Here is where things stand on Monday, April 7:
Contents
Fighting
- Polish and allied aircraft were activated to protect Polish airspace following Russian strikes in western Ukraine, which borders Poland, the Polish Armed Forces Operational Command said.
- One person was killed and several others injured by Russian missile and drone attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities said.
- A Russian ballistic missile partially destroyed a building housing state-owned channels broadcasting in foreign languages, the television channel Freedom said in a statement.
- Ukraine’s military said its forces shot down 13 of 23 missiles and 40 of 109 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack. Some 53 drones were also lost due to electronic warfare measures, the military said.
- The death toll from Russia’s recent missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih rose to 19, including many children, with a further 75 people injured, Ukrainian officials said. The attack also damaged 44 apartments and 23 private houses. Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city’s military administration, declared three days of mourning starting on April 7.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces had carried out a high-precision missile strike on a restaurant in Kryvyi Rih where a meeting between Ukrainian unit commanders and Western instructors was taking place. It said the strike killed 85 military personnel and foreign officers and destroyed 20 vehicles. The Ukrainian General Staff rejected the claims.
- Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defence units “intercepted and destroyed” 11 Ukrainian drones over the country’s Kursk and Belgorod regions, which border Ukraine, as well as the southern Rostov region overnight.
- Russia’s Defence Ministry said Kyiv carried out seven attacks on Moscow’s energy infrastructure facilities between April 5 and 6, despite a moratorium on energy strikes brokered by the United States. According to the ministry, the attacks targeted the Crimean region, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as well as Russia’s Bryansk, Rostov and Voronezh regions.
- The ministry also said that Kremlin forces launched an overnight strike using long-range precision weapons and drones against Ukraine’s central artillery armament base and defence industry enterprises involved in drone production.
- According to the ministry, Moscow also gained control over the village of Basivka in Ukraine’s Sumy region in a rare cross-border advance. Andriy Demchenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service, called the announcement “disinformation”.
Politics and diplomacy
- The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, denounced Russia’s “reckless disregard” for civilians, following Russia’s attack on Kryvyi Rih.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed concern over the lack of international pressure on Russia amid the “increasing” number of “daily Russian strikes on Ukraine”.
- Zelenskyy also said the US had not issued a statement in response to Russia’s refusal of an unconditional truce, which Ukraine has agreed to.
- French President Emmanuel Macron called for “strong action” against Russia if Moscow continues to “refuse peace”. “A ceasefire is needed as soon as possible,” Macron said.
- Kirill Dmitriev, Russia’s international economy envoy, told the country’s Channel One television that Russia and the US could resume contact with each other “next week”.
- Ukraine’s economy minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, told the Associated Press news agency that Kyiv would send a team to Washington, DC, next week for negotiations on a new draft of a deal that would grant the US access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.
