Russia-Ukraine war live updates Mariupol evacuation push resumes; Nancy Pelosi met Zelensky in Kyiv
On Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a surprise trip to Kyiv with a congressional delegation, telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that “our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done.” The meeting with Pelosi, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, was disclosed by Zelensky on Sunday.
The evacuation of civilians from the Mariupol steel plant has been a contentious point as Russia seeks control of the port city, a strategic prize for President Vladimir Putin. For weeks, civilians who sought shelter at the sprawling facility have remained underground with dwindling supplies of food and medicine. A small group of women and children was allowed to leave the plant on Saturday.
Here’s what else to know
Operation underway to evacuate civilians from Mariupol plant, U.N. says
Return to menuThe United Nations confirmed Sunday that an operation to evacuate civilians from a battered steel plant in the besieged port city of Mariupol is underway.
Saviano Abreu, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told The Washington Post on Sunday that efforts to get people out of the industrial complex were “still on track and ongoing.”
A U.N. convoy left the city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles northwest of Mariupol, on Friday night and arrived at the plant Saturday morning to begin the evacuations. The safe-passage operation is being carried out in collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross and in coordination with Ukrainian and Russian officials.
Abreu described the operation as “extremely complex and risky.” He declined to offer more details about the number of civilians successfully evacuated because, he said, it could “jeopardize the operation” and put the safety of both civilians and U.N. workers at risk.
Officials believe that up to 1,000 people have sought refuge at the large Azovstal complex, which has been pummeled for days by Russian strikes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed Sunday that a first group of about 100 people was headed to “Ukrainian-controlled” territory, and said he will meet with the evacuees in Zaporizhzhia on Monday.
“I thank our team! Right now they, together with the representatives of the UN, are working on the evacuation of the rest of the civilians from the territory of the factory,” he wrote on Twitter.
The ICRC also confirmed that the operation is going ahead. In a statement sent Sunday to The Washington Post, the humanitarian organization added that “no more details can be shared until the situation allows.”
Ukrainian envoy says Biden’s proposed aid package would meet needs on ground
Return to menuUkraine’s ambassador to the United States said President Biden’s recent request to Congress for $33 billion in aid for Kyiv comprises everything it needs in defending against Russian forces.
“We need all the assistance we can get in defensive weapons, in military support and financial support, but also in humanitarian support, and I think this request covers all of these areas,” Oksana Markarova said Sunday on ABC News’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.
Her comments came after a weekend visit to Ukraine by top Democratic lawmakers and after Secretary of State Antony Blinken updated his Ukrainian counterpart on the aid package, which the administration proposed to Congress last week.
Markarova said the visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues was a sign of strong support for Ukraine. “We feel and we know that Americans are our brothers and sisters in this fight for freedom, for democracy,” she said on the program.
Russia, she said, has shown no sign of withdrawing from Ukraine. “This war was started by Russians. It has to be ended by Russians,” Markarova said.
“We really hope they will make a decision faster.”
Pope Francis calls for safe evacuations, says Russia’s war makes him cry
Return to menuPope Francis, addressing thousands of spectators Sunday in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican, described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “macabre regression of humanity” that makes him weep.
“I suffer and cry thinking of the suffering of the Ukrainian population, in particular the weakest, the elderly, the children,” said the pope, who has condemned the war launched by Russia in late February. He noted the “children who are being expelled and deported” and called for peace, Reuters reported.
The 85-year-old pontiff called for more humanitarian corridors to be established so that civilians can be safely evacuated from the Mariupol steelworks plant, which has served as a refuge for civilians and where Ukrainian fighters defending the city from invading Russian forces are holding out.
While Francis has denounced the conflict on numerous occasions and has called for a truce during the Easter period, he has not directly referenced Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts told Reuters last month that naming and shaming is “not part of the Vatican’s diplomatic playbook.”
Evacuations from the devastated port city are set to resume around 4 p.m. Sunday local time, according to a representative of the city’s mayor.
Ukrainian official says Russian strikes have slowed in Kharkiv
Return to menuRussian forces have reduced the intensity of their strikes on the embattled eastern city of Kharkiv, a local official said Sunday — although he said strikes occurred in nearby Dergachiv and warned residents not to go outside.
Oleg Synegubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, issued the update after Ukraine’s military said Saturday that it has regained control of four settlements in Kharkiv that were seized by Russian forces — and after Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it shot down two Ukrainian bombers in the region of Kharkiv overnight, according to Reuters.
Synegubov said Sunday on Telegram that Russian forces struck Dergachiv, a settlement roughly 10 miles northwest of the center of Kharkiv. There was one victim, he said, although he did not clarify whether the person was injured or dead.
However, Russian strikes have slowed in Kharkiv, he said. “The enemy has reduced the intensify of the shelling; this is thanks to the Ukrainian armed forces, which are liberating residential points in Kharkiv region from the occupation,” he said. “But it is not worth ceasing to be vigilant.”
In a separate post, Synegubov asked residents of northern and eastern Kharkiv not to leave their bomb shelters during the day unless absolutely necessary, even if air raid sirens were not blaring.
In the past 24 hours, Russian forces have fired three artillery shells and rocket-propelled grenades at Kharkiv, Synegubov said. Firefighters extinguished 15 fires in and around Kharkiv and the district of Izyum, he added. One person was injured in Balaklia, a city south of Kharkiv, he said.
The Washington Post shadowed a brigade of paramedics in Kharkiv this week for a 24-hour shift marked by a civilian’s close call and the sounds of incoming and outgoing fire.
On Saturday, Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun announced in a news release on the Defense Ministry’s Facebook page that Ukrainian forces have made gains in the eastern part of the country.
“As a result of the offensive of the Ukrainian defense forces in the Kharkiv Oblast, control over the settlements of Verkhnya Rohanka, Ruska Lozova, Slobidske and Prilesne was restored,” Shtupun said.
Shtupun accused Russian forces of continuing “to carry out illegal actions in the occupied territories of Kharkiv region.”
Annabelle C. Chapman and Isabelle Khurshudyan contributed to this report.
‘You cannot fold to a bully,’ Pelosi says of Russian aggression
Return to menuSpeaking at a news conference in Poland after a trip to Ukraine, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the West cannot back down in the face of Russian threats.
“Let me just speak for myself,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said. “Do not be bullied by bullies. If they’re making threats, you cannot back down. We’re there for the fight, and you cannot fold to a bully.”
In an escalating war of words, Russia recently warned Western countries not to “test our patience” after the United States and Britain publicly backed Ukraine’s right to strike Russian territory following a spate of mysterious fires.
One of the members of the Democratic congressional delegation to Ukraine, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), said the emphasis of the trip was clear: “Weapons, weapons and weapons,” echoing a recent remark by Ukraine’s foreign minister. “We have to make sure the Ukrainians have the weapons to win.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory W. Meeks (N.Y.), another member of the delegation, said the trip showed a need for more pressure on Russia. “Nothing is going to decrease,” Meeks said.
British ambassador to Ukraine says war could last ‘through next year’
Return to menuThe United Kingdom’s ambassador to Ukraine, freshly returned to Kyiv, said in an interview that the war with Russia is “a long game” that could last until next year.
“You are looking at quite a long game … certainly through this year and probably through next year,” British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons told the Observer in an interview published Sunday.
The British diplomat, who said Friday that she was back in Kyiv — one of more than a dozen ambassadors to have returned recently for the first time since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion — said the Ukrainian capital “feels like the right place to be.”
Simmons made the journey to Kyiv in a car from western Ukraine, the Observer reported. “I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to Kyiv, so coming back is an extraordinary thing,” she said.
It was a long drive but worth going the distance. So good to be in #Kyiv again. pic.twitter.com/FsQe0xnEIz
— Melinda Simmons (@MelSimmonsFCDO) April 29, 2022
“It’s helpful to drive because you get a real sense of what was going on … and it’s truly shocking,” the ambassador said. “But what is equally extraordinary is to see how Ukraine kept Russia out of Kyiv.”
Simmons said although Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces have withdrawn from the areas around Kyiv to focus on eastern and southeastern Ukraine, the capital is not yet safe. “Politically, I don’t doubt that Putin’s objectives for Ukraine have not changed, even though their tanks had to withdraw back to the north from Kyiv,” she said. “I can also see that the Kyiv city administration and the Ukraine armed forces are not taking that gain for granted at all. And they’re right.”
British officials have attracted the ire of the Kremlin in recent days for appearing to give Ukraine the green light to attack Russian targets using weapons donated by the West, and for implying that the United Kingdom could support a push by Ukrainian forces to regain control of Crimea, a region that Russia annexed in 2014.
When asked whether Britain should support such an operation, Simmons appeared more restrained. “The most important thing right now is to push Russia back to where they were before February … because that’s where the existential threat lies. Let’s get to that stage. And then let’s see,” she said.
The British government announced on April 22 that it would reopen its embassy in Kyiv the next week, but Simmons said that the embassy has not yet opened and that consular services are not up and running.
Mariupol residents urged to evacuate in ‘one of last real chances to leave city’
Return to menuResidents of Mariupol will be able to try to evacuate from 4 p.m. Sunday, Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, posted on Telegram, calling it “one of the last real chances to leave the city.”
Civilians will be taken 140 miles northwest of Mariupol to the city of Zaporizhzhia, where other survivors have found refuge from relentless Russian shelling. As many as 1,000 people were believed to be sheltering underground at the steel plant in Mariupol, which has been subjected to a brutal siege.
“The scariest thing was that when you went out in the street, you saw that nobody was allowed to collect the bodies,” one survivor who fled Mariupol for Zaporizhzhia told The Washington Post last month. “A lot of buildings were on fire. We know that a lot of families burned alive.”
On Saturday, a small group was evacuated from Mariupol’s sprawling steel works plant after a cease-fire took effect — although President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. officials expressed concern that communication between Ukraine and Russia could soon break down.
Past agreements to evacuate civilians through humanitarian corridors have collapsed because of mistrust amid the conflict.
On Sunday, Pope Francis said Mariupol has been “barbarously bombarded and destroyed,” and he called for a safe path out of the city for those trapped inside the steel works industrial site, Reuters reported.
Zelensky awards Pelosi with Order of Princess Olga, Ukrainian civil honor
Return to menuUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the Order of Princess Olga following their meeting in Kyiv, conferring on her a Ukrainian civil decoration that, according to a 1997 presidential decree, is given to women who have made outstanding contributions to the Ukrainian state.
Photos supplied by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service and published by Reuters show Zelensky presenting Pelosi (D-Calif.) with the award, which highlights her “significant personal contribution” to strengthening America’s ties with Ukraine, and “supporting sovereign, independent and democratic Ukraine,” according to a Ukrainian government statement.
In March, as Russian forces continued their brutal invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv residents flocked to the capital’s statue of Princess Olga to protect it from shelling, along with other surrounding monuments dear to the Ukrainian people.
Photos taken in Kyiv at the time showed volunteers stacking sandbags to protect the monument dedicated to the princess, a regent of Kievan Rus, a medieval empire founded by Vikings in the 9th century, the New York Times reported.
Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, was also awarded the Order of Princess Olga by Zelensky last month during her visit to the capital.
Metsola tweeted that she was “honoured” and “humbled” to receive the award, which officials said marked her “significant personal contribution to the consolidation of international support for Ukraine” during Russia’s invasion.
“It means a great deal to me personally & is symbolic of the special bond the [European Parliament] has with Ukrainians,” she wrote. “We are with Ukraine today & we will be with them tomorrow.”
Blinken discusses U.S. aid to Ukraine on call with Ukrainian counterpart
Return to menuSecretary of State Antony Blinken updated his Ukrainian counterpart on U.S. efforts to reopen its embassy in Kyiv and on a Biden administration push to secure significantly more funding from Congress for Ukraine, the State Department said Saturday.
Blinken spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba “to follow up on their April 24 meeting in Kyiv,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Saturday in a statement. Blinken visited Kyiv with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last Sunday. The two officials announced new commitments to Ukraine’s defense and said the United States would start sending its diplomats back to Ukraine and eventually reopen the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, after President Biden announced he would nominate Bridget Brink as ambassador to Ukraine.
In his call with Kuleba, Blinken “emphasized the United States’ robust support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s brutal aggression,” Price said.
“The Secretary provided an update on plans for U.S. diplomats to return to Ukraine, including initial visits to Lviv this week and plans to return to Kyiv as soon as possible,” Price said. He added that the pair “discussed the Administration’s April 28 request to Congress for $33 billion in security, economic, and humanitarian aid to empower Ukraine to defeat the Kremlin’s unconscionable war.”
On Twitter, Kuleba said he and Blinken “discussed further sanctions on Russia, arms deliveries and financial support to Ukraine,” as well as policies to facilitate Ukrainian exports to the United States.
Spoke with @SecBlinken. Grateful to the U.S. for keeping the promise to stand by Ukraine resolutely. We discussed further sanctions on Russia, arms deliveries and financial support to Ukraine. I also called on the U.S. to provide maximum liberalization for Ukrainian exports.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) May 1, 2022
In Kharkiv, a 24-hour shift with paramedics amid Russian shelling
Return to menuKHARKIV, Ukraine — When paramedics arrived at the scene of the latest Russian bombardment, there were two victims on the ground. One was facedown in the dirt, with a trail of his blood flowing into a puddle of water. He was already dead.
The other was someone whom Stepan Yaremko and Natalia Mykytenko could save, so they turned quickly to him. The man no longer had a right foot, and his shin was mangled. He told the paramedics his back hurt — a piece of shrapnel was lodged in it.
In the ambulance, Mykytenko asked for his name. He said it was Sasha. He had stepped out to feed the stray cats when the Russian artillery shell landed. It just felt as if something hit him, he told her.
Ten minutes passed as Mykytenko and Yaremko applied a tourniquet to Sasha’s leg, hooked him up to a morphine drip to numb his pain and kept him talking. All that time, parked in the middle of a field with no cover around, the medics themselves were in the line of fire if another round of bombardment started. There’s always the risk of a “double tap”: Russian forces tend to strike the same place twice within the hour, to finish off the target or perhaps deliberately target first responders.
The Washington Post shadowed a brigade of paramedics for a 24-hour shift in Kharkiv, the eastern Ukrainian city about 25 miles from the Russian border that has been heavily battered by airstrikes and artillery since the first day of the war.
Russian threats redraw the global energy map
Return to menuEurope is scrambling to respond to the energy crisis prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent days lashed out at his foes in the West by cutting off natural gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland for refusing to pay in rubles. Other large consumers of Russian gas, including Germany and Italy, have sought to reassure their citizens that they are seeking workarounds if Putin expands the cutoff as he has threatened.
But under almost every scenario, the next 18 months are going to be a harrowing time for Europe, as the impacts of high prices ripple around the world and governments struggle to power their factories, heat their homes and keep their electricity plants running.
There are not enough alternatives in the near term to avoid major economic pain in the coming winter if Russia shuts down supply. This month, for instance, the German central bank warned that the country’s economy could shrink by 2 percent if the war persists.
Russian-occupied Kherson cut off from Internet, switches to ruble
Return to menuCivilians in Russia-controlled Kherson are facing new restrictions — including an Internet blackout and a plan to use Russian currency — in possible signs Moscow intends to exert long-lasting influence over the region in southern Ukraine.
As Russian officials announced that the transition to Russian currency for the Kherson region would begin May 1, an intelligence update released by Britain’s Defense Ministry said Russia was trying to legitimize “its control of the city and surrounding areas through installing a pro-Russian administration.”
Taken together, the moves "are likely indicative of Russian intent to exert strong political and economic influence in Kherson over the long term,” Britain’s defense ministry said, adding that enduring control over the territory would provide security for Russia’s grip on Crimea and allow its forces to sustain advances in the north and west.
Rumors have swirled for weeks that forces in Kherson were seeking a referendum, as Kyiv has warned, but have not been independently confirmed by The Washington Post.
Speaking to Russian state television, Kirill Stremousov, a pro-Moscow politician installed after the city fell, said there would be a four-to-five-month transition away from the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, which has been in use since 1996. Ukraine’s currency was expected circulate alongside the ruble for those months.
In photos: Nancy Pelosi’s surprise visit to Kyiv
Return to menuHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made an unannounced visit to Kyiv this weekend with Democratic lawmakers, the latest U.S. official to do so amid a push for more U.S. funding and support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Pelosi met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and said she and her congressional colleagues — including Democratic Reps. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Gregory W. Meeks (N.Y.) and Jason Crow (Colo.) — were there “to say thank you for your fight for freedom.”
Images and footage of the U.S. delegation’s surprise visit show Pelosi, 82, clad in a bright blue suit, shaking hands with Zelensky and meeting with the Ukrainian leader and members of his government.
Photos supplied by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service and published by Reuters show Zelensky presenting Pelosi with the Order of Princess Olga, a decoration that, according to a 1997 presidential decree, is bestowed upon women who have made outstanding contributions to the Ukrainian state.
U.K. says Russian ‘troll factory’ is spreading disinformation on war
Return to menuBritish officials said Sunday that a Russian “troll factory” is spreading pro-Kremlin disinformation about the war in Ukraine and targeting world leaders on social media.
Research funded by the British government found that Kremlin operatives, reportedly based in an old arms factory in St. Petersburg, are using Telegram to recruit online supporters.
These online followers are then encouraged to target the social media profiles of Kremlin critics, inundating them with messages in support of the Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We cannot allow the Kremlin and its shady troll farms to invade our online spaces with their lies about Putin’s illegal war,” Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement provided to The Washington Post via email. “The U.K. Government has alerted international partners and will continue to work closely with allies and media platforms to undermine Russian information operations.”
Targets of the disinformation campaign include British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Guardian newspaper reported, adding that TikTok influencers were paid to spread pro-Kremlin narratives.
Russia has denied any involvement in disinformation campaigns, including attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election in the United States.
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