Here is a summary of today's events:
“Our spirit does not give up,” Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an Easter message. “There is no night or day when Russian terror does not try to break our lives,” Zelenskiy wrote to Ukrainians on social media, following Russian missile strikes on the country overnight.
Zelenskiy was in Bucha today alongside prime minister Denys Shmyhal and several foreign ambassadors to mark two years since the city and surrounding areas’ were liberated from a brutal month-long occupation by Russia at the start of the war. The Ukrainian leader laid a lamp at the town’s Wall of Remembrance, which names the 509 civilians who have so far been identified of those killed during Bucha’s occupation.
Russia launched 16 missiles and 11 drones at Ukraine in an overnight air attack, Ukraine’s air force said. In a statement on Telegram, the air force said it had managed to down nine of the drones and nine of the missiles. It did not identify their targets.
The Russian air force conducted a massive strike on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and gas industry overnight, the Russian defence ministry said. Thousands in Ukraine’s Odesa region were temporarily left without power after debris from a downed Russian drone caused a blaze at an energy facility.
Ukraine launched ten Czech-made Vampire rockets at the Russian border region of Belgorod, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defence. And Ukrainian shelling killed a woman in the village of Dunayka, Belgorod Oblast, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
France will deliver hundreds of old armoured vehicles and new surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine in its war against Russia. French defence minister Sebastien Lecornu told a French newspaper that president Emmanuel Macron had asked him to prepare a new aid package, which will include old but still functional equipment, as well as new missiles.
Protesters in Kyiv are calling for the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war from the notorious Azov brigade. Relatives and friends of captured soldiers, some dressed in military clothing, waved placards at passing traffic. The Azov brigade has often been criticised for its links with Nazism and the far-right.
Russia launched a “counter-terrorism operation” regime in the southern region of Dagestan, detaining three people by Sunday morning. “Security agencies detained three bandits who were planning a number of terrorist offences. During the inspection of the places where the criminals were detained, automatic weapons, ammunition and an improvised explosive device ready for use were found,” Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said, according to Russian news agencies.
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AP provides some more detail on president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to Bucha today.
Zelenskiy was in Bucha alongside prime minister Denys Shmyhal and several foreign ambassadors, to commemorate the second anniversary of the area’s liberation from Russian forces.
The Ukrainian leader laid a lamp at the town’s Wall of Remembrance, the president’s website said. The monument names the 509 civilians who have so far been identified of those killed during the occupation, which lasted just over a month.
Bucha’s name has come to evoke savagery by Moscow’s military since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Ukrainian troops who retook the town two years ago today found the bodies of men, women and children on the streets, in gardens and homes, as well as buried in mass graves. Some bodies showed signs of torture.
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