As Vladimir Putin’s forces concentrate their offensive on eastern Ukraine, NATO and the EU have promised Kyiv more weapons, and Western nations are tightening sanctions against Moscow.
Saturday’s key points:
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he wants a tough global response to Russia after its forces fired a missile at a crowded train station, killing at least 52 people in Kramatorsk.
- Moscow has denied responsibility and suggested Ukraine was behind it.
- Zelenskyy says Russia must be held to account for the Kramatorsk attack, mass killings in Bucha, and other atrocities.
- Britain’s Ministry of Defence says Russian naval vessels have continued firing cruise missile’s into Ukraine’s Donbas region, and continues to hit non-combatants too.
- US officials say the Pentagon has determined that some of the Russian combat units that retreated from the Kyiv area in recent days are so heavily damaged and depleted that their combat utility is in question.
- Visiting Kyiv, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen handed over a questionnaire that could kickstart his country’s membership in the bloc.
- The leader of Poland’s ruling conservative party Jaroslaw Kaczyński has criticised his ally, Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán over his refusal to condemn Vladimir Putin for the invasion of Ukraine.
Ten humanitarian corridors to open on Saturday
Ten humanitarian corridors for civilian evacuations are to open in Ukraine’s east on Saturday, according to Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
The corridors will allow residents to leave a number cities in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
Those in Mariupol, Enerhodar, Tokmak, Berdyansk and Melitopol will be able to evacuate to the city of Zaporizhzhia, while those in Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Popasna, Girske and Rubizhne can evacuate to the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region.
Ukraine is “always ready” to hold talks with Russia
Ukraine is “always ready” to hold talks with Russia, says President Zelenskyy, even after talks were stalled after the discovery of atrocities in liberated Ukrainian cities.
Zelenskyy made the comments on Saturday during a visit by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer to Kyiv and Bucha.
“We are ready to fight and at the same time seek diplomatic ways to stop this war. For the moment, we are considering a parallel dialogue,” he said.
Meanwhile Austria’s leader says he expects more European Union sanctions against Russia but is defending his country’s opposition so far to cutting off deliveries of Russian gas.
At a press conference, Nehammer told journalists that Austria will “continue to ratchet up sanctions inside the European Union until the war stops” and that a package of sanctions imposed this week “won’t be the last one.”
He acknowledged that “as long as people are dying, every sanction is still insufficient.”
Austria, which gets most of its gas from Russia, is one of the countries that have been resisting a halt to deliveries. Questioned about that Saturday, Nehammer said that EU sanctions are becoming increasingly “accurate” but that “sanctions are effective when they hit those they are directed against, and don’t weaken those imposing sanctions against the one who is conducting war.”
Austria is militarily neutral and not a member of NATO.
Odesa curfew announced
Authorities in the Ukrainian city of Odesa have announced a curfew which comes into effect on Saturday evening and lasts through until Monday morning.
It comes after Friday’s strike on Kramatorsk train station, with officials saying that “a threat of missile attack hovers over Odesa” too.
“Due to the possibility of a missile attack on Odessa, based on my order, on the territory of the city and Odesa region, a curfew was introduced from 2100 9th April to 0600 April 11th” says Maksym Marchenko, the Governor of Odesa district.
UN: More than 4.4 million Ukrainian refugees
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees says more than 4.4 million Ukrainians have fled their country since the start of the Russian invasion on 24 February.
On Saturday UNHCR said that it had registered 4,441,663 Ukrainian refugees.
That number is 59,347 more than during the previous tally on Friday.
Some 90% of those who fled Ukraine are women and children, with Ukrainian authorities not allowing men of military age to leave.
According to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), around 210,000 non-Ukrainians have also fled the country, sometimes encountering difficulties in returning to their country of origin.
The UN also estimates the number of internally displaced people at 7.1 million, according to IOM figures released on 5 April.
In total, therefore, more than 11 million people, or more than a quarter of the population, have had to leave their homes either by crossing the border to reach neighboring countries, or by finding refuge elsewhere in Ukraine.
Moscow accuses YouTube of blocking parliament channel
Russian officials on Saturday accused Youtube, owned by US giant Google, of suspending the account of the Russian parliamentary channel, promising retaliation that raised fears of a blockage of the service in Russia.
Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin claimed that the Russian parliament’s lower house Youtube channel, “Duma-TV”, had been blocked, denouncing a Washington measure violating “the rights” of Russians.
“The United States wants to have a monopoly on the dissemination of information,” he said on his Telegram account. “We cannot allow this.”
Journalists in Moscow found that the account in question was no longer accessible on the platform on Saturday morning, with or without a virtual private network (VPN), a tool which makes it possible to avoid blocks.
According to Moscow, the “Duma-TV” account has more than 145,000 subscribers on Youtube. It broadcasts excerpts from parliamentary exchanges, interviews with Russian MPs and live broadcasts.
In recent weeks, in the midst of the conflict in Ukraine, Youtube has already been accused several times by Moscow of having blocked the accounts of Russian media and officials.
Destroyed Bucha concert hall
Renowned Ukrainian conductor Dalia Stasevska has posted a picture of her brother in the remains of the Bucha concert hall, showing a destroyed grand piano.
Ukraine has ‘intercepted evidence of Russian war crimes’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country’s security service has intercepted communications of Russian troops that provide evidence of war crimes.
“There are soldiers talking with their parents about what they stole and who they abducted. There are recordings of prisoners of war who admitted killing people,” Zelenskyy said in an excerpt of an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Friday.
“There are pilots in prison who had maps with civilian targets to bomb. There are also investigations being conducted based on the remains of the dead,” he said in a translation provided by CBS.
Zelenskyy said “everyone who made a decision, who issued an order, who fulfilled an order” is guilty of a war crime. Asked whether he held Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible, he said: “I do believe that he’s one of them.”
Serbia claims NATO ‘endangers lives of passengers’ for shadowing airline
The government of Serbia wants NATO to explain why its jets have allegedly shadowed Serbian passenger planes flying back from Russia.
Serbian officials said that on Wednesday a NATO jet flew close to an Air Serbia flight from Moscow to the Serbian capital, Belgrade, near the Latvian border.
A similar incident was reported by Serbian media on Friday when reportedly a NATO Belgian Air Force fighter jet “escorted” another Air Serbia plane flying from St. Petersburg to Belgrade.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said such actions “endanger civil aviation and lives of passengers.”
Besides Turkish carriers, Air Serbia remains the only European airline to maintain its regular flights to Russia after an international flight ban was imposed.
Serbia has voted in favor of UN resolutions condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine but has refused to join international sanctions against its ally Moscow.