Press digest – Ukraine
54th day of heroic resistance of Ukraine against Russian military invasion
#BRAVEUKRAINE
Bravery is Ukraine’s newest export. We tell the world: Be Brave like Ukraine 🇺🇦💪
DESTRUCTION AND LOSSES
📌 On April 18, Russian troops launched 4 targeted missile strikes on Lviv. This is 70 kilometers from the Polish border. Loud explosions erupted in the city, and several rockets hit near railway facilities. 7 people died, 11 were injured, including a child. One of the missiles hit the car service station, about 40 cars were damaged or destroyed. Rocket parts damaged an orphans’ house with evacuated children-orphans.
📌On April 18, Ukraine was under heavy rocket fire, with the largest number of attacks in the east of the country.
📌205 children died due to the armed aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine. 362 children were injured.
📌On March 2, an 11-year-old girl died as a result of shelling by the invaders of the Ivan Kozhedub Kharkiv National University of the Air Force.
📌On March 30, it became known about the death of a 13-year-old girl due to injuries received as a result of the shelling of the Vilkhivka village in the Kharkiv region.
📌On April 17, the Russian occupiers attacked a number of medical facilities in Kharkiv. First the suburbs of Kharkiv were bombed, then the central part of the city, several hospitals and the perinatal center were destroyed. Now the pregnant women are being sent from the center to other medical facilities.
📌Police authorities recorded that the Russian occupiers killed at least 269 civilians in Irpin, said the first deputy chief of the Main Investigation Department of the National Police Serhiy Panteleiev during a briefing on April 18.
📌In the afternoon of April 17, Russian troops shelled the Kryvyi Rih district of the Dnipropetrovsk region, killing one person. The shelling was carried out from the occupied territories of the Kherson region, said the chairman of the Dnipropetrovsk regional council.
📌In the occupied Crimea, summer “retraining camps” are being prepared for teachers from Kherson, Kharkiv and Zaporizhia regions to convert them to “Russian teaching standards”, according to the Center for Counteracting Disinformation.
📌The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are completing the creation of an attack group in the Eastern Operational Zone.
📌It is expected that the Russian Army will continue to fight to reach the administrative borders of the Kherson region.
📌Early in the morning on April 18, Russians launched a missile strike on Kramatorsk. At least 8 residential buildings, educational and infrastructural facilities were destroyed, said the head of the Donetsk Regional State Administration Pavlo Kyrylenko.
📌Russians shot dead the civilians who were trying to leave Kreminna, four of them were killed. This was announced by the head of the Luhansk Regional State Administration Serhiy Haidai.
📌“In Mariupol, battles continued all day in the Left Bank district. The invaders continue to shell and bomb “Azovstal” with the use of all weapons,” — adviser to the Mayor of Mariupol Andryushchenko. In the photo — the shelled palace of culture “Iskra”. Children used to play here, and were attending creative hobby-groups.
☢️The ammonium content in the Ikva River in Rivne Region has exceeded the norm 163 times. This is an official detailed analysis of the content of chemicals in a reservoir contaminated as a result of damage to a reservoir of mineral fertilizers in the Ternopil region – the wreckage of a downed Russian missile fell there. On April 6, residents of the Dubna district found dead fish in the river and contacted the hotline of the State Ecological Inspection of Ukraine. Specialists took samples of water in Ikva at five points for analysis.
📌In Lysychansk, the office of the patrol police was shelled – six employees are in the hospital, the head of the Luhansk Regional State Administration Serhiy Haidai said.
📌At least 20,000 Ukrainians are detained in filtration camps on the Mangush-Nikolske-Yalta line. People cannot be evacuated due to deliberate delaying and slowing down the filtration procedure. Also, 5 to 7 thousand people are in the filtration camp in the village of Bezymenne, Donetsk region, and are being prepared for deportation.
📌 Ochakov, a city in the Nikolaev region, was fired on by the volley fire system “Uragan” (Hurricane) with the cluster shells forbidden by the international conventions. There were hits in residential areas, no casualties among the local population, the operational command “South” reported as of the morning of April 18.
📌 “According to the available information, as of the evening of April 18, 155 cases of abduction of civilians by the occupying troops of the Russian Federation have been registered in the Zaporizhia region. Thanks to the joint work of the central and regional authorities, 86 hostages have already been released. Currently, 69 more people are in captivity,” Zaporizhzhya military administration reports.
RUSSIAN CONTEXT
⚠️Russia is preparing for the “victory-insanity” Parade on May 9. Today, the planes trained to “paint” the Z-swastika in the sky.
⚠️Former vice-president of Russia’s Gazprombank, his wife and daughter were found shot dead in Moscow.
⚠️Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin acknowledged that 200,000 employees of foreign companies in Moscow may lose their jobs due to the withdrawal or suspension of such companies.
📌In the Russian army, the refusals to participate in the war against Ukraine continue. Thus, among the “contractors” in the units of the 150th Motorized Rifle Division of the 8th Army of the Southern Military District of the RF Armed Forces, the number of refusals reached 60-70% of the total number of personnel. It was reported in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
DEFENSE UPDATES
📌 Estimated losses of the Russian Federation Army in Ukraine:
📌The Ukrainian military hit the Russians 16 times in Chornobayivka, said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the head of the President’s Office.
📌Google Maps opened a view of the Russian military infrastructure. Usually such views are blurred on the maps or served in worse quality.
📌The Azov Regiment reported that the defense of Mariupol is underway. The soldiers of the special detachment, despite the overwhelming forces of the enemy, launched a counterattack.
📌On the second day of the Invictus Games competition, Ukrainian archer Anna-Sofia Puzanova won a bronze medal in the novice category. Puzanova is the daughter of Ukrainian volunteer and paramedic Yulia “Tyra” Paevska, who is currently being held captive by Russian troops. 18-year-old Anna-Sofia was admitted to the competition instead of her mother.
📌On April 16, for the first time since the beginning of the war, more Ukrainian citizens left Poland than entered Poland. On Saturday, 22,000 people entered Ukraine and 19,200 people left, according to the BBC, citing data from the Polish Border Guard Service.
📌On April 18, a temporary bridge was opened in Stoyanka. Thus, traffic between Kyiv and Zhytomyr is unblocked.
📌On April 18, Mariupol State University will start working in the capital of Ukraine, about 4.5 thousand students will study there. The buildings of the University of Mariupol were destroyed. Some of the facilities were burnt down, some of them collapsed. More or less intact facilities are regularly looted. About 80% of workers left. 4 university employees were killed, and there is no information about 40 employees.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s daily statements
📌Ukraine has requested financial support from the G7 countries in the amount of $50 billion to cover the budget deficit. Funding negotiations will take place next week in Washington. The adviser to the president Oleh Ustenko reported about it.
🇺🇦 Zelensky on weapons for Ukraine:
💬 When some leaders ask me what weapons I need, I need a moment to calm myself down, because I already told them the week before. It’s Groundhog Day. I feel like Bill Murray.
💬 I come and say that I need this particular weapon. You have it and here it is; we know where it is stored. Can you give it to us? We can even fly our own cargo planes and pick it up; we can even send three planes per day.
💬 We know what heavy weapons Ukraine needs now: heavy artillery, heavy armor, air defense systems, and combat aircraft.
🇺🇦 Ukraine has sent the first part of the completed questionnaire, which will be assessed whether it can be granted the status of a candidate country for EU membership. Now Ukraine is working on the second part.
PUBLIC AND BUSINESS SUPPORT
📌Brighton Beach area in New York — a flash mob has been held on the beach under the motto “Live Ukraine!”. In the form of a large Ukrainian flag, there are inscriptions with hero cities and phrases that have already become iconic in the fight against Russia.
📌A citizen of Sweden sold his sailing yacht to buy a batch of ambulances for Ukraine. Driving one of them himself, he arrived in Trostyanets, Sumy region.
📌Spanish striker Fran Sol, whose contract belongs to Dynamo Kyiv, received refugees from Ukraine to his home in Spain. The 30-year-old football player wrote on Twitter in Ukrainian: “Just any help is not enough. The least we can do is to help the Ukrainian people. My family and I are happy that you are in our house. I hope that this massacre will end soon, and you will be able to return to your home, but for now, this home is yours. Glory to Ukraine!”
📌American actor Richard Gere expressed his support for Ukraine and its people. He joined the “CARE’s Ukraine Crisis Fund” charity organization helping Ukrainians.
📌On April 17, the Italian band Maneskin closed their performance at the Coachella Festival with a new song “Gasoline” dedicated to Ukraine. Frontman Damiano David first quoted a speech by Charlie Chaplin from “The Great Dictator”, and before leaving the stage, exclaimed: “Free Ukraine, Fuck Putin!”
📌Spotify is no longer available in the App Store and Google Play for users from Russia.
📌Paramount is to stop broadcasting its channels in Russia on April 20 – operators began to receive messages from the company. Paramount owns entertainment and family channels, including Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., NickToons, Paramount Comedy, as well as MTV Russia and MTV Live HD.
INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT OF UKRAINE
📌 Photo of the day
An open letter to Pope Francis was written by the commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade, Major Serhiy Volyna, asking for help to save the people of Mariupol.
“I am turning to you for help. The time has come when prayers are not the only thing. Help save them. After the bombing of the drama theater, no one has faith in the Russian occupiers. Bring the truth to the world, evacuate people and save their lives from Satan, who wants to burn all living creatures,” says Volyn’s letter.
📌Italy is to help Ukraine with weapons, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi informed. According to him, the decision to support Ukraine was made almost unanimously in the parliament.
📌Canada is to deploy a military hospital for Ukrainians in Europe.
📌 Tweet of the day
Every nation has the right to live independently. Every city has the right to full security. Everyone has the right to freedom and to seek happiness. People should not be instruments of some regimes, some dictators. People have the right to just live. That’s what we’re fighting for. That’s what we ask you to defend with us. And that’s what we will restore, I hope, with the whole world – after this war.
Photo: Rodrigo Abd, Narciso Contreras, Petros Giannakouris, Raphaël Lafargue, Serhii Korovainyi, Yuki Iwamura, Evgeny Zavgorodny, Julia Kochetova, Marco Djurica