Moscow 'wants to capture other countries' too, Zelenskiy says
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is only the beginning and comments by a senior Russian commander on Friday indicate Moscow will attack other countries too, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned in his latest nightly address.
This only confirms what I have said many times: the Russian invasion of Ukraine was intended only as a beginning, then they want to capture other countries
Rustam Minnekayev, acting commander of the central military district, said on Friday that Russia’s new goal was to gain control of southern Ukraine, giving it access to Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova.
In Moldova, Zelenskiy noted, Russia has claimed that the rights of Russian speakers have been violated.
Although, to be honest, the territory in which Russia should take care of the rights of Russian-speakers is Russia itself. Where there is no freedom of speech, no freedom of choice. Where there is simply no right to dissent. Where poverty thrives and where human life is worthless. To the extent that they come to us, go to war to steal at least something that resembles a normal life.
You know they used to talk about their biggest dream: to see Paris and die. And their behavior is now just shocking. Because their dream now is to steal the toilet and die.
I am grateful to our British friends for the important symbolic decision announced today to return the embassy to Kyiv. The United Kingdom became the twenty-first country to return a diplomatic mission to our capital. And this shows that we are not the only ones who believe in the victory of life over death,” he said in his latest video address to the nation.
Russia is continuing its bombing of Mariupol, the southern port city where the last remaining Ukrainian defenders are holed up in the Azovstal steel plant along with hundreds of civilians, the Ukrainian general staff has said in its latest update.
Russian forces “continue to block our units in the area of the Azovstal plant and to launch air strikes around the city,” it said.
It also said a unit of engineers had arrived in order to work on the port’s infrastructure.
Eight enemy attacks had been defeated in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and nine tanks, a fuel tanker and other military equipment had been destroyed.
“Heavy fighting” continues to take place in Mariupol, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update, despite Russia’s “stated conquest” of the southern port city.
The fighting was “frustrating Russian attempts to capture the city thus further slowing their desired progress in the Donbas,” it said.
“Despite increased activity, Russian forces have made no major gains in the last 24 hours as Ukrainian counter-attacks continue to hinder their efforts,” it added.
“Russian air and maritime forces have not established control in either domain owing to the effectiveness of Ukraine’s air and sea defence reducing their ability to make notable progress.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 23 April 2022
A western embargo on Russian oil and gas would deal “a very serious blow” to Russian president Vladimir Putin, former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now in exile in London, has said in an interview with the BBC’s Hardtalk programme.
I think if Putin has to redirect oil and gas exports from the European to the Asian markets, he will lose over half of his revenue,” said Khodorkovsky, who was once Russia’s richest man as owner of the country’s largest oil company, Yukos.
“It is half the revenue of the federal budget. Would he be able to continue the war and for how long would he be able to continue the war in those circumstances? It is difficult for me to say. After all, I am not a military expert. But I think it would be a very serious blow.”
Former Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters
When asked whether western sanctions of Russian oligarchs would make any difference he said,
It is important to understand that right now the correct steps are being made but they are based on incorrect assumptions ... oligarchs are people who have the power to play a role in the political decision-making process. These people are not oligarchs in that sense. I was never one. They are Putin’s agents and he uses them to influence, or at least try to influence, the western political system.
If asked whether Putin is a war criminal, none of them would be prepared to give a straight answer, even though all of them understand that it is true. What does this mean? It means Putin has a tight grip on them and they will carry out any of his orders. And from this point of view, blocking their bank accounts, limiting their opportunities to influence western politics and the western economic system, is crucial.
Asked if he had any sense of responsibility or regret for helping Putin take power in the 1990s, he said “of course”.
I started regretting it in 2002, 2003 when I told Putin in the Kremlin that his system was built on corruption and was ruining our country.
Canada has delivered a “number of M777 howitzers and associated ammunition” to Ukraine in conjunction with the US, defence minister Anita Anand has said.
“We have also provided Ukraine with additional Carl Gustaf ammunition, and we will provide armoured vehicles and other support,” she said in a tweet.
Canada stands with Ukraine. We have delivered a number of M777 howitzers and associated ammunition to Ukrainian Forces in conjunction with the USA.
We have also provided Ukraine with additional Carl Gustaf ammunition, and we will provide armoured vehicles and other support. pic.twitter.com/sECMiyos4B
In a statement, Canada’s Ministry of Defence said it was “also in the process of finalizing contracts for a number of commercial pattern armoured vehicles, which will be sent to Ukraine as soon as possible, and a service contract for the maintenance and repair of specialized drone cameras that Canada has already supplied to Ukraine.”
Broadcaster CBC reported that the howitzers – described by the Ministry of Defence as “lighter and smaller, yet more powerful than any gun of its kind” and capable of accurately hitting targets 30km away – numbered four and were from the 37 that Canada purchased during the Afghan war.
A few images of the war from Friday, when Russia confirmed its intention to seize control of southern Ukraine and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that other countries could be next on Moscow’s list:
People carry bags from a damaged apartment block in Horenka village, near Kyiv. Photograph: Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA
Cemetery workers dig graves and bury civilians who were killed during the Russian attacks in Bucha, Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
The leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church marks Good Friday with a passion liturgy about the death of Christ Jesus in St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv. Photograph: Scott Peterson/Getty Images
People walk near a destroyed tank and damaged buildings in Mariupol. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
A Ukrainian flag flies at the destroyed bridge over the Irpin river, in Irpin 20 kilometres north-west of Kyiv. The bridge was blown up by Ukrainian forces to block - or at least slow - Russian forces reaching the capital. Photograph: Ken Cedeno/UPI/REX/Shutterstock
Russia is seeking to “starve out the remaining defenders and civilians in Mariupol’s Azovstal Steel Plant and are unlikely to allow trapped civilians to leave,” the Institute for the Study of War has written in its latest analysis of the conflict.
Shelling of the facility, where hundreds of civilians are thought to be holed up with the city’s last remaining Ukrainian fighters, has continued, it cited Ukrainian authorities as saying, adding that Russia had refused requests to establish humanitarian corridors allowing civilians to leave.
Russian and DNR [Donetsk People’s Republic] forces continued to consolidate their control of key buildings in Mariupol and are likely setting conditions to set up an occupation government. Several videos circulated on social media of unspecified Russian forces departing Mariupol, but ISW cannot confirm at this time which Russian forces have departed the city or their likely destination.
Referring to comments by a senior Russian commander on Friday that establishing control of souther Ukraine would give it access to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, the US-based think tank said it did not “read this as a statement of intent to conduct a major offensive operation toward Moldova”
An offensive toward Moldova would likely have been phrased around securing a “land corridor” [сухопутный коридор] to Moldova, much like the Russian land corridor to Crimea. Even if Russian forces did seek to resume major offensive operations toward Mykolaiv and on to Odesa, they are highly unlikely to have the capability to do so.
Rustam Minnekayev, acting commander of the central military district, had said that “Russian control of southern Ukraine provides Russia a future capability to conduct an offensive toward Transnistria, rather than announcing an imminent Russian offensive toward Moldova,” it noted.
Other key takeaways from the day were:
Ongoing purges of Russian general officers for failures in Ukraine will likely further degrade Russian command and control.
Russian forces conducted localized attacks and reconnoitered Ukrainian positions south of Izyum and did not make any advances.
Russian forces secured minor gains in continuing daily attacks on the line of contact in eastern Ukraine.
The Kremlin is setting conditions to create proxy republics in Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts to cement Russian control over these regions and conscript Ukrainian manpower.
It took the Russian military over a week to acknowledge that one serviceman died and two dozen others were missing after one of its flagship cruisers sank in the Black Sea, reportedly the result of a Ukrainian missiles strike.
The acknowledgment happened after families started searching desperately for their sons who, they said, served on the ship and did not come home, and relatives are posing sharp questions about Russia’s initial statement that the entire crew was evacuated.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday in a terse announcement that one crew member died and 27 were left missing after a fire damaged the flagship Moskva cruiser last week, while 396 others were evacuated. The ministry did not offer any explanation for its earlier claims that the full crew got off the vessel before it sank.
The Moskva after it was hit by Ukrainian missiles last week. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock
The loss of the Moskva, one of three missile cruisers of its kind in Russia’s fleet, was shrouded in mystery from the moment it was first reported early on April 14. Ukraine said it hit the ship with missiles. The Russian Defense Ministry would not acknowledge an attack, saying only that a fire broke out on the vessel after ammunition detonated, causing serious damage.
Moscow even insisted that the ship remained afloat and was being towed to a port, only to admit hours later that it sank after all — in a storm. No images of the ship, or of the supposed rescue operation, were made available.
Only several days later, the Russian military released a short and mostly silent video showing rows of sailors, supposedly from the Moskva, reporting to their command in the Crimean city of Sevastopol. The footage offered little clarity on how many sailors were actually evacuated to safety.
Soon came the questions. An emotional social media post by Dmitry Shkrebets alleging that his son, a conscript who served as a cook on Moskva, was missing, quickly went viral.
The military “said the entire crew was evacuated. It’s a lie! A blatant and cynical lie!” Shkrebets, a resident of Crimea, wrote on VK, a popular Russian social media platform, on April 17, three days after the ship went down.
“My son, a conscript, as the very commanders of the Moskva cruiser told me, is not listed among the wounded and the dead and is added to the list of those missing ... Guys, missing in the open sea?!”
Similar posts quickly followed from other parts of Russia. The Associated Press found social media posts looking for at least 13 other young men who reportedly served on the Moskva whose families could not find them.
One woman spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, as she feared for her son’s safety. She said her son was a conscript and had been aboard the Moskva for several months before telling her in early February that the ship was about to depart for drills. She lost touch with him for several weeks after that.
A still image taken from a handout video made available by the Russian Defence Ministry showing the crew of the Moskva days after it was hit by Ukrainian missiles. Photograph: Russian Defence Ministry Press Service/EPA
The news about Russia invading Ukraine worried her, she said, and she started reading the news online and on social media every day. The last time they spoke on the phone was in mid-March. He was on the ship but did not say where it was.
She didn’t start looking for him until a day after she learned about trouble aboard the Moskva, because official statements from the Defense Ministry said the crew was evacuated. But no one called or messaged her about her son’s whereabouts, and she started to get agitated.
Calls to various military officials and hotlines got her nowhere at first, but she persisted. A call she made on the way to a grocery store brought bleak news — that her son was listed as missing and that there was little chance he survived in the cold water.
“I said ‘But you said you rescued everyone,’ and he said ‘I only have the lists’. I screamed ‘What are you doing?!’” she told the AP. “I got hysterical, right at the bus stop (where I was standing), I felt like the ground was giving way under my feet. I started shaking.”
The Kremlin statements about the ship’s loss and the crew’s fate follow a historical pattern in which Russia has often met bad news with silence, denials or undercounts about casualties. Previous examples include the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the sinking of the nuclear-powered submarine Kursk in the Barents Sea in 2000 and the 1994-1996 Chechen war.
The families’ accounts could not be independently verified. But they went largely uncontested by Russian authorities.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment and redirected the question to the Defense Ministry when asked by the AP during one of his daily conference calls with reporters about families challenging the official statements about sailors being evacuated.
The Defense Ministry did not comment on the outcry either — until Friday, when it finally revealed that 27 crew members were missing and one was confirmed dead. The ministry still did not acknowledge an attack on the ship, however.
Political analyst Abbas Gallyamov says the sinking of the Moskva is a major political blow for president Vladimir Putin, not so much because of the outcry from families, but because it hurts Putin’s image of military might.
“This trait, might, is under attack now because we’re now talking about the devastation of the fleet,” Gallyamov said. But the families’ woes underscores “that one shouldn’t trust the Russian authorities.”
In the meantime, some families with missing sons plan to continue seeking the truth.
“Now we will turn to figuring out for how long one can go missing’ in the open sea,” Shkrebets posted Friday.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres will travel to Ukraine on Thursday, where he will meet president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, his office has confirmed.
He will also meet with staff of UN agencies to discuss the “scaling up of humanitarian assistance to the people of Ukraine”.
The visit will take place two days after Guterres travels to Moscow to meet president Vladimir Putin.
Rustam Minnekayev, the deputy commander of Russia’s central military district, was quoted by Russian state news agencies as saying full control over southern Ukraine would give it access to Transnistria, a breakaway Russian-occupied part of Moldova in the west.
Moldova’s foreign ministry said it had summoned Moscow’s ambassador on Friday to express “deep concern” about the general’s comments. Moldova was neutral, it said. Moldova last month formally applied to join the European Union, charting a pro-western course hastened by Russia’s invasion.
Fears continue to grow for hundreds of civilians holed up in the Azovstal steel factory in the besieged port city of Mariupol, with the last remaining, outgunned contingent of Ukrainian fighters. Russia’s defence ministry said it was ready to allow civilians to leave the steelworks if Ukrainian forces surrendered. But according to Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, Russian forces are continuing to drop bombs on the plant.
Another mass grave has been found outside of Mariupol, the Associated Press has reported, citing the city council and an adviser to the mayor. The city council posted a satellite photo provided by Planet Labs showing what it said was a mass grave 45 metres by 25 metres that could hold the bodies of at least 1,000 Mariupol residents outside the village of Vynohradne.
Ukraine deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said that “there is a possibility” a humanitarian corridor could be opened up out of Mariupol on Saturday. She was speaking in an online address to the people waiting to be evacuated.
The stated intent of Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, to “introduce ‘new methods of warfare’ is atacit admission that Russian progress is not going as intended”, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update. The MoD said it would take Russia some time to change tactics and improve operations and therefore in the interim there is “likely to be continued reliance on bombardment as a means of trying to suppress Ukrainian opposition”.
The United Nations chief, António Guterres, will meet Putin in Moscow next week, seeking an end to the bloodshed. Guterres could also visit Zelenskiy in Kyiv, the UN announced. Talks between Russia and Ukraine had stalled again, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Friday.
The US military expects more than 20 countries to attend Ukraine-focused defence talks it will host in Germany next week that will focus in part on Kyiv’s long-term defence needs, the Pentagon said on Friday.
Western allies are preparing to offer Ukraine a series of “security guarantees” that should make the country “impregnable” to a future Russian invasion, the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, was reported saying by the Press Association.
Russia’s defence ministry has reported that one sailor died and 27 more remain missing after one of its premier warships, the missile cruiser Moskva, sank last week in the Black Sea south of the threatened Ukrainian port of Odesa.
The UN human rights office said it has seen growing evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, describing the war as a “horror story of violations against civilians”. The UN human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, said “almost every resident” of the town of Bucha had a story about the death of a relative, a neighbour or even a stranger.
One person was killed and two were injured on Friday when a transport plane in southern Ukraine descended too low in fog and hit high-voltage power lines, local authorities have said according to Reuters.
The accident occurred in the Zaporizhzhia region, the authorities said in a Facebook post. The twin-propellor Antonov An-26 had been on a technical flight from Zaporizhzhia to Uzhhorod, some 970 km (600 miles) away, they said.
Another mass grave has been found outside of Mariupol, the Associated Press has reported, citing the city council and an adviser to the mayor.
The city council posted a satellite photo provided by Planet Labs showing what it said was a mass grave 45 metres by 25 metres that could hold the bodies of at least 1,000 Mariupol residents.
It said the new reported mass grave is outside the village of Vynohradne, which is east of Mariupol.
The Guardian was unable to verify the report however Maxar Technologies, a US satellite imagery company, has also released images of the site.
Earlier this week, satellite photos from Maxar Technologies revealed what appeared to be rows of more than 200 freshly dug mass graves in the town of Manhush, located to the west of Mariupol.
Moldova has expressed “deep concern” and summoned the Russian ambassador following comments by a Russian military commander who said Moscow’s new aim was to seize control of southern Ukraine, which would also give it access to Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova.
These statements are unfounded and contradict the position of the Russian Federation supporting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova, within its internationally recognized borders,” Moldova’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
In a meeting with Russian ambassador Oleg Vasnetov, the ministry “reiterated that the Republic of Moldova, in line with its Constitution, is a neutral state and this principle must be respected by all international actors, including the Russian Federation,” it continued.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has called for the release of prominent Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was detained outside his home in Moscow on 11 April, hours after CNN aired an interview in which he criticised Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
The Kremlin’s preposterous charges against Vladimir Kara-Murza – ‘disseminating false information’ about the brutal war in Ukraine – is yet another cynical attempt to silence those who speak the truth. Mr. Kara-Murza should be released immediately,” Blinken tweeted.
Kara-Murza was jailed for 15 days for disobeying a police officer, the Associated Press reported.
Russia adopted a law criminalising the spreading of false information about its military shortly after its troops rolled into Ukraine in late February, in an attempt to control the narrative around the invasion.
Vladimir Kara-Murza lays flowers last year near the place where Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down in Moscow in February 2015. Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
The offence is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Human rights advocates have so far counted 32 cases under the new law.
Kara-Murza has twice been hospitalized with poisoning symptoms, in 2015 and 2017. He is a a journalist and associate of late Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Moscow 'wants to capture other countries' too, Zelenskiy says
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is only the beginning and comments by a senior Russian commander on Friday indicate Moscow will attack other countries too, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned in his latest nightly address.
This only confirms what I have said many times: the Russian invasion of Ukraine was intended only as a beginning, then they want to capture other countries
Rustam Minnekayev, acting commander of the central military district, said on Friday that Russia’s new goal was to gain control of southern Ukraine, giving it access to Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova.
In Moldova, Zelenskiy noted, Russia has claimed that the rights of Russian speakers have been violated.
Although, to be honest, the territory in which Russia should take care of the rights of Russian-speakers is Russia itself. Where there is no freedom of speech, no freedom of choice. Where there is simply no right to dissent. Where poverty thrives and where human life is worthless. To the extent that they come to us, go to war to steal at least something that resembles a normal life.
You know they used to talk about their biggest dream: to see Paris and die. And their behavior is now just shocking. Because their dream now is to steal the toilet and die.
I am grateful to our British friends for the important symbolic decision announced today to return the embassy to Kyiv. The United Kingdom became the twenty-first country to return a diplomatic mission to our capital. And this shows that we are not the only ones who believe in the victory of life over death,” he said in his latest video address to the nation.
Hello, this is Helen Livingstone here to bring you the latest on the war in Ukraine.
The stated intent of Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu to “introduce ‘new methods of warfare’ is a tacit admission that Russian progress is not going as intended,” the UK’s Ministry of Defence has written in its latest intelligence update.
While it may indicate an understanding that the war is not progressing as planned, it will take some time to translate this into adapted tactics, techniques and procedures, and then implement for improved operational effect particularly in regards to land-based manoeuvre warfare. Therefore, in the interim there is likely to be a continued reliance on bombardment as a means of trying to suppress Ukrainian opposition to Russian forces.
As a result, it is likely that Russian forces will continue to be frustrated by an inability to overcome Ukrainian defences quickly.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 22 April 2022
The US military expects more than 20 countries to attend Ukraine-focused defence talks it will host in Germany next week that will focus in part on Kyiv’s long-term defense needs, the Pentagon said on Friday.
Western allies are preparing to offer Ukraine a series of “security guarantees” which should make the country “impregnable” to a future Russian invasion, Boris Johnson has said, as the Press Association reports.
A Russian military official, Rustam Minnekayev, said Russia plans to take full control of Donbas and southern Ukraine as part of the second phase of its military operation.Russia intends to forge a land corridor between Crimea and Donbas, he said, adding that control of Ukraine’s south will give Russia another gateway to Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria.
Russia’s defence ministry has reported that one sailor died and 27 more remain missing after one of its premier warships, the missile cruiser Moskva, sank last week in the Black Sea south of the threatened Ukrainian port of Odesa.
Ukraine deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that “there is a possibility” a humanitarian corridor could be opened up out of the port of Mariupol on Saturday.
Russiais shifting its elite military units away from the besieged city of Mariupol to eastern Ukraine, where they “pounded away at cities across the region”, according to the Associated Press.
Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, confirmed reports that “several long conversations” had been held with Ukraine today but he gave no details. Separately, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who has previously accused Ukraine of dragging out the peace process, said diplomatic efforts to end the war remained stalled.
The UN human rights office said it has seen growing evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, describing the war as a “horror story of violations against civilians”. The UN human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, said “almost every resident” of the town of Bucha had a story about the death of a relative, a neighbour or even a stranger.
The head of the UN atomic watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said he will visit Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear plant next week. Grossi will head an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission “to deliver vital equipment and conduct radiological and other assessments at the site”, which was held by Russian forces for five weeks, the agency said in a statement.
Maxar Technologies, which collects and publishes satellite images of Ukraine, said it had spotted a second mass cemetery in Mariupol, Reuters is reporting. The company said it appears the cemetery has expanded over the last month and includes long trenches which may become new grave sites.
On Thursday, Maxar said it had spotted the first grave site, with 200 new graves appearing in March and April. The alleged mass grave could contain as many as 9,000 bodies, according to NBC News. The Guardian could not independently confirm the existence of the grave sites.
