Kyiv said on Monday a U.N.-brokered initiative allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain was in danger of "shutdown" after Russia blocked inspections of participating ships in Turkish waters.
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.
Russia launched attacks across Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Donetsk oblasts over the past 24 hours, causing widespread property damage and injuring at least three people.
At least 11 people have died and 22 more are wounded after Friday's strikes on residential buildings in the eastern city of Sloviansk, according to an update from the State Emergency Services. (The death toll has been updated to 15, but this number may continue to change.)
One hundred and thirty 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.
Kyiv said on Monday a U.N.-brokered initiative allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain was in danger of "shutdown" after Russia blocked inspections of participating ships in Turkish waters.
Ukrainian Black Sea ports were blockaded after Russia's invasion last year, but access to three of them was cleared last July under a deal between Moscow and Kyiv that was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey.
The agreement - intended to help ease a global food crisis - was extended last month, but Ukraine said the number of cargo ships passing through the Bosporus carrying Ukrainian agricultural products was critically low.
"For the second time in 9 months of operation of the Grain Initiative, an inspection plan (for participating vessels) has not been drawn up, and not a single vessel has been inspected," Ukraine's restoration ministry said on Facebook under the headline "Grain initiative under threat of shutdown."
Highlighting the bottleneck in the Bosporus, Bridget Brink, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said on Twitter over 50 ships were awaiting approval to go to Ukrainian ports "to load grain that will feed those who need it."
Russia did not respond to Brink's or the ministry's comments, but the Kremlin said prospects for a renewal of the grain deal were "not so bright".
Moscow says a separate deal, under which the U.N. agreed to help Russia with its food and fertilizer exports, is not working.
Ukraine's restoration ministry said Russian representatives in a Joint Coordination Center were operating an "unacceptable" plan for inspecting vessels which contradicted the terms of the initiative.
In the last three days, Russian inspectors had refused to register three vessels without any explanation, it said.
"Ukraine categorically rejects Russia's latest demands and opposes its interference in the operation of Ukrainian ports," the ministry said.
-via Reuters
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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.
-via The Guardian
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Russia launched attacks across Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Donetsk oblasts over the past 24 hours, causing widespread property damage and injuring at least three people.
Settlements in the Kharkiv, Kupinask, Chuhuiv, and Izium districts of Kharkiv Oblast were targeted by Russian attacks over the past 24 hours, Governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote.
At least 11 buildings were damaged and fires had to be put out, according to Syniehubov. In the village of Kurylivka, located in the Kupiansk district, a private home was damaged as a result of Russian mortar attacks.
A private home in the village of Pershotravneve, located in the Izium district, was destroyed. However, there were no reported casualties.
Russia launched 56 attacks against 16 settlements in Zaporizhzhia Oblast over the past 24 hours, Governor Yurii Malashko reported.
This includes 46 artillery strikes, four air strikes, four drone attacks, and two attacks with multiple launch rocket systems.
According to Malashko, there are at least 52 reported cases of damage to infrastructure, including apartments, private houses, and cars.
A 61-year-old man was hospitalized for his injuries.
There were ten recorded strikes after Russian forces used rocket launchers to attack the Bilopollia community in Sumy Oblast overnight on April 17. There were no casualties, the Sumy Oblast military administration wrote.
Russian forces also shelled the border of Chernihiv Oblast. Six explosions were recorded between 06:45 a.m. and 07:15 a.m. near the village of Karpovychi, Operational Command North reported. Russian forces likely fired 120mm mortar rounds.
From 06:50 a.m. to 06:52 a.m. two explosions, also likely to be from 120mm mortar rounds, were recorded near the village of Leonivk. No casualties were reported.
Russian forces shelled Kherson Oblast 46 times on April 16, firing 170 shells from heavy artillery, drones, and aviation. Residential areas in Kherson were targeted three times, the Kherson Oblast military administration wrote. No casualties were reported.
Nikopol and a nearby settlement of the Chervonohryhorivka in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast were attacked with barrel artillery on April 16, Yevhen Yevtushenko, head of Nikopol's military administration, wrote.
Two people were injured as a result of the attack. One man received outpatient care and one woman was hospitalized for her injuries, but she is in stable condition, according to Yevtushenko.
A church, five residential buildings, two cars, several power lines, and four buildings were also damaged. One was also destroyed.
Kostiantynivka in Donetsk Oblast was hit by two missiles, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote. According to the governor, Russian forces were targeting the territory of an enterprise. Three buildings and a car were damaged.
Russian forces shelled multiple other settlements across the oblast but no casualties were reported beyond the rising death toll from the April 14 missile strike on Sloviansk, which killed 15 people, including a two-year-old boy.
-via Kyiv Independent
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At least 11 people have died and 22 more are wounded after Friday's strikes on residential buildings in the eastern city of Sloviansk, according to an update from the State Emergency Services.
The Ukrainian agency said four more people may still be trapped under the rubble Saturday.
“A total of 75 tonnes of rubble have been dismantled at the site,” the service's report said.
At least eight explosions rocked the city Friday afternoon local time, as Russian forces targeted it with S-300 rockets, according to Sloviansk Mayor Vadym Liakh. The strikes hit apartment buildings, houses, administrative buildings and a schoolyard.
A 2-year-old boy was among those killed in the assault.
-via CNN
The death toll from Friday's Russian missile barrage on residential buildings in Sloviansk, Ukraine, has reached 15, according to a regional Ukrainian official.
A further 24 people were wounded in the strikes, up from the previously reported total of 22, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk region's military administration, said in a Telegram post Sunday.
Kyrylenko said rescuers pulled five people, including a 14-year-old girl, from under the rubble. The bodies of 10 of the victims were recovered.
Some context: The strikes, which killed a 2-year-old boy, are among the worst attacks on Sloviansk since the year began.
At least eight explosions rocked the city Friday afternoon local time, as Russian forces targeted it with S-300 rockets, according to Sloviansk Mayor Vadym Liakh. The strikes hit apartment buildings, houses, administrative buildings and a schoolyard.
-via CNN
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One hundred and thirty 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. Russia holds swathes of territory in Ukraine's east and south.
"We are bringing back 130 of our people. It (the exchange) has been taking place in several stages over the past few days," President Volodymyr 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 exchange was the second large prisoner swap in the past week. On Monday, Russia and Ukraine said they carried out a major prisoner swap with 106 Russian prisoners of war being freed in exchange for 100 Ukrainians.
Ukraine said on Friday it had also retrieved the bodies of 82 of its soldiers from Russian-controlled territory.
🤬 Росіяни обстріляли Словʼянськ, Чернігівщину і Запоріжжя.
📍 У Словʼянську ворог застосував РСЗВ. Поранені двоє жінок віком 30 та 89 років, а також 31-річний чоловік.
📍 У Запоріжжі була атакована АЗС. Поранено двоє жінок 40-ка та 45-ти років. Медики надають потерпілим всю невідкладну допомогу.
📍На Чернігівщині у селі Іванівка Семенівської громади зафіксовано влучання БпЛА типу «Молнія» на території приватного будинку. Пошкоджено господарчу споруду та трактор.
📍У самій Семенівці FPV-дрон влучив у будівлю цивільної інфраструктури. Інформації про загиблих або поранених не надходило – повідомив начальник Новгород-Сіверської РВА Олександр Селіверстов.
