Blinken says Russia ‘failing’ in war aims, Ukraine ‘succeeding’
Blinken says Russia is failing in war aims
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held a joint news conference in Poland on April 25 after their Kyiv visit. (Video: The Washington Post)
By Missy Ryan, Adam Taylor, Bryan Pietsch, María Luisa Paúl, Annabelle Timsit and Julian Duplain
Today at 1:00 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 6:39 a.m. EDT
IN POLAND, NEAR THE BORDER WITH UKRAINE — Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on the heels of a visit to Ukraine’s capital, told reporters that it is now clear that Russia is “failing” in its war aims, while “Ukraine is succeeding.”
After the first visit by high-level U.S. officials to Kyiv since the war began over two months ago, Blinken confirmed that the United States would reopen its embassy in Ukraine, with diplomats first operating in the western city of Lviv. The United States would also provide $713 million in foreign military financing to Ukraine and more than a dozen other nations to purchase new weapons, replenishing arms that were provided to Ukrainian forces. In a post to Telegram on Monday, Zelensky thanked the United States for its “unprecedented” assistance.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who traveled with Blinken to Kyiv on Sunday before returning to Poland, said the United States wants to see Ukraine remain a democratic country, able to defend its sovereign territory, with Russia “weakened” so it cannot invade Ukraine again. The show of U.S. support comes as Russia continues its assault on eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said Monday that Russia launched missile and bomb attacks on the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, where many of Mariupol’s last defenders are holding out.
Here’s what else to know
The Biden administration will announce the nomination of Bridget Brink, a career diplomat who currently serves as ambassador to Slovakia, as ambassador to Ukraine, Blinken said.
Zelensky congratulated French President Emmanuel Macron on his reelection Sunday over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who has a history of warm relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader sent his own message of congratulations to Macron, who won a second term as French president.
The Washington Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel for updates.
UNDERSTANDING THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT
Why Mariupol matters to Russia in three maps
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April 21, 2022
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April 13, 2022
What is happening in Mariupol, the Ukrainian city under Russian siege?
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April 21, 2022
Call for NATO to patrol Black Sea shipping lanes
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By Julian Duplain6:39 a.m.
Part of the port of Odessa, one of Ukraine’s major gateways to the world on the Black Sea, on March 28, 2022. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
NATO warships should escort commercial ships in the Black Sea to ensure trading routes can function despite the conflict in Ukraine, says the head of the world’s largest maritime logistics company.
“We should demand that our seafaring and maritime traffic is being protected in international waters. I’m sure NATO and others have a role to play in the protection of the commercial fleet,” René Kofod-Olsen, chief executive of V. Group, told the Financial Times newspaper.
Eighty-four merchant ships remain stuck in Ukrainian ports, with nearly 500 seafarers onboard, according to figures from the International Maritime Organization. About 1,500 sailors have been repatriated from such vessels in the two months since fighting began. The effective cessation of commercial shipping has severely hit Ukrainian grain exports, causing concerns about world food supplies.
“If you look at any other place where there has been any other regional conflict of size and international waters have been impacted, then you would find a situation where you would rely on some form of escorts,” Kofod-Olsen said.
However, NATO has given no indication that it is considering providing such escorts.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is flanked by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken during their meeting in Kyiv on Sunday. (Ukrainian President Press Service/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is flanked by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken during their meeting in Kyiv on Sunday. (Ukrainian President Press Service/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
IN POLAND, NEAR THE BORDER WITH UKRAINE — Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in the Ukrainian capital on Sunday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and five other Ukrainian government officials. Zelensky, in a news conference ahead of Austin and Blinken’s visit, had asked them not to “come here with empty hands.”
A meeting of the U.S. and Ukrainian teams in Kyiv. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Zelensky and Blinken shake hands in Kyiv.
Zelensky and Blinken shake hands in Kyiv. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/AP)
When asked about Zelensky’s comment during a news conference on Monday, Blinken said, “We never come empty-handed.”
Speaking in a hangar in Poland filled with crates of humanitarian aid destined for Ukraine, the two top Biden administration officials said they informed Zelensky of more than $700 million in new military aid to Ukraine and other countries, as well as the administration’s intent to resume diplomatic operations in Ukraine this week, marking the return of U.S. diplomats for the first time since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion.
Industrial city of Kremenchuk hit by 9 missiles, official says
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By María Paúl5:51 a.m.
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Nine Russian missiles on Sunday struck infrastructure in Kremenchuk, an industrial city in central Ukraine, according to a regional leader.
“The enemy does not shy away from anything, even on such a holy day,” Dmytro Lunin, an acting governor and head of the Poltava region’s military administration, wrote on Telegram.
The slew of rockets hit Kremenchuk on the day that Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter. The important holiday was celebrated in the shadow of destruction and death, as attacks continued across various Ukrainian cities. Sunday also marked the start of the third month since Russia invaded Ukraine.
“Last year we celebrated Easter at home because of the pandemic. This year we also celebrate the Resurrection of Christ not as we used to. Because of another virus. Because of the plague called war,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his Easter message. “Both last year’s and the current threat are united by one thing — nothing can defeat Ukraine.”
Earlier on Sunday, Lunin said five missiles had struck the city, which is located about 200 miles southeast of Kyiv along the Dnipro River. The toll on civilians and infrastructure remains unknown.
Lunin again warned of an air raid in the region at 6:31 a.m. local time on Monday.
Kremenchuk is one of Ukraine’s industrial hubs, with an economy previously fueled by its oil refinery, auto factories, and petrochemical, steel and silicates plants. The city also had Ukraine’s only fully functioning oil refinery, until it was destroyed by Russian rockets on April 3, Lunin said earlier this month.
Five train stations in Ukraine come under fire, rail official says
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By Julian Duplain5:46 a.m.
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Five train stations in central and western Ukraine came under Russian fire Monday morning, delaying train services, according to the state railway company’s chairman, who posted a message on Telegram.
“Russian troops continue to systematically destroy railway infrastructure,” said Oleksandr Kamyshin, chairman of Ukrainian Railways.
In one incident, a rocket hit a traction substation at Krasne station, about 25 miles east of Lviv, regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi said on Telegram.
In all, 19 passenger trains were halted and delayed on routes from cities including Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Dnipro to Kyiv and Lviv. By soon after midday, all trains were moving again, the railway company said.
Train services have been vital for civilians fleeing conflict zones and heading for Ukraine’s western borders or to take refuge in cities such as Lviv, where Russian attacks have been fewer.
D.C.-area Ukrainians celebrate Orthodox Easter amid war and worry
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By Tara Bahrampour5:31 a.m.
A worshiper holds a candle during an evening service at St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral on April 21 in Silver Spring. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Under a cloudless blue sky, a woman in a yellow dress held a basket of freshly baked sweet bread known as “paska,” eggs dyed with onion skin into a deep crimson, cheese, butter, pork fat and kielbasa, symbols of indulgences that the faithful had given up for 40 days before the resurrection of Jesus.
To Solomiya Gorokhivska, 40, who brought her basket for Orthodox Easter celebration at Saint Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Silver Spring, Md., the moment felt bittersweet. The holiday symbolizes a new beginning after the giving up treats such as meat and music and dancing, she said, adding, “After you suffer, it is a kind of a feast for soul and body.”
But like many of the 1,500 people from across the Washington region who converged Sunday on the sloping lawn behind the cathedral with a golden dome, Gorokhivska was acutely aware that for Ukrainians caught in the Russian invasion, the suffering did not end on Easter.
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Luhansk region blacked out after substation fails
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By Julian Duplain5:29 a.m.
A Russian soldier guards on April 13 the entrance of a power station in Ukraine's Luhansk region. (Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
The entire Luhansk region suffered a power cut Monday morning, after an 500-kilovolt electricity substation in Kreminna failed.
“There is no light in any area,” said the regional governor, Serhiy Haidai. He said it was impossible to reach the facility due to shelling.
But after half an hour, engineers were able to reconnect the grid to other substations.
“Lights will come on soon,” Haidai said. He did not give a reason for the Kreminna outage.
Since the Russian invasion began two months ago, power stations have come under attack, both by the military and online hackers trying to knock out Ukraine’s energy facilities.
Key update
U.S. aims for a Russia ‘weakened’ by war in Ukraine, Austin says
Austin says U.S. wants Russia to be ‘weakened’ so it can't invade again
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said April 25 that the U.S. wants Russia's military capability weakened so that it cannot carry out another invasion. (Video: The Washington Post)
The United States hopes the war in Ukraine will result in a “weakened” Russia that no longer has the capacity to invade its neighbors, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday, in a sharpening of the Biden administration’s rhetoric toward Moscow.
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said.
Austin was answering questions from reporters after a brief trip Sunday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Kyiv, where the U.S. officials met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The defense secretary was asked how he defined “America’s goals for success” in Ukraine.
He first said Washington wants to see “Ukraine remain a sovereign country, a democratic country, able to protect its sovereign territory.” Then, he said, the United States hopes Russia will be “weakened” by the war. “It has already lost a lot of military capability and a lot of its troops, quite frankly, and we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability,” Austin said.
Finally, Austin said the United States hopes “to see the international community more united, especially NATO.” He cited the sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and its allies as an example of how the war in Ukraine has made the security alliance more unified.
Russian forces may strike toward central city, Ukrainian official says
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By Hannah Knowles4:41 a.m.
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A Ukrainian military leader warned Sunday that Russian forces in southern Ukraine may be preparing to strike north toward the major city of Kryvyi Rih.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of Kryvyi Rih’s military administration, said on Telegram that Russia is “preparing an offensive strike formation in our direction” and that officials “are waiting for their possible transition to the offensive” in the coming days.
Kryvyi Rih, in central Ukraine, is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown and the country’s eighth-largest city, with a prewar population estimated at more than 600,000. With many people fleeing the fighting more than 100,000 people have passed through Kryvyi Rih, Vilkul said, and 50,000 are “in the city now.”
Russian troops initially targeted central Ukraine — including the capital, Kyiv — but have recently refocused on the east and south after meeting strong Ukrainian resistance.
Vilkul said the potential offensive was forming in the southern Kherson region, where Russians occupied the city of Kherson not long after invading Ukraine — their first major victory. Ukraine has since reclaimed some villages in the area.
Vilkul said Sunday that his city is prepared for “any development” and is strengthening its defenses. He told residents they might encounter things being “sawed, cut, dug or built.”
“The garrison of the city is ready, all military units are ready,” he said.
Blinken: ‘Russia is failing’ in its war aims, and ‘Ukraine is succeeding’
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By Missy Ryan and Annabelle Timsit4:21 a.m.
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Blinken says Russia is failing in war aims
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held a joint news conference in Poland on April 25 after their Kyiv visit. (Video: The Washington Post)
IN POLAND, NEAR THE BORDER WITH UKRAINE — Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday after a visit to Kyiv that “Russia is failing” in its war aims, while “Ukraine is succeeding.”
Blinken, who along with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with the Ukrainian president, said Volodymyr Zelensky expressed “deep appreciation” for ongoing U.S. support.
Ahead of Sunday’s visit, Zelensky called for the Biden administration to pledge needed weaponry and urged the two officials not to come with “empty hands.”
“The strategy that we’ve put in place — massive support for Ukraine, massive pressure against Russia, solidarity with more than 30 countries engaged in these efforts — is having real results,” Blinken said. “And we’re seeing that when it comes to Russia’s war aims, Russia is failing, Ukraine is succeeding.”
Blinken said Russia’s main goal was “to totally subjugate Ukraine, to take away its sovereignty, to take away its independence.” From Washington’s point of view, Moscow has “failed” in that objective. Instead, Blinken said, the sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and its allies have hurt its economy, while the Russian military is “dramatically underperforming.”
Blinken argued that another of Russia’s goals — “to divide the West and NATO,” which the Kremlin says it views as a threat to its security — has also failed. Instead, the war in Ukraine has prompted Finland and Sweden, two traditionally neutral states near Russia, to consider joining the security alliance.
“We don’t know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign, independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene, and our support for Ukraine going forward will continue … until we see final success,” Blinken said.
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OSCE calls for release of mission members in eastern Ukraine
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By Meryl Kornfield3:59 a.m.
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The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has demanded the release of four monitoring staffers detained in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.
“The detention of SMM [special monitoring mission] national mission members in Donetsk and Luhansk is unacceptable, and we call for their immediate release,” OSCE Chairman-in-Office and Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said in a news release dated Sunday. “They were taken for engaging in administrative activities that fall within their official functions as OSCE staff. They have been held without charge for a period of time now and the OSCE and their families have not been sufficiently informed of the situation.”
The Vienna-based body was “extremely concerned” that the OSCE mission members “have been deprived of their liberty in Donetsk and Luhansk,” the organization tweeted Saturday. It said it was working to get its workers released.
The mission is made up of unarmed civilians who have documented the security crisis on the ground in Ukraine for the OSCE.
Deirdre Brown, Britain’s deputy ambassador to the organization, addressed the 57-member body Friday, calling for the release of the members.
“Now we have received alarming reports that Russia’s proxies in Donbas are threatening mission staff, equipment and premises and that Russian forces have taken SMM staff members captive,” she said, according to a U.K. government transcript. “We condemn these threats to this mission and its dedicated personnel in the strongest possible terms.”
Key update
U.S. to resume diplomatic operations in Ukraine, increase aid
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By Missy Ryan3:31 a.m.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday in Poland, near the border with Ukraine.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday in Poland, near the border with Ukraine. (Alex Brandon/AFP/Getty Images)
IN POLAND, NEAR THE BORDER WITH UKRAINE — On the heels of a visit by top officials to Ukraine’s capital, the United States said Monday it will resume diplomatic operations in Ukraine this week for the first time since the Russian invasion in February.
The United States will operate out of Lviv, in western Ukraine — where Ukrainians and foreigners have sought shelter from the violence raging elsewhere in the country — a first step to reopening the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, officials said. This week, the United States is also set to announce the nomination of a new ambassador to Ukraine, a position that has remained unfilled since Marie Yovanovitch was ousted in 2019 during the Trump administration.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a brief visit to Kyiv on Sunday.
Blinken said “in terms of the embassy, we will have American diplomats back in Ukraine starting next week. They’ll then start the process of looking at how we actually reopen the embassy itself in Kyiv.” He said that process could last “a couple of weeks.”
“We’re doing it deliberately, we’re doing it carefully, we’re doing it with the security of our personnel foremost in mind — but we’re doing it,” he said.
Blinken and Austin also told Zelensky that the United States would provide $713 million in foreign military financing to Ukraine and more than a dozen other nations. The funding will allow those countries to purchase weapons to boost their stocks or replenish arms that were provided to Ukraine.
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Russia planning staged referendum in Kherson, British officials say
An area in Ukraine's Kherson region where Russian forces had positions until three weeks ago.
An area in Ukraine's Kherson region where Russian forces had positions until three weeks ago. (Nicole Tung for The Washington Post)
Britain’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that Russia is planning a staged referendum in the Ukrainian city of Kherson to justify “its occupation” — the same tactic it used in 2014 to annex Crimea.
“The city is key to Russia’s objective of establishing a land bridge to Crimea and dominating southern Ukraine,” the ministry tweeted in an intelligence update.
The Black Sea port city of Kherson was the first major Ukrainian city to be occupied by Russian forces in early March. For about two months, the area has seen heavy fighting as Ukrainian forces attempt to reclaim the territory.
Kherson would provide Russia a land link from its military bases in Crimea and enable Russian access there to the freshwater supply that Ukraine had cut off after the annexation. Control of Kherson could also give Russia a greater grip along the Black Sea.
To legitimize its occupation of the key city, the British Defense Ministry said, Moscow appears to be planning a referendum that would purport to show voters’ desire to break away from Ukraine. According to Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, the vote could be held from May 1 to May 10. She wrote on Facebook that local printing houses have begun preparing ballots, according to witness accounts.
Russia has not abandoned its “intentions to create a so-called ‘People’s Republic of Kherson,’ ” Denisova wrote on April 16. “In the region they are going to use the scheme of pseudo-referendums held by the occupiers in 2014.”
That’s when Moscow held a referendum in Crimea, where election officials said 96.77 percent voted to join Russia. The process has long been criticized as illegitimate, with several Western countries including the United States rejecting its results.
Russian elections have been “beset by allegations of vote rigging and have seen high-profile opposition blocked from running,” Britain’s Defense Ministry wrote.
New video said to show women and children stuck at Mariupol steel plant
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By Hannah Knowles2:51 a.m.
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Ukrainian fighters at a Mariupol steel plant released a video Sunday that they said shows civilians hiding underground at the factory.
The footage shows a uniformed soldier in a dimly lit room, speaking with a small group that includes children. The soldier says it is Easter, a reference to the Orthodox holiday. Ukrainian leaders have said hundreds of civilians are holed up at the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, where outnumbered soldiers have refused repeated Russian demands to surrender.
Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, the far-right nationalist militants who shared the video, posted similar footage Saturday of women and children apparently living in cramped quarters. The Washington Post has not been able to independently verify the time and location of the videos.
The video released Sunday shows clothes strung up indoors and closely packed beds. Under one blanket: a child with a pacifier, his legs seemingly wrapped in blue plastic.
“There are no diapers,” someone explains, “and this child suffers because of it. He’s all red.”
People describe mold, wet ceilings and children who “can’t sleep” and are “shaking” because of the war.
A soldier sarcastically asks people what Russian is “saving us from.”
“They have freed us from our lives,” an apparent civilian says. “From our jobs. I don’t have a job. They destroyed my hospital. They destroyed my school. They destroyed my home.”
Russian forces bombed Mariupol for weeks before claiming it. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared victory in the strategic port city last week despite the resistance at the steel plant.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, denied Sunday that Russians have control of the city, noting the holdouts.
“Mariupol remains the most tragic and tense point on the map of Ukraine,” he said.
A video released Sunday shows masks and personal belongings. The Azov Regiment said the video depicts civilians stuck in a Mariupol steel plant.
A video released Sunday shows masks and personal belongings. The Azov Regiment said the video depicts civilians stuck in a Mariupol steel plant. (Azov Regiment/Reuters)
Kyiv is loosening up, with caution
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By Theodoric Meyer2:22 a.m.
A family walks through a barricade at a nearly deserted Maidan in Kyiv on April 24. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Life in Kyiv is slowly becoming more normal, the head of the city’s military administration wrote in a Sunday message to the capital’s beleaguered population, but the threat of Russian strikes remains.
Residents are coming back. Trams, buses and subways are running. Some of the roadblocks erected to slow an assault on the city are being taken down.
Businesses have reopened, and joggers have returned to the streets in recent weeks as Russian forces have withdrawn from the region to focus on eastern Ukraine. When a Kyiv theater staged the first play since the Russian invasion, shows sold out.
But Ukraine is still at war, and Gen. Mykola Zhyrnov’s message made clear that much hasn’t returned to normal.
The threat of air and rocket strikes continues, he warned, and the city is preparing its defenses for potential Russian attacks. Zhyrnov reminded residents to stay away from the forest parks on the city’s edges because they could contain “explosive objects.”
The toll of Ukraine war, two months in
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By Sammy Westfall1:53 a.m.
The bridge previously linking Kyiv with Irpin is seen on Sunday, April 24, 2022 in Bucha, Ukraine. The bridge was intentionally destroyed by Ukrainian forces to prevent a Russian advance into the capital. (Nicole Tung/FTWP)
Sunday marked two months since Russia invaded Ukraine. At this stage, the war is intensifying in Ukraine’s south and east, and fighting continues in cities across the country. The war’s full toll remains unknown — with precise numbers difficult to pin down — but the recorded numbers of deaths and displacements are mounting.
Here is a snapshot of some of those numbers:
Civilians killed: 2,345 recorded deaths, including 177 children, per the United Nations Human Rights Office, which added that it believes that the actual figures are “considerably higher.” Ukrainian officials estimate that 20,000 civilians have died in the city of Mariupol alone.
Civilians injured: 2,919 injured, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office, with the same caveat.
Refugees: 5,186,744, per the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Internal displacements: More than 7.7 million people, per the International Organization for Migration.
Troop casualties: NATO estimates that Russia lost 7,000 to 15,000 troops in the war’s first six weeks. Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the office of Ukraine’s president, told BBC Ukraine that Ukraine has suffered “considerable” losses but would not reveal the numbers until the war ended.
Health-care infrastructure damage: More than 100 attacks on Ukraine’s health-care infrastructure — including facilities, transport, personnel, patients, supplies and warehouses — were verified by the World Health Organization as of April 7.
In Mariupol, echoes of history, utter devastation and a last stand
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By Anthony Faiola and Michael Birnbaum1:22 a.m.
A man walks near damaged buildings in Mariupol, Ukraine, on April 22. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
On a proud June morning in 2014, Ukrainian forces restored their flag over Mariupol’s city hall to rousing choruses of the national anthem. For weeks, they had engaged pro-Russian separatists in a fight for control of a port city with immense strategic importance. The loss of Mariupol, an industrial center on the Sea of Azov, would have risked losing control of a swath of eastern and southern Ukraine — a prize that Russian President Vladimir Putin desperately sought.
Now, after nearly a decade on the front lines of what had been a low-grade war, should Mariupol come under Russian control, it would be a major development in Moscow’s full-scale invasion. In a war marked by Russia’s underperformance, by its inability to take Kyiv and its failed attempt to decapitate the Ukrainian leadership, control of the devastated metropolis amounts to a significant and horrific Kremlin victory.
The fight is not over. Civilians and Ukrainian fighters — including combatants from the Azov Regiment, the same nationalist unit that helped wrest back the city in 2014 — remain hunkered down in a dramatic last stand at the sprawling Azovstal Iron and Steel Works.
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Key update
Latest on key battlegrounds: Attacks continue over Easter holiday, Ukraine says
Donbas: Ukraine continued to report Russian attacks and movement in this eastern area, where pro-Russian separatists already controlled some territory. Officials also said shelling has cut off water access for some residents.
Five people were killed in the Donetsk region on Sunday, including children ages 5 and 14, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the military administration there. Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said Russian forces that had massed in the eastern city of Izyum are heading south to Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, two cities in Donetsk.
In the Luhansk region, Arestovych said Russian efforts to “storm” the areas of Severodonetsk and other cities “have been unsuccessful.” But the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Russian forces made small gains Sunday near Severodonetsk, “seizing several small towns.” Luhansk regional Gov. Serhiy Haidai said Sunday that eight people were killed in recent shelling.
Kremenchuk: A slew of missiles struck infrastructure in Kremenchuk, a central Ukrainian city on the Dnipro River, the government said Sunday. The head of the region’s military administration said officials were trying to gather information on victims, according to a government summary of the news.
Mariupol: Efforts to evacuate civilians from the southern port city failed again Sunday, according to Ukraine’s deputy prime minister. Russian forces have taken control of most of the city, once home to more than 400,000 people, but a small Ukrainian group is making a last stand at a steel plant. A deputy commander at the plant said Moscow’s forces continued to bomb the area Sunday.
Pavlograd area: A man died and eight buildings were destroyed in a Russian missile strike on the eastern area of Pavlograd, Ukrainian officials said Sunday. The strike hit railway infrastructure, they said. Russia’s Defense Ministry on Sunday announced “missiles near Pavlograd” but said they hit a Ukrainian manufacturing site for gunpowder and explosives.
Zelensky’s French tweet called Macron “un vrai ami de l’Ukraine” — a true friend of Ukraine.
Macron, a centrist in French politics, has been an emissary to Zelensky and Putin. He met with Putin in February, weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, and he has spoken to Putin by phone during the war.
Philippe Étienne, the French ambassador to the United States, told The Washington Post this month that Macron and Zelensky are close. Macron has passed messages to Putin on Zelensky’s behalf, he said, “which couldn’t be passed directly” because Putin refuses to meet with Zelensky.
Le Pen has condemned the Russian invasion but pledged during the campaign to pursue “a strategic rapprochement between NATO and Russia” once the war is over.
LATEST UPDATES
Call for NATO to patrol Black Sea shipping lanes
6:39 a.m.
Photos: U.S. officials visit Kyiv, meet with Zelensky
6:08 a.m.
Industrial city of Kremenchuk hit by 9 missiles, official says
5:51 a.m.
Five train stations in Ukraine come under fire, rail official says
5:46 a.m.
D.C.-area Ukrainians celebrate Orthodox Easter amid war and worry
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Luhansk region blacked out after substation fails
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Key update
U.S. aims for a Russia ‘weakened’ by war in Ukraine, Austin says
4:56 a.m.
Russian forces may strike toward central city, Ukrainian official says
4:41 a.m.
Blinken: ‘Russia is failing’ in its war aims, and ‘Ukraine is succeeding’
4:21 a.m.
OSCE calls for release of mission members in eastern Ukraine
3:59 a.m.
Key update
U.S. to resume diplomatic operations in Ukraine, increase aid
3:31 a.m.
Russia planning staged referendum in Kherson, British officials say
3:14 a.m.
New video said to show women and children stuck at Mariupol steel plant
2:51 a.m.
Kyiv is loosening up, with caution
2:22 a.m.
The toll of Ukraine war, two months in
1:53 a.m.
Key updates
U.S. aims for a Russia ‘weakened’ by war in Ukraine, Austin says
U.S. to resume diplomatic operations in Ukraine, increase aid
Latest on key battlegrounds: Attacks continue over Easter holiday, Ukraine says
War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The latest: The U.S. said Monday it will resume diplomatic operations in Ukraine this week for the first time since the Russian invasion in February. Diplomats will return to the western city of Lviv, a first step to reopening the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine’s capital, officials said.
The fight: Russian forces continue to mount sporadic attacks on civilian targets in a number of Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian prosecutors have been taking detailed testimony from victims to investigate Russian war crimes.
The weapons: Ukraine is making use of weapons such as Javelin antitank missiles and Switchblade “kamikaze” drones, provided by the United States and other allies. Russia has used an array of weapons against Ukraine, some of which have drawn the attention and concern of analysts.
In Russia: Putin has locked down the flow of information within Russia, where the war isn’t even being called a war.
Photos: Post photographers have been on the ground from the very beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work.
How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can help support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating.
Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video.
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