War against Ukraine: authorities report shelling of refugee buses

According to Ukraine, seven people were killed in a Russian shelling of refugee buses in eastern Ukraine. Fighting is currently concentrated in Luhansk. But Moscow also threatened to fire rockets on Kyiv.

According to local authorities, seven people were killed when refugee buses were shot at in eastern Ukraine. 27 other people are said to have been injured by the attack by Russian soldiers in the village of Borova in the district of Izyum, the prosecutor’s office of the Kharkiv region said. It is being investigated for murder. The information could not be independently verified.

Russian troops are currently focusing their attacks on the Luhansk region. According to the Ukrainian general staff, there have been attacks by Russia in eight locations in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the past 24 hours, but they have all been repelled.

The Russian military is primarily trying to capture the cities of Popasna and Rubishne in the Luhansk region, the General Staff situation report said. Several Russian tanks and an artillery system could have been destroyed in Ukraine’s counterattacks. The information cannot be independently verified.

Attack on factory in Kyiv

Meanwhile, Russia announced that it would intensify its rocket fire on Kyiv. After a military target on the outskirts of the city had already been attacked with cruise missiles during the night, further attacks on Kyiv would follow, the Moscow Defense Ministry said. The explosions in Kyiv were the strongest since the recent withdrawal of Russian troops from the region around the Ukrainian capital. The Russian Defense Ministry said the night attack hit a factory that builds and repairs missiles. This included anti-ship missiles.

The Moscow Ministry of Defense had previously announced that the recently severely damaged flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the “Moskva”, had sunk. The warship went down in heavy seas while being towed to a port. The ministry previously said a fire caused an explosion of munitions. According to the government in Kyiv, however, the “Moskva” was badly hit by Ukrainian rockets.

The Russian defense ministry justified the attacks on Kyiv with retaliation for alleged Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, several of which the Russian authorities reported on Thursday. Russia previously accused Ukraine of firing at least three rockets at an ammunition depot in the city of Belgorod on March 29. In early April, the government in Kyiv rejected Russian accusations that it was responsible for a major fire at a fuel depot near the city. This would have been the first known Ukrainian attack on targets in Russia since the beginning of the war.

No burials allowed in Mariupol?

According to the city council, residents of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol observed that Russian soldiers were removing buried bodies from their graves in the backyards of apartment buildings. New burials of “people they killed” would not be allowed. A security guard is posted in each courtyard and does not allow residents to lay relatives or friends to rest. “Why the exhumations are being carried out and where the bodies are being taken is unknown,” the city council said in a statement posted to Telegram. The information could not be independently verified.

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko recently told the AP news agency that Russian troops had brought mobile crematoria into the city to burn the bodies of victims of the siege.

Selenskyj appreciates courage of Ukrainians

In the face of Russia’s 50-day war of aggression in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy paid tribute to the courage and perseverance of his country’s armed forces and people in a video speech. People could be proud to have survived 50 days “where the Russians gave us a maximum of five,” Zelensky said. This is based on the decision of millions of Ukrainians “who made the most important decision of their lives on February 24 – to fight”.