Here are the state-of-the-art tendencies inside the conflict in Ukraine:
– Mariupol evacuation –
Ukraine will make a brand new try to evacuate civilians from Mariupol, the devastated port city now largely controlled by Russian forces, from noon on Saturday, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk says.
“Today we can again try and evacuate girls, kids, and the elderly,” Vereshchuk says on Telegram.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine next week after a stop in Moscow to confer with President Vladimir Putin, the UN says.
Guterres will see Zelensky and Ukraine’s foreign minister on Thursday, two days after visiting Moscow.
Russia reveals that one crew member died and 27 were missing after the Moskva missile cruiser sank last week, Moscow’s first admission of the losses following the tragedy.
“As a result of a fire on April 13, the Moskva missile cruiser was seriously damaged due to the detonation of ammunition,” the defense ministry says in a statement.
A senior Ukrainian official accuses French defense electronics company Thales of violating European sanctions and selling Russian equipment that was used to kill civilians fleeing recent fighting outside Kyiv, claims strongly denied by the company.
“A family was trying to escape but was killed by Russian murderers,” tweets presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak. “Killed, as it is now proved, with French weapons sold in circumvention of sanctions in 2015.”
Russian authorities declare opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza a “foreign agent” and order his pre-trial detention for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian army amid its military campaign in Ukraine.
Moscow’s Basmanny district court orders that the 40-year-old Kremlin opponent is held in jail until June 12.
The Pentagon invites 40 allies to meet in Germany next week to discuss Ukraine’s longer-term security needs.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby says defense ministers and senior generals of 20 countries, NATO and non-NATO members, have already accepted the invitation for the Tuesday meeting in Germany.
Russia’s defense ministry says it is prepared for a humanitarian ceasefire at the Azovstal steel plant if Kyiv’s infantrymen holed up there give up.
“All servicemen of the Ukrainian military, militants of the national battalions and overseas mercenaries who laid down their fingers are guaranteed lifestyles, decent treatment in accordance with global law, and the provision of excellent hospital treatment,” Putin says, adding: “But the Kyiv regime isn’t bearing in mind this opportunity for use.”
