Press digest – Ukraine

62th day of heroic resistance of Ukraine against Russian military invasion

#ArmUkraineNow

DESTRUCTION AND LOSSES

📌 A missile strike was carried out in Odesa region. There is damage to the bridge across the Dniester estuary. Circumstances and information about the injured are being clarified. For security reasons, the bridge is blocked.

📌 Russia shelled the Moscow district in Kharkiv, killing two women and a man and injuring four more civilians. There is a child among the injured. Russian forces  purposefully targeted residential buildings.

📌 During the night, 35 air strikes were carried out on the Azovstal plant, during which one of the shops caught fire. They affected civilians who are now trapped under the rubble. Soldiers of the Azov Regiment provide first aid and make every effort to free people from the rubble. People also run out of food and water. The Russians fire on Azovstal every minute and drop several bombs per hour.

📌 Russia’s Defense Ministry is threatening to strike at “decision-making centers” in Kyiv if Ukraine attacks facilities in Russia. Just to remind, during the full-scale war there was no single attack of the territory of the Russian Federation from Ukraine.

📌More than 608 children were injured in Ukraine as a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation. 217 – killed and injured more than 391 children.

The most affected children were in: Donetsk region — 127, Kyiv region — 114, Kharkiv region — 93, Chernihiv region — 66, Kherson region — 44, Mykolaiv region — 43, Luhansk region — 37, Zaporizhia region — 27, Sumy region — 17, Kyiv city — 16, Zhytomyr region — 15.

📌 In the Kharkiv region, in areas of constant shelling, Russian troops are sending women to “spy”, threatening to shoot their children.

📌In the Donetsk region, the police documented 18 instances of Russian shelling in the past 24 hours — children were killed. The invaders killed 4 civilians, two of them children. 11 people were injured. During the past 24 hours, the Russians have shelled 16 settlements.

📌1508 educational institutions were damaged as a result of daily bombings and shelling of Ukrainian towns and villages by the armed forces of the Russian Federation.  At the same time, 102 of them were destroyed.

📌 Russian invaders threaten women to shoot their children if they refuse to report the positions of the Ukrainian military: “A terrible situation is happening in Rubizhne. Russian militaries steal children, and then they force women, their mothers, to go to the positions of the Ukrainian military forces … to take some humanitarian kits or food, then go back and tell how the positions of the Ukrainian defenders are equipped. If women refuse to do it, they threaten to shoot their children.”

📌Two children who were forcibly deported from Mariupol by the Russian invaders were returned to their relatives. 

  • 12-year-old Kira Obedinska, who was taken from Mariupol by the Russians to not controlled by Ukraine Donetsk, was returned to her grandfather. Earlier, the Rashists kidnapped Kira while she was trying to escape from Mariupol. Her father was killed by the Russian invaders, and her mother died when she was less than a year old.
  • 9-year-old Ilya Matvienko was also returned to his grandmother. She remained the only relative of her grandson after his mother died during the bombing of Mariupol.

Source: Office of the Ombudsman of Ukraine.

📌 On the morning of April 26, two guided missiles of the Russian army hit the territory of one of the enterprises of the city of Zaporizhzhia. The third rocket exploded in the air. Infrastructure facilities of the enterprise were damaged and destroyed. According to preliminary information, one person was killed and one was injured. The consequences of the event are currently being eliminated. The number of casualties will be specified.

📌The Sumy region has been shelled 4 times within the last 24 hours. Particularly, on April 25, in the evening, heavy weapons were directed from the the area of the Russian village Tiotkino towards Rivne, the Ukrainian village in Konotop district.

📌The shelling of Kharkiv and Luhansk regions continues. It became known that 2 people were killed and 7 injured. As a result of the shelling of Popasna in the Luhansk region, a house collapsed, killing three people.

📌Russia’s military invasion resulted with the destruction of 70% of the city of Rubizhne, Luhansk region. The Ukrainian military holds the defense there.

📌Russian troops plunder the archives and cultural funds of Mariupol museums. It is known that they intend to take everything to Donetsk, and then, after assessment, send the most valuable exhibits to Russia.

📌Today, the Unified Information Database on Internally Displaced Persons contains information on 3.4 million people. More than 2 million of them are people who were displaced after the martial law. And 1.9 million of them were forced to move for the first time.

 

📌 Photo of the day

Kyiv, dismantling of the monument at the People’s Friendship Arch

 

SITUATION IN TRANSNISTRIA

❗️In the unrecognized Transnistria, three facts of “terrorist” attacks have already been recorded:

  • on the building of the Ministry of Security in Tiraspol;
  • on the military unit in Parkany; 
  • on the radio center in Mayaky.

❗️It became known that as a result of explosions, the two most powerful antennas were out of order: one — megawatt, the other — half-megawatt. Both have been rebroadcasting RF radio.

❗️Moldova convened a meeting of the Security Council, in response to the “leadership” of Transnistria, which is controlled from Moscow, set a red level of terrorist danger and announced a “decision to protect the interests of the republic.”

❗️People are leaving for the government-controlled territory of Moldova from the occupied Transnistria.

❗️The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reports that Russian troops in unrecognized Transnistria have been put on full combat readiness.

 

RUSSIAN CONTEXT

⚠️After the catastrophic losses in Ukraine, to restore the combat capability of military units, the Russian command is trying, by all means, to attract Russians to military service under a contract. If in the temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine there is a forced mobilization of men, then in the central regions of the invading country, they are invited to join contract service with promises of high salaries, social benefits and opportunities for unpunished robbery and looting. According to the military intelligence of Ukraine, only in the Central Military District of Russia for the period January-April 2022, 2861 contracts for military service were concluded.

⚠️The governor of the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation, Vyacheslav Gladkov, claims that Ukraine allegedly shelled the village of Golovchino. According to Gladkov, several non-residential buildings and four houses were damaged and no one was injured. This is the same governor who has already lied about the alleged shelling from Ukraine.

⚠️ In Chechnya, prisoners are being sent to the war with Ukraine, including relatives of the opposition. Such actions have two goals: to replenish the “human resources” of units that have suffered significant losses in battles with Ukrainian defenders, and to suppress any protests in Chechnya itself. This was reported by Ukrainian intelligence.

⚠️During Vladimir Putin’s talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Putin said that Mariupol has already been occupied by the Russian army and that no hostilities were taking place there.

 

DEFENSE UPDATES

📌 Estimated losses of the Russian Federation Army in Ukraine:

📌Mykolayiv is getting ready for an attack or siege of the city, equipping fortifications. The mayor of the city, Oleksandr Senkevych, reported this. He noted that Russia is transferring weapons and resources across the Crimea, accumulating them in the Kherson region.

📌Near ​​the settlement of Velyka Oleksandrivka, Kherson region, the defenders of Ukraine destroyed a warehouse with ammunition and numerous enemy personnel (over 70 people were killed). The exact number of dead is being confirmed.

📌In the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions for the past day 6 enemy attacks were repulsed; 4 tanks, 5 artillery systems, 13 units of armored vehicles, 15 units of motor vehicles, 2 fuel tanks and 1 anti-aircraft gun were destroyed.


📌Event of the day

A meeting of the ministers of 40 countries has started at the Ramstein base in Germany to discuss the provision of weapons to Ukraine to counter Russian Federation.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that partner countries had already raised about $ 5 billion in military aid to Ukraine. According to him, $ 3.7 billion falls on the United States. He also added: “We will move heaven and earth to meet the security requirements of Ukraine.”

 

HUMANITARIAN CORRIDORS AND EVACUATION UPDATES

📌Previously announced green corridor for all those who are on the territory of the Azovstal works in Mariupol turned out to be a trap: 

  • On April 26, Russian troops did not stop shelling the Azovstal works and fired on the declared evacuation corridor.
  • Currently, a kind of “searches and sweeps” are taking place in the Primorsky district of the city. The military breaks into the houses: the houses that they decide to use for their own resettlement are marked with the letter z on the gate, and all the others are looted, left open and they are planned to be resettled in the “conditional security” zone of Mariupol.
  • The black smoke over the Azovstal works is an unconditional consequence of the bombing. Given that the plant was preserved in accordance with technological standards, this may be due to the use of high-powered anti-bunker bombs.

Source: Petro Andriushchenko, advisor to the city head

📌49 residents of Belogorivka (Luhansk region), including eight children, were evacuated under fire executed by the Russian army. Currently, everyone is safe, they are on their way by train to the western regions of Ukraine.

PUBLIC AND BUSINESS SUPPORT

📌 A march in support of Ukraine was held in Krakow. Hundreds of Ukrainians and Poles chanted: “Silence is violence”, “Stop the second Hitler”, “NATO, close the sky”.

📌 A protest against the occupiers’ sexual crimes took place in Dublin. Irish and Ukrainians stood in silence for half an hour in solidarity with those who were raped and abused during the war.

📌 An action in support of Ukraine took place in Chisinau, Moldova. Ukrainians, along with locals, are reminding the world over and over again of the war waged by Russia.

📌 Volvo Cars and Jaguar Land Rover, following General Motors, are reducing their Russian offices — JLR is actually leaving the Russian Federation, leaving only the staff who will coordinate administrative interactions at the stage of closing the legal entity.

📌The Turkish representative of the largest European tour operator TUI — “TUI Tantur” sent a letter to hotels in Turkey, demanding to cancel the reservation of rooms for Russian tourists. As a result, the existing booking of holidays should be canceled, and tourists from Russia — evicted.

📌Christie’s auction house is launching a series of charity auctions to raise $ 1 million for Ukraine. The series of lots will include about 86 paintings and photographs of Ukrainian avant-garde and modernist artists.

📌Airbnb has agreed with homeowners on shelter for thousands of refugees from Ukraine. The online service has agreed to partner with a number of charities that will ensure that those who need it the most receive temporary housing. According to the statement of the service, today more than 33,000 homeowners have registered to offer housing to refugees under the program.

INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT OF UKRAINE

📌 Denmark has become the first donor to the Fund for the Restoration of war-destroyed Ukrainian energy infrastructure, the Ministry of Energy reported.

📌The United Kingdom will abolish customs duties on all goods from Ukraine. Tariffs will be reduced to zero, and all quotas will be abolished at the direct request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the British government said on Monday. 

📌German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has said the country is ready to cut off Russian oil supplies.

You can destroy the walls, but you can’t destroy the foundation on which morale stands. Morale of our warriors. Morale of the whole country.