Press digest – Ukraine

65th day of heroic resistance of Ukraine against Russian military invasion

#ArmUkraineNow

DESTRUCTION AND LOSSES
📌Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Russia has launched more than 1,900 missiles in Ukraine. The majority of missile launches and air strikes in Ukraine still occur in Mariupol and in the area of the Joint Forces operation, mainly in Donbas. Source: Pentagon.

📌 A Ukrainian journalist has died as a result of a missile attack on Kyiv’s Artem plant, according to a Kyiv police spokesperson. Vira Hyrych, 54, was identified in a rescue operation early Friday after the Kyiv mayor initially reported no casualties.

She worked as a journalist for Radio Liberty in the Ukrainian capital. Iryna Androsova, also a Radio Liberty journalist, said Hyrych’s body was found in her apartment on the second floor of a building next to the factory.

📌 In Trostyanets in the Sumy region, investigators documented about 20 cases of torture of the local population by the Russian military.

📌 1,187 bodies of civilians killed by the Russian military have already been found in Kyiv region. 412 of them are the bodies of tortured and killed residents of Bucha.

📌 More than 617 children were injured in Ukraine as a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation. According to official data, 219 children have been killed and more than 398 have been injured to varying degrees.

📌 On April 28, a 10-year-old girl was injured in a shelling by the Russians of the village of Tsyrkuny, Kharkiv region.

📌 On April 28, 5 people, including a child, were injured during the shelling of Zaporizhzhya.

📌 On April 21, a 17-year-old boy was taken to a medical institution in Dnipropetrovsk region with injuries he received as a result of the shelling of Mariupol by the Russian military forces.

📌 In the Zaporizhzhia region, the Russian military captured two British people who were providing humanitarian aid in Ukraine. Foreigners tried to help a mother with two children to leave a settlement that came under the control of Russian invaders. However, they were stopped by Russians at the checkpoint. The woman was accused of “helping British spies.” The future of the foreigners is unknown.

📌 In the evening, a rocket attack on an infrastructure facility in one of the territorial communities of Shepetivka district took place in Khmelnytskiy region. The fire was extinguished. There are no victims.

📌 During April 29, Russian troops carried out 6 shellings in the settlements of Dnipropetrovsk region. Velyka Kostromka and Mala Kostromka were hit by Hurricanes. Several houses were damaged, no one was injured.

📌 Russian troops also fired on the villages of Zaporizhzhia. It is known in advance about the woman who died from shrapnel wounds. Damaged houses of local residents and civil infrastructure. Velyka Kostromka and Mala Kostromka were hit by Hurricanes. Several houses were damaged, no one was injured.

📌 In the Kherson region, the Russian military is preparing another fakes for propaganda on television and trying to persuade war veterans and children to join the May 9 celebrations.

📌 US Ambassador to the OSCE Michael Carpenter warned that in the temporarily occupied territories, the Russian side could organize “pseudo-referendums” and resort to forced relocation of locals to Russia or ORDLO, passing them through filtration camps.

📌 Counter-sabotage measures continue in Odesa Region. The Russian naval group controls the northwestern part of the Black Sea, blocking shipping. The threat of missile strikes from the sea remains high. Strategic airstrikes are also likely.

📌 According to the head of the Sumy Regional State Administration Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, border guards of the Sumy detachment heard the roar of engines from the Russian border, after which they saw a pair of MI-8s. One of the helicopters launched several unguided air missiles on the territory of Ukraine. No one was injured.

📌 An oil depot is burning in the occupied Donetsk.

MARIUPOL NEWS

📌 About 100,000 Mariupol residents are in mortal danger not only from shelling, but also from unsanitary conditions and the risk of catching cholera, dysentery or Escherichia coli in the occupied city.

📌 The commander of the Marines at Azovstal, Serhiy Volynsky (Volyn), addressed the President of Turkey Erdogan and asked to apply the “extraction” procedure to them and take them from Mariupol to Turkey.

“There are 600 servicemen with injuries of varying degrees who are in dire need of help here. We have civilians who have been wounded and who need medical assistance. Hundreds of civilians and dozens of children are also sheltered at the facility. The youngest is 4 months old”.

📌 Russia issues birth certificates to Mariupol residents of the unrecognized pseudo-state formation of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”. In fact, the issuance of such a “document” deprived the child of any citizenship. Such actions of the Russian Federation violate the rights of children enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

📌 The Russian military is distributing leaflets in Mariupol with answers to questions about living conditions in the city during the occupation, – adviser to the mayor Petro Andryushchenko reports. In particular, the leaflet states that the “current legislation” does not provide for compensation for destroyed housing or reimbursement of housing reconstruction costs. Special attention is paid to the rules of “verification” – filtering local residents in order to identify “Ukrainian militants”.

📌 The Russians set up four filtration camps for Mariupol residents who were deported to the Russian Federation and subjected the civilian population to various forms of torture. Ukrainian civil servants are thrown behind bars because of their work and their relatives are punished. If men have at least some tattoos on their bodies, Russian soldiers give them stones to scratch the skin off and force them to strip.

📌 Some of the surviving ventilators which are needed for the treatment of seriously ill patients were taken out of Mariupol by Russians.

📌 The mayor of Mariupol Vadym Boychenko said that after the bombing of the besieged plant “Azovstal” the number of wounded increased to 600 people. On April 28, the Russians destroyed an underground hospital with air strikes.

📌 Photo of the day

RUSSIAN CONTEXT

⚠️”The Battle for Donbas” remains Russia’s main strategic direction to achieve its stated aim of securing control over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, according to the British intelligence. Due to Ukraine’s strong resistance, Russia’s territorial gains are limited. They were achieved at a significant cost to the Russian forces.

⚠️ Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted an invitation to attend the G20 summit that will be held on the Indonesian island of Bali in November, the country’s President Joko Widodo said in a statement Friday.

“Indonesia wants to unite the G20. Don’t let there be a split. Peace and stability are the keys to the recovery and development of the world economy,” Widodo said in the statement from Indonesia’s Cabinet.

⚠️ Russia fired 1,300 missiles at Ukraine during the war, costing the aggressor at least $ 7.5 billion. The assessment is provided by the Ukrainian Forbes.

It is estimated that Russia has launched 235 Kalibr missiles in Ukraine: the figure includes 183 missiles, which, according to the Defense Ministry, were released before March 24, and 52 missiles fired on March 26.
Estimating the number of Kalibr missiles, Forbes took into account only the cases when the class of the missile launched in Ukraine is well known. Therefore, the publication notes, in fact, there could be more such missiles.
There are no exact statistics on the number of Iskander, Tochka-U and Class X missiles fired, so the publication assumes that their ratio remains the same as on March 24. At the time, the Defense Ministry said that 62% of the Iskander missiles, 30% of the X-Class missiles and 8% of the Point-U.
The cost of missiles can vary greatly. “Point-U”, according to the site Military Russia, is estimated at 300 thousand dollars, the value of Kalibr – 6.5 million dollars in accordance with the export contract with India in 2006. X-101 missiles are more modern and advanced than Kalibr, so, according to experts, many times more expensive than Kalibr.

⚠️Some interesting ads of St Petersburg subway.

“Мy father lost his legs in the war. He says that he would rather be dead.”
“They told me that I must be a real man when I grow up. When I grow up, I’m going to war to rape and kill.”
“My brother was killed during army service in peaceful time. Will I go to army when I grow up?”
“My father is very strong! He killed enemies. Now, he is beating me and my mother.”

DEFENSE UPDATES

📌 The village of Ruska Lozova in the Kharkiv region has been liberated from the invaders by the assault unit of the Defense Intelligence of the DMU, under the leadership of the Commander of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskiy. Currently, it is completely under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

This is a strategically important settlement located on the Kharkiv-Belgorod highway. It was from this suburb, during the occupation, that the enemy aimed at the civilian infrastructure and housing estates of Kharkiv.

📌 Estimated losses of the Russian Federation Army in Ukraine:

📌 The Armed Forces of Ukraine successfully repulsed an attempted assault by the occupying forces near the settlement of Zagradivka, on the border of Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

📌 The OSCE is ending the Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, as Russia has blocked its work. This decision was taken due to the lack of consensus at the OSCE Permanent Council on March 31, this year, to extend the mission’s mandate.

📌 Elon Musk handed over Tesla Powerwall solar stations to Ukraine — today two ambulance stations in Borodyanka and Irpin have received them.

These solar panels and generators have become very popular in the United States. Powerwall’s energy system has a high autonomy and provides backup power during power disconnections, said Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhaylo Fedorov.

📌Negotiations between Zelensky and Putin will not take place in the near future.

“Negotiations between the two presidents as for today are still far away. In a while, probably, they will happen. But we want Ukraine’s position in these negotiations to be very forceful,” — Mykhaylo Podolyak.

📌 NATO fighter jets stationed in the Baltic and Black Sea region have taken off “many times” over the past four days to intercept Russian aircraft near member countries’ airspace. This was reported by the press service of the Alliance Air Force Command.

📌 A shootout between Buryats and Chechens took place near Chornobayivka in the Kherson region. 50 people from each side took part in the incident. The Buryats are offended that they are constantly being driven to the front, while the Chechens of Kadyrov are constantly in the rear. Another reason is the uneven distribution of loot. The main “profit” from looting is received by Chechens. The exact number of wounded and dead is currently unknown.

📌 Germany will not block the EU embargo on oil from Russia. This was stated by Vice Chancellor and Minister of Economy of Germany Robert Habeck.

“We have made great progress on oil and could join the embargo if that happens. Germany won’t stand in its way,” said Habeck.

PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY’S DAILY STATEMENTS

🔷 Hard situation is in Kharkiv region. But our military, our spies, have important tactical successes.

🔷 In Donbas, constant brutal bombings, attacks on infrastructure and residential areas indicate that Russia wants to make this area uninhabited.

🔷 In Mariupol, which was one of the most developed towns in the region, a Russian concentration camp is in the middle of ruins. And the order of the occupiers in the part they unfortunately control is more cynical than what the Nazis did in the occupied territory of eastern Europe.

🔷 Grateful to the United States, President Biden, and Congress for an analogue of the famous Lend-Lease Program, which helped greatly in the fight against the Nazis during World War II. Ukraine’s support programs are concrete proof that freedom still knows how to defend itself against tyranny.

🔷 The Government of Ukraine considered the issue of eliminating the deficit in the fuel market. Queues and rising prices at gas stations are in many areas. The occupiers are deliberately destroying the infrastructure for the production, supply and storage of fuel, blocking our ports. Within a week or two, a system of fuel supply to Ukraine will be provided that will be able to prevent a deficit.

🔷 Currently, 27 foreign diplomatic missions operate in the capital. The British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons also returned to Kyiv today.

🔷 Any attempt to transfer our territory to the administrative, monetary or any other system of Russia will mean only one thing: Russia itself will suffer from this. Our responses, sanctions and other reactions of the free world to Russia’s aggressive actions will not be delayed.

PUBLIC AND BUSINESS SUPPORT

📌 Support of Ukraine in Australia’s Melbourne:

📌 British actor Benedict Cumberbatch once again spoke in support of Ukraine and said he was waiting for a Ukrainian family to come to the UK. The actor shared that the family that has to stay with him has already left Ukraine, and he monitors the situation every day.

📌 In 2 months, the Polish charitable foundation Fundacja Powszechnego Czytania published 88,000 books for children who were forced to leave Ukraine.

📌 Heroic Mariupol Square has appeared in Gdańsk, Poland. The unanimous decision was announced on the city’s official website.

📌 Kyiv Square has appeared in Reykjavik in support of the Ukrainian people – it is located at the intersection of foreign embassies, including Russian ones. Officially, the place will have a double name – “Kænugarður / Kýiv-torg”, and in English will be called Kyiv Square. The name of the square in the ancient Icelandic language “Kænugarður” is intended to emphasize the thousand-year history of Kyiv.

📌 Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney condemned Russia’s “aggressive” war and said that Ukraine had become a massacre: “Today Ukraine is a massacre right in the heart of Europe. I am afraid that you will be busy and turned away, and that the war will be covered less and less every day, and people will become a little more indifferent to it.”

📌 During a concert in Las Vegas, American singer and actress Lady Gaga called the Russians stupid. It is not the first time she has drawn attention to Russia’s aggression.

📌 A film about the Luhansk Border Detachment will be shown in Cannes. Based on real events, the film tells the story of the Luhansk Border Detachment, whose fighters separatists and Russian intelligence services tried to force to betray Ukraine. The events unfolded in eastern Ukraine in June 2014. Today, the creative team of the film “Peace-21” is defending the Ukrainian land, and actor Pavlo Lee tragically died on March 6 in Irpen, rescuing children.

INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT OF UKRAINE

📌 The Japanese government will provide Ukraine with a 30-year loan of $100 million on concessional terms.

📌 Norway is to close its borders and ports to Russian trucks and ships by joining EU sanctions imposed due to war Ukraine.

📌More than 12 flights to Ukraine are expected in the next 24 hours. About 100 Ukrainian servicemen have been trained in the United States in the use of artillery.

📌 The Embassy of the Netherlands resumes work in Kyiv. The ambassador and a small team of diplomats will be in the Ukrainian capital. However, it is reported that the consular department remains closed.

📌 Tweet of the day

They saw that it’s a completely different country. They saw that these are completely different people. People who are confident. Who believe in their state. Who know how to respect others because they respect themselves. Who do not want to capture someone else’s property, but will not give up anything that belongs to them. Who will protect every city, every street, every field.