discussed Macron’s recent visit to Beijing to meet China’s president, Xi Jinping.
Updated
A row is brewing over Poland and Hungary’s decision to ban grain imports from Ukraine to protect their own agricultural sectors.
Reuters reports that a European Commission spokesperson said unilateral action on trade by European Union member states was “unacceptable”.
After Russia’s invasion blocked some Black Sea ports, large quantities of Ukrainian grain, which is cheaper than that produced in the European Union, ended up staying in central European states as a result of logistical bottlenecks, hitting prices and sales for local farmers.
The issue has created a political problem for Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party in an election year as it has angered people in rural areas where support for the PiS is usually high.
The commission spokesperson said:
We are aware of Poland and Hungary’s announcements regarding the ban on imports of grain and other agricultural products from Ukraine.
In this context, it is important to underline that trade policy is of EU exclusive competence and, therefore, unilateral actions are not acceptable.
In such challenging times, it is crucial to coordinate and align all decisions within the EU.
Updated
More on a story we reported earlier that Poland is to ban imports of Ukrainian grain to protect its own agricultural sector.
A Polish ban on imports of Ukrainian grain and other food will also apply to the transit of these products through the country, the development and technology minister has said, according to Reuters.
Poland and Hungary said on Saturday that they had decided to ban imports from neighbouring Ukraine to protect the local agricultural sector after a flood of supply depressed prices across the region. The Polish ban came into effect on Saturday evening.
“The ban is full, including the ban on transit through Poland,” Waldemar Buda wrote on Twitter, adding that talks would be held with the Ukrainian side to create a system that ensures goods only pass through Poland and do not end up on the local market.
Ukraine’s ministry of agrarian policy and food said on Saturday that the Polish ban contradicted existing bilateral agreements on exports, and called for talks to settle the issue.
After Russia’s invasion blocked some Black Sea ports, large quantities of Ukrainian grain, which is cheaper than that produced in the European Union, ended up staying in central European states due to logistical bottlenecks, hitting prices and sales for local farmers.
The issue has created a political problem for Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party in an election year as it has angered people in rural areas where support for the party is usually high.
Updated
The coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war, a temporary body set up by Ukrainian authorities, has released images of prisoners freed in the exchange, via Reuters news agency.
The Guardian has not been able to independently verify the source of the images.
Updated
More from Reuters on the so-called great Easter prisoner exchange …
Russia’s most powerful mercenary group, Wagner, sent at least 100 Ukrainian prisoners of war back to Ukrainian forces to mark Orthodox Easter, according to a video posted by the group’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on Sunday.
“Prepare all of them, feed and water them, check the wounded,” Prigozhin was shown saying in a video posted on Telegram by his press service.
A group of Ukrainian prisoners were then shown being told that they would be passed back to Ukrainian forces to mark Orthodox Easter.
“I hope you don’t fall back into our hands,” an armed Wagner soldier was heard telling the men before they were ordered into a truck, some loading packs of water bottles.
More than 100 men, some limping and some being carried on stretchers by their comrades, were shown making their way in line along a muddy road as a man standing on a tank held a white flag.
It was not clear how many Russians were sent back the other way.
The Guardian has not been able to independently verify the claims.
Updated
'Great Easter' prisoner exchange has taken place – Ukrainian official
Some 130 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been released and returned home in a “great Easter exchange”, a senior Ukrainian presidential official said on Sunday, the day of Orthodox Easter.
Ukrainian and Russian forces have held regular prisoner exchanges during Moscow’s invasion, now in its 14th month, Reuters reports.
“We are bringing back 130 of our people. It [the exchange] has been taking place in several stages over the past few days,” President Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on the Telegram messaging app.
It was not clear how many Russians were sent back the other way.
Yermak said those returning home included military, border guards, national guard members, sailors and employees of the state border guard.
The Guardian has not been able to independently verify the claims.
The exchange was the second large prisoner swap in the past week. On Monday, Russia and Ukraine said they carried out a prisoner swap, with 106 Russian prisoners of war being freed in exchange for 100 Ukrainians.
Updated
Images of Orthodox Easter celebrations across Ukraine are coming in from photographers on the ground. Here’s a selection below:
Updated
Worshippers including the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, have crowded into Moscow’s vast Christ the Saviour Cathedral for Easter services led by the head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, a supporter of Russia’s military actions in Ukraine.
The services began late on Saturday and were to extend long into Sunday as phalanxes of white-robed clerics circulated through the cathedral swinging smoking censers and a choir sang and chanted, the Associated Press reported.
Most western churches observed Easter on 9 April, but the Russian Orthodox church follows a different calendar.
In a video message broadcast on state television before the service began, Kirill lamented the “grave events taking place on our Russian historical land”, echoing the claim of Putin and other Russian officials that an independent Ukraine is essentially a fiction.
Kirill called for prayers “so that peace and a common good life, fraternal relations again unite our peoples, who were once the one people of united Russia”.
Putin was shown among the standing worshippers, holding a thin red candle.
Updated
Russian general's comeback suggests military tensions over war strategy, says UK
A Russian commander who was dismissed from the Ukraine war has highly likely returned to a major role there, in a move suggesting intense internal tensions about Russia’s military approach to the war, the UK Ministry of Defence says.
The ministry’s latest intelligence update – posted on Twitter – said Gen Col Mikhail Teplinsky, commander of Russia’s corps of airborne troops (VDV), was probably one of the few senior Russian generals “widely respected” by the rank-and-file.
The ministry said:
His recent turbulent career suggests intense tensions between factions within the Russian general staff about Russia’s military approach in Ukraine.
It is unlikely Teplinsky’s remit will be limited to VDV units, but he is highly likely to promote the corps’ traditional role as an elite force.
In recent days, the VDV have resumed a key mission in the battle for Bakhmut, and likely undertaken novel integration with TOS-1A thermobaric rocket launchers in the Kremina sector.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 16 April 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 16, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/MaOrJhMOIZ
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/NXRGbGmQA5
Updated
Volodymyr Zelenskiy made no mention of Bakhmut in his daily video address on Saturday and reiterated Kyiv’s desire to join Nato as soon as possible.
Ukraine’s president said his country would need effective security guarantees before that happened, without giving details, Reuters reported.
‘Unprecedented’ bloody fighting over Bakhmut, says Kyiv
Ukrainian and Russian armed forces are fighting extraordinarily bloody battles in the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut, but pro-Kyiv forces are still holding on, Ukraine’s military says.
Reuters reported that Russia’s defence ministry said earlier on Saturday that fighters from the Wagner mercenary group had captured two more areas of Bakhmut, the main target of Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine.
Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern military command, told the 1+1 television channel:
Bloody battles unprecedented in recent decades are taking place in the middle of the city’s urban area.
Our soldiers are doing everything in bloody and fierce battles to grind down [the enemy’s] combat capability and break its morale. Every day, in every corner of this city, they are successfully doing so.
The Russian defence ministry said Wagner units had taken two areas on the northern and southern outskirts of the city. Russian army paratroop units were supporting the claimed advance by holding back Ukrainian forces on the flanks, it added.
Reuters could not independently confirm the report.
The UK said in an intelligence update on Friday that Ukrainian troops had been forced to cede some territory in Bakhmut as Russia mounted a renewed assault there.
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Adam Fulton bringing you the latest developments.
Ukrainian and Russian armed forces are engaging in extraordinarily bloody battles in Bakhmut but pro-Kyiv forces are holding on, according to Ukraine’s military.
Russia claimed earlier on Saturday that Wagner fighters had captured two more areas of the eastern Ukrainian city, site of the war’s deadliest battle.
A Ukrainian military spokesperson said: “Bloody battles unprecedented in recent decades are taking place in the middle of the city’s urban area.”
More on that story soon. In other news:
The death toll from a Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukraine city of Sloviansk has risen to 11. A block of flats was badly damaged and rescue crews were continuing on Saturday to try to rescue people trapped underneath rubble.
Russian shelling in Kherson killed two women on Saturday, the Ukrainian president’s office said.
A Russian official has claimed four people were killed and 10 injured in Ukrainian shelling of a town in Russian-controlled Donetsk. Denis Pushilin said a seven-year-old girl was among those wounded in Yasynuvata.
Russia has been using drones to attack Ukrainian police in Kherson, according to the region’s police force. It said a police car was attacked in the Korabel area, injuring two officers and damaging the car, while in Beryslav one officer was injured and cars damaged.
A new international economic support package of $115bn is giving Ukraine more confidence it can prevail against Russian forces amid growing recognition the war could continue for longer than expected, the Ukrainian finance minister said on Saturday. Serhiy Marchenko said Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers assured him during International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington this week that they would support Ukraine for as long as needed.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Saturday. In two tweets, the Ukrainian president said they had discussed Macron’s recent visit to China to meet President Xi Jinping.
Poland and Hungary have banned imports of grain and other food from Ukraine to protect local farmers, officials from both countries said on Saturday. Ukraine’s grain exports have been transiting through the European Union to other countries since Ukraine’s Black Sea routes were blocked by Russia’s invasion, leading to prices being driven down.
