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Day 42 of Russia-Ukraine crisis: As it happened

Putin says Ukraine behind ‘crude and cynical’ provocations in Bucha

By Team KT

Here are the latest developments on April 6:

11.50pm: With Ukraine war, Putin has ‘shortened his term’: Navalny ally

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was clearly a miscalculation, and will shorten his time in office, a top ally of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Wednesday.

“Very clearly, Putin has shortened his term,” Leonid Volkov told AFP in an interview.

With his decision to invade Ukraine, “Putin has dramatically decreased the probability of a scenario where he just stays in the Kremlin until he dies ... as he planned.”

11.00pm: Mariupol mayor puts the number of dead at over 5,000

The mayor of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol says over 5,000 civilians have been killed during the monthlong Russian blockade.

Vadym Boichenko said Wednesday that 210 of the dead were children. He said the Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death.

Boichenko said that more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed by the Russian shelling.

9.49pm: Russia’s defence ministry says Ukrainian fuel storage base destroyed by Russian missiles in the Kharkiv region

Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that a Ukrainian fuel storage base was destroyed by Russian missiles in the Kharkiv region, the RIA news agency quoted it as saying.

The Russian forces also destroyed some Ukrainian military equipment and foreign weapons at a railway station in the same region, RIA reported, citing the ministry.

9.06pm: Bridges blown up as Ukraine braces for Donbas assault

A highway through the rolling plains of eastern Ukraine looks set to play an important strategic role in the anticipated Russian offensive in the Donbas.

Connecting the regions of Kharkiv and Donetsk, the two-lane thoroughfare is one of the key routes in the northeast of the country.

The road runs like an arrow to the centre of the Ukrainian-controlled Donbas, caught between pro-Russian statelets of Donetsk to the south and Lugansk to the east, and the advance of Russian forces from the north.

More details here:

8.00pm: British worker at the UK embassy in Berlin charged with Russian spying offences

A British man who worked in the UK embassy in Berlin has been charged with nine offences under the Official Secrets Act related to passing on information useful to Russia, London Police said.

David Ballantyne Smith, aged 57, who was living in Potsdam, Germany and was employed as a security guard at the embassy, was extradited to Britain from Germany on Wednesday following his arrest by German police in August 2021, the police said.

He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on Thursday, the police said.

7.40pm: UK slaps new sanctions on Russian banks, energy

Britain slapped another round of sanctions on Russia Wednesday in response to its invasion of Ukraine, targeting two banks and eliminating all Russian oil and coal imports by the end of the year.

"Our latest wave of measures will bring an end to the UK's imports of Russian energy and sanction yet more individuals and businesses, decimating (Vladimir) Putin's war machine," Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement.

6.58pm: U.S. helping to collect evidence of war crimes in Ukraine

The United States is assisting with international efforts to collect evidence of possible war crimes committed in Ukraine by Russia, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s senior prosecutor met with his French counterpart in Paris this week, Garland said.

6.30pm: Hungary’s Orban speaks to Putin, urges immediate truce

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Wednesday he had urged Vladimir Putin to put in place an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, and invited the leaders of France, Germany and Ukraine to meet the Russian leader in Budapest.

“I suggested to President Putin that he declare an immediate ceasefire,” Orban told a press conference, adding that he had proposed a meeting in Budapest between the Russian leader, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

More details here:

Ukraine crisis: Hungary’s Orban speaks to Putin, urges immediate truce

6.10pm: Putin says Ukraine behind ‘crude and cynical’ provocations in Bucha

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday accused Ukrainian authorities of being behind “crude and cynical provocations” in the city of Bucha as he spoke to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the Kremlin said.

“Vladimir Putin informed (Orban) about the situation regarding talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives and also gave (his) principled assessment of the Kyiv regime’s crude and cynical provocation in the city of Bucha,” the Kremlin said, after Ukrainian officials said hundreds of civilians were found dead when Russian troops withdrew from the town.

More details here:

Ukraine crisis: Putin says Kyiv behind 'crude and cynical' provocations in Bucha

6.01pm: Red Cross convoy reaches Zaporizhzhia with refugees from southeast Ukraine

A Red Cross convoy arrived in the southern Ukrainian town of Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday after failing to reach the besieged port city of Mariupol, an AFP journalist on the scene reported.

Seven buses with around 300 people onboard accompanied by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and at least 40 private cars arrived in the southern town.

Moscow says Bucha accusations meant to derail peace talks, justify more sanctions

4.32pm: Germany must supply arms to Ukraine that can be used, says Scholz

Germany can only supply arms to Ukraine that the country’s army will know how to use, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday.

“We have to supply equipment that can be used,” Scholz told lawmakers in the Bundestag lower house of parliament.

Following Russia’s incursion on Ukraine, Germany said it would supply Strela missiles, among other arms, to Ukraine, staging a historic reversal of its policy of not sending weapons to conflict zones.

These are very old inventories that were used by the NVA (army of former Communist East Germany), which have the advantage that they can be used particularly well in Ukraine because they have experience with this equipment

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

4.30pm: Satellite images show Russian denials on Bucha ‘not tenable’, says Germany

The German government said on Wednesday that satellite images from last month provided strong counterevidence against Russian denials of involvement in civilian deaths in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters that the “evaluation of satellite images” led Berlin to conclude that “Russian declarations” that images of civilian deaths “were posed scenes or that they were not responsible for the murders are in our view not tenable”.

3.45pm: Another 35,000 flee Ukraine in 24 hours, says UN

Nearly 35,000 more Ukrainians fled west in 24 hours to escape the Russian war in their country, the United Nations said Wednesday.

UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said 4,278,789 Ukrainians had fled across the borders since the war began on February 24 — a figure up 34,194 since Tuesday.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration estimates that 7.1 million internally displaced people had fled their homes but were still in Ukraine.

3.16pm: Moscow says talks with Ukraine are continuing

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says negotiations with Ukraine are continuing despite allegations of war crimes against civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

Peskov said Wednesday the talks continued with Ukraine but that the Bucha revelations — which he referred to as a “staging” — had hampered talks and there was “a fairly long road ahead.”

“The working process continues but it is going much more tough than we would like. Of course we would like to see more dynamism from the Ukrainian side, but the process has not been broken off and is continuing,” Peskov said.

2.00pm: Russian strikes kill two in Donetsk region: Ukraine official

Russian strikes Wednesday killed at least two people and wounded five others near a humanitarian distribution point in the east Ukraine region of Donetsk, the regional governor said.

“The humanitarian aid distribution point in Vugledar was targeted by artillery of fascist Russian forces. So far, two people are dead and five are wounded,” Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a statement on social media.

Kyrylenko posted images to his official Telegram account showing what appeared to be the inside of a school building with its windows blown in from the strikes and several desks overturned.

11.45am: EU will put more sanctions on Russia, says Commission head

The European Union will put more sanctions against Russia on top of the latest package announced on Tuesday, likely including measures against imports of Russian oil, the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.

"These sanctions will not be our last sanctions," she told European Parliament in a presentation of the latest sanctions package that includes a ban on buying Russian coal.

"Now we have to look into oil and revenues the Russia gets from fossil fuels," she said.

11.25am: Ukraine to evacuate civilians from trapped cities through 11 humanitarian corridors today

Ukraine will try to evacuate trapped civilians through 11 humanitarian corridors on Wednesday but people trying to leave the besieged city of Mariupol will have to use their own vehicles, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

Reuters file

Efforts to get convoys of buses into the southern port city to evacuate tens of thousands of residents who are trapped there have repeatedly failed since Russian forces encircled Mariupol.

Hungary's foreign ministry summons Ukrainian envoy over 'insults'

Hungary's foreign ministry summoned Ukraine's ambassador on Wednesday over what it called offensive comments from Kyiv regarding Budapest's stance on Russia's attack.

Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, in comments released three days after nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban was re-elected, said Hungary had condemned Russia's attack, acknowledged Ukraine's sovereignty and taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the war.

'This is not our war, so we want to and will stay out of it'

Szijjarto

So it was "time for Ukrainian leaders to stop their insults directed at Hungary and acknowledge the will of the Hungarian people," Szijjarto said in a statement, referring to Sunday's landslide election win.

11.00am: Luhansk region tells civilians to evacuate while they can

Authorities in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk hope to evacuate civilians through five "humanitarian corridors" on Wednesday and urged residents to get out "while it is safe."

Ukraine has said Russian troops that attacked on February 24 are regrouping and preparing for a new offensive in the Donbas area, which includes Luhansk.

"We will take everyone out if the Russians allow us to get to the meeting places (for evacuation). Because, as you can see, they don't always observe ceasefires," the Luhansk region governor, Serhiy Gaidai, wrote on the Telegram messaging app. (Read more here)

10.35am: Russian border guards came under fire in region bordering Ukraine

A Russian regional official said on Wednesday that border guards in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine had come under fire.

"Yesterday, on April 5, they tried to fire mortars at the position of our border guards in the Sudzhansky district," said Roman Starovoit, the governor of the Kursk region. "Russian border guards returned fire... There were no casualties or damage on our side."

Russia last week accused Ukrainian forces of carrying out an air strike against a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine, but a senior Ukrainian official denied responsibility.

10.00am: Man dies after crashing car into Russian embassy in Romania

A driver died ramming his car into the gate of the Russian embassy in Bucharest early on Wednesday, police in the Romanian capital said in a statement.

A video recorded before firefighters arrived showed the front of the car in flames as it remained wedged in the gate.

It was unclear whether the crash was an accident or deliberate.

Twitter

During recent weeks, several Russian embassies elsewhere in Europe have been targeted by protesters angered by the attack on Ukraine.

8.50am: Britain says heavy fighting, Russian air strikes continue in Mariupol

Heavy fighting and Russian air strikes continue in the encircled Ukrainian city of Mariupol, British military intelligence said on Wednesday.

“The humanitarian situation in the city is worsening,” the defence ministry said.

“Most of the 160,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water. Russian forces have prevented humanitarian access, likely to pressure defenders to surrender.”

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

6.45am: US announces extra $100 million in military aid to Ukraine

The United States announced Tuesday it will send $100 million in additional anti-armour weapons to Ukraine.

“I have authorised, pursuant to a delegation from the President earlier today, the immediate drawdown of security assistance valued at up to $100 million to meet Ukraine’s urgent need for additional anti-armour systems,” Blinken said in a statement.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, in a separate statement, said that the extra funding would be used “to meet an urgent Ukrainian need for additional Javelin anti-armour systems.”

6.30am: Intel to suspend business in Russia

US chipmaker Intel Corp said on Tuesday it has suspended business operations in Russia, joining a slew of companies to exit the country following its attack on Ukraine.

The company, which had last month suspended shipments to customers in Russia and Belarus, said it has implemented business continuity measures to minimize disruption to its global operations.

"Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia's war against Ukraine and calling for a swift return to peace," the company said.

International Business Machines Corp too had suspended shipments as Ukraine urged US cloud-computing and software companies to cut off business with Russia.

Servers from IBM, Dell Technologies Inc and Hewlett Packard Enterprise top the market in Russia, where companies and government agencies have relied on technology developed by the West as the basis for their owned-and-operated IT systems.