Russia-Ukraine War LIVE Updates: Russia’s defence ministry warned Friday it will intensify attacks on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in response to strikes on Russian soil, after accusing Ukraine of targeting Russian border towns.
“The number and scale of missile strikes against targets in Kyiv will increase in response to any terrorist attacks or sabotage committed by the Kyiv nationalist regime on Russian territory,” the ministry said in its daily update.
It added that Russian troops hit a “military” factory outside Kyiv late Thursday using Kalibr sea-based long-range missiles.
Here are the latest updates in the Russian-Ukraine conflict:
– A Finnish cabinet minister said Friday it was “highly likely” that Finland would apply for NATO membership, just hours after Russia warned of unspecified “consequences” should Helsinki and Stockholm join the military alliance.
– More than five million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion, according to UN figures, in Europe’s fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said 4,796,245 million Ukrainians had left the country since February 24. The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) says nearly 215,000 third-country nationals have also escaped to neighbouring countries.
– Ukraine said that seven people were killed and more than two dozen injured in a Russian attack on buses ferrying civilians from the war-torn east of the country. “On April 14, Russian servicemen fired on evacuation buses carrying civilians in the village of Borova in the Izium district. Preliminary data shows seven people died. Another 27 people were injured,” the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said in a statement on social media.
– Russia’s Black Sea flagship sank Thursday after an explosion and fire that Ukraine claimed was a successful missile strike — as the Kremlin accused Kyiv of targeting its citizens in sorties across the border. The guided missile cruiser Moskva had been leading Russia’s naval effort against its neighbor in the seven-week conflict, in which civilian killings have sparked accusations of genocide.
– US President Joe Biden said he is ready to visit Kyiv in the near future.
– Russian officials accuse Ukraine of sending two helicopters across the border to bomb a town in Russia’s southern Bryansk region, after initially reporting seven injured in shelling. Moscow says at least six residential buildings were damaged and that a toddler was among the injured.
– Ukraine says it is reopening humanitarian corridors through nine routes in the east and south, to facilitate the evacuation of civilians from war-scarred regions after a day-long pause that Kyiv attributed to Russian violations.
– Russia’s setbacks could lead President Vladimir Putin to resort to using a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon, CIA director William Burns says.
– “Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons,” Burns says.
– Leaders in the West diverge on whether to label Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “genocide”. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says US President Joe Biden, who has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of genocide, was “right” in his choice of words. But French President Emmanuel Macron, who is campaigning for re-election, said such “verbal escalations” were unhelpful, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz steers clear of using the term.
– The United States unveils a major new package of aid to Ukraine, including equipment such as helicopters, howitzers and armoured personnel carriers. The package includes equipment Washington had previously refused to provide to Kyiv for fear of escalating the conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.
– Germany has officially confiscated the world’s largest superyacht owned by Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, as part of sanctions against Moscow following the outbreak of war in Ukraine, police sources said Thursday. The 156-metre (1,680-feet) long “Dilbar” has an estimated value of $600 million (555 million euros) according to Forbes magazine.
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