KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces shelled an oil refinery in the Ukrainian city of Lysychansk on Saturday, and a large fire erupted, a regional governor reported.
Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Haidai said it wasn’t the first time the refinery was targeted and accused the Russians of trying to “exhaust” local emergency services. He underlined there was no fuel at the refinery at the time of the attack and “the remains of oil sludge” were burning.
Ukraine’s presidential office reported Saturday that missile strikes and shelling over the past 24 hours occurred in eight regions: Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv in the east, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Kirovohrad in the central Ukraine and Mykolaiv and Kherson in the south. The strikes underlined that the whole country remained under threat despite Russia’s pivot toward mounting a new offensive in the east.
In Kharkiv, nine civilians were killed and more than 50 were wounded on Friday, while in the wider region two were reported dead and three wounded, according to the report.
The southern Mykolaiv region was battered Friday and Saturday. According to the presidential office, airstrikes Friday killed five and wounded 15. The head of regional legislature, Hanna Zamazeyeva, said Saturday that 39 people have been wounded in the past 24 hours.
Zamazeyeva said the targets included several residential blocks “where there are no military facilities.”
The besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol is still holding out, but the situation there is critical.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in televised remarks on Saturday that 700 Ukrainian troops and more than 1,000 civilians -- more than half women -- are currently being held captive by the Russians.
Vereshchuk said Kyiv intends to swap the captive soldiers, since Ukraine holds about the same number of Russian troops but demands to release the civilians “without any conditions.”
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ROME — Italy is barring all Russian ships from its ports starting Sunday, as part of expanded EU sanctions announced earlier this month. Ships already in Italian ports must leave immediately “after completing their commercial activity,″ according to a notice sent to port authorities throughout the country.
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BERLIN — Peace activists took part Germany’s traditional Easter marches on Saturday, calling for an end to the war in Ukraine but also in at least some cases opposing helping Ukraine defend itself with weaponry.
A Berlin event drew 400 people and one in Hannover 500, the dpa news agency reported, citing police. Marches took place in cities including Munich, Cologne, Leipzig, Stuttgart and Duisburg. Banners included “End the war in Ukraine” and “He who sends weapons reaps war.”
The country’s vice chancellor, Greens politician Robert Habeck, warned demonstrators against sending the wrong message, saying “there will only be peace when Putin stops his war of aggression.” He said in an interview with the Funke media group that it was “clear who the aggressor is who and who are defending themselves in an emergency and whom we must support, also with weapons.”
Ukrainian officials say Germany has sent anti-tank and antiaircaft weapon as well as night vision equipment, body armor and machine guns.
The locally organized peace marches date back to the days of the Cold War and focus on issues such as disarmament and abolition of nuclear weapons.
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KYIV, Ukraine -- Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that one person died and several more were wounded in the Saturday morning airstrikes on the Darnytski district of the capital, as Russian forces resumed scattered attacks on the capital in western Ukraine.
“Our air defense forces are doing everything they can to protect us, but the enemy is insidious and ruthless,” Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app.
The attacks, which the Russian Defense Ministry said targeted an armored vehicle plant in the Ukrainian capital, was an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western supporters that the whole country remains under threat despite Russian forces pivot to the east, where a new offensive is feared.
Klitschko urged Ukrainians not to return to Kyiv just yet in televised remarks Saturday, warning that strikes on the capital are likely continue and its suburbs are rigged with explosives. “We’re not ruling out further strikes on the capital,” Klitschko said. “We can’t prohibit, we can only recommend. If you have the opportunity to stay a little bit longer in the cities where it’s safer, do it.”
The mayor of Kyiv added that because of the mines, Kyiv residents are barred from visiting parks and forests in the northeastern areas that border with liberated territories formerly occupied by Russians.
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MOSCOW -- Russia has barred the UK prime minister and a dozen other top British officials from entering the country in response to British sanctions imposed on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced the move that targets Boris Johnson, a number of British ministers and former prime minister Theresa May, on Saturday.
The ministry’s statement cited “unprecedented hostile actions of the British government, expressed, in particular, in the imposition of sanctions against top officials” in Russia.
“The Russophobic course of action of the British authorities, whose main goal is to stir up negative attitude toward our country, curtailing of bilateral ties in almost all areas are detrimental to the well-being and interests of the residents of Britain. Any sanctions attack will inevitably backfire on their initiators and receive a decisive rebuff,” the statement said.
On Friday evening, the ministry announced the expulsion of 18 European Union diplomats from Moscow, in retaliation for the bloc’s declaring 19 diplomats from the Russian mission to the EU and to the European Atomic Energy Community persona non-grata.
The European Union said the expulsions were groundless, and that EU diplomats targeted were working in the framework of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations.
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LVIV, Ukraine — The governor of the Lviv region in western Ukraine reported air strikes in the region on Saturday morning.
Maksym Kozytskyy said on the Telegram messaging app that Russian Su-35 aircraft took off from the Baranovichi airfield in Belarus and carried out missile strikes in Lviv.
Ukraine's air defense system shot down four cruise missiles, Kozytskyy said.
He didn’t offer any details about possible casualties or damage.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in an online posting that Kyiv was struck early Saturday in the Darnytskyi district in the eastern part of the capital, saying there were “explosions.”
He said rescuers and paramedics were on the scene and that victims’ details would be released later.
Klitschko urged residents to heed air raid sirens and warned those who have fled the capital not to return for now for their safety.
Thick smoke rising from the site on the eastern side of Kyiv could be seen from parts of downtown near the Dnipro River.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces late Friday evening hit an airfield in Oleksandriya, a city in Ukraine's Kirovohrad region, with a missile strike, the mayor of the city, Serhiy Kuzmenko, said on Facebook on Saturday. He didn’t say whether the strike resulted in any casualties.
In the eastern Luhansk region, overnight shelling killed one person and wounded three more, according to the region’s Governor Serhiy Haidai. The shelling also damaged gas pipelines in the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.
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WASHINGTON — Ukraine is sending top officials to Washington for next week’s spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where discussion will focus on the Russian invasion and its impact on the global economy.
Coming to the gathering are Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and central bank governor Kyrylo Shevchenko, according to a World Bank official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the visit had not been officially announced.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that existing sanctions on Russia are “painful” but not yet enough to stop the Russian military.
Zelenskyy called for “the democratic world” to ban Russian oil. While U.S. lawmakers and U.S. President Joe Biden have enacted such a ban, Europe relies more heavily on Russian energy supplies, and the U.S. has been working to keep India from stepping up its use of Russian energy.
“In general, the democratic world must accept that Russia’s money for energy resources is in fact money for the destruction of democracy,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to his nation.
He also said: “The sooner the democratic world recognizes that the oil embargo against Russia and the complete blockade of its banking sector are necessary steps towards peace, the sooner the war will end.”
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TIJUANA, Mexico — A Russian man and Ukrainian woman were married in the Mexican border city of Tijuana after they were unable to travel together to the U.S.
Daria Sakhniuk was allowed to enter the U.S. as a Ukrainian refugee but her partner, Semen Bobrovski, was unable to travel there following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They left Ukraine as the war began.
Bobrovski told El Sol de Tijuana that he believed the marriage Thursday would bolster his chances of entering the U.S. with his new wife. The U.S. allows only Russian nationals with family members in the U.S. to enter the country.
“Without it, we won’t be able to cross because, still to the official American government, we are strangers to each other," he said.
KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he discussed the fate of the besieged port city of Mariupol in a meeting Friday with the country’s military leaders and the heads of its intelligence agencies.
“The details cannot be made public now, but we are doing everything we can to save our people,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation.
Elsewhere in southern Ukraine, he said Russian troops who occupy areas around Kherson and Zaporizhzhia were terrorizing civilians and looking for anyone who had served in the army or the government.
“The occupiers think this will make it easier for them to control this territory. But they are very wrong. They are fooling themselves,” Zelenskyy said.
He added: “The occupiers’ problem is not that they are not accepted by some activists, veterans or journalists. Russia’s problem is that it is not accepted — and never will be accepted -– by the entire Ukrainian people. Russia has lost Ukraine forever.”
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ATLANTA — CIA Director William Burns says no one “can take lightly” the threat that Russia could use tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons but he has seen no “practical evidence” suggesting it is imminent.
Speaking to an audience Thursday at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Burns said that “potential desperation” from Russian leaders to portray a victory in Ukraine increases the risk to the use of nuclear weapons.
“None of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low yield nuclear weapons,” Burns said. “We don’t.”
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ROME — The war in Ukraine loomed over the traditional Good Friday procession at the Colosseum in Rome because the Vatican’s choice of a Russian woman as one of the cross-bearers angered Ukrainians.
Participants in the solemn torchlit procession in the ancient arena Friday night took turns carrying a plain, tall and slim cross as part of the commemoration of Jesus’ suffering and death by crucifixion.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican and the archbishop of Kyiv earlier this week denounced the Vatican’s plan to have a Ukrainian woman and a Russian woman carry the cross together during the procession. They objected to projecting what they saw as the idea of reconciliation while Ukraine is ravaged by war unleashed by Russia.
The Vatican didn’t respond to the protests. Pope Francis has denounced the Feb. 24 invasion and attacks on Ukraine as a “sacrilege,″ but has refrained from naming Russia as the aggressor.
Other faithful applauded the decision to pair the two women. They work together in a palliative care section of a Rome hospital and are friends.
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BELGRADE, Serbia — Hundreds of protesters have joined a right-wing gathering in support of Russia, carrying pictures of Vladimir Putin and T-shirts with the letter ‘Z’ that has become a symbol of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The rally Friday in central Belgrade was organized to protest Serbia’s vote last week in the United Nations in support of Russia’s expulsion from the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Serbia remains the only country in Europe that has not imposed sanctions on Russia, but right-wing groups are angry that Belgrade voted against Moscow in the U.N.
Local media say that masked protesters lit flares and smoke bombs outside the offices of the Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic during the protest and placed a Russian flag on the presidency building.
Several similar protests have been held in Serbia since the start of the Russian invasion on Ukraine. Many Serbians remain loyal to Russia, convinced that Moscow was provoked by the West to launch the invasion.
Anti-western sentiments in Serbia stem from a 1999 NATO air war that forced Belgrade to give up control of the Kosovo province. Belgrade has enjoyed Russian support in trying to retain a claim on the territory, which declared Western-backed independence in 2008.
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The governor of the Kharkiv region says seven people, including a seven-month-old child, were killed in shelling of a residential neighborhood in the city.
Oleh Sinehubov said Friday in a Telegram post that 34 other people were wounded.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has been heavily hit by shelling and rocket attacks during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The city’s position about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Russia and 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of the separatist eastern regions of Ukraine gives it significant strategic importance.
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A senior U.S. defense official says the U.S. believes the Russian guided-missile cruiser that sank Thursday in the northern Black Sea had been struck by at least one Ukrainian anti-ship missile, as claimed by the Kyiv government.
Pentagon officials had previously said they could not confirm the Ukrainian claim, but they also did not refute it. The senior U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an intelligence assessment, said the Moskva was hit by at least one, and probably two, Neptune missiles on Wednesday, creating the large fire aboard.
The official offered no further details beyond saying the U.S. believes the Russians suffered some number of casualties aboard the ship.
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LVIV, Ukraine — The bodies of more than 900 civilians were discovered in the Kyiv region following the withdrawal of Russian forces, the regional police chief said in a briefing Friday.
Andriy Nebytov, the head of Kyiv’s regional police force, said the bodies had been abandoned in the streets or given temporary burials. He cited police data indicating that 95% of the casualties had died from sniper fire and gunshot wounds.
“Consequently, we understand that under the (Russian) occupation, people were simply executed in the streets,” Nebytov said. “The number of killed civilians has surpassed 900 — and I emphasize, these are civilians, whose bodies we have discovered and handed over for forensic examination.”
He added that more bodies were being found every day, under the rubble and in mass graves.
“The most victims were found in Bucha, where there are more than 350 corpses,” he said.
According to Nebytov, utilities workers in Bucha had been gathering up and burying bodies in the Kyiv suburb while it remained under Russian control. Nebytov added that Russian troops were “tracking down” people who expressed strong pro-Ukrainian views.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Two civilians died of shrapnel wounds after a rocket was shot down near the southern Ukrainian city of Kakhovka, according to a Facebook post published by Kakhovka’s municipal authorities that same day.
“It was not a peaceful morning in Kakhovka. Five civilian residents with injuries were admitted to the Kakhovka Municipal Hospital. Two killed, three injured (one of them is in critical condition in intensive care, two have moderate injuries),” the Kakhovka Municipal Territorial Community wrote.
The municipal body added that all five were hit by shrapnel after they left their homes to see the remnants of a rocket downed over the nearby town of Tavriisk.
It was not immediately clear which of the warring sides had launched the weapon, and which had shot it down.
The post went on to urge local residents to stay inside and keep away from windows if they hear gunshots or explosions.
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The website of France’s state-owned radio broadcaster, RFI, appeared to become unavailable in Russia on Friday after the country’s media and internet watchdog added one of its pages with critical coverage of the war in Ukraine to its registry of blocked websites.
The communications agency, Roskomnadzor, has been restricting access to news websites this week in line with a ruling by Russia’s Prosecutor General on Tuesday, which mandates the blocking of outlets publishing “information inciting mass disorder, extremist activity or participation in mass (public) events violating the established order, and unreliable information which is of public significance.”
According to the Roskomnadzor registry, the authorities blocked an RFI article citing a story by French magazine Le Figaro which alleged Russian servicemen rape women in Ukraine, but the broadcaster said its entire website ended up being unavailable in Russia.
Earlier on Friday, Roskomnadzor apparently cut access to the Russian-language site of Russia’s top independent English-language news outlet, The Moscow Times, citing the same ruling.
On Wednesday, Russian state media also reported that the agency ordered a Russian streaming platform to remove all podcasts published by the BBC, whose Russian-language website was blocked in March alongside those of U.S. and German news organizations.