🔄 Click here to see the latest updates.
3 posts
7 mins ago
Pope Francis calls for peace in the midst of the "Easter of war"
By Livia Borghese, Manveena Suri
Pope Francis said Sunday that the world is celebrating a "Passover of war" and called for peace in Ukraine, which he said has been drawn into a "cruel and senseless war."
“We have seen too much blood, too much violence.
Our hearts have also been filled with fear and anguish,” the pope said as he delivered his annual “Urbi et Orbi” Easter blessing, adding that “our eyes are also in disbelief at this Easter of war.”
9 mins ago
Russia threatens to 'eliminate' resistance after rejection of Mariupol ultimatum
By Tim Lister, Julia Kesaieva
Russia's Defense Ministry on Sunday threatened the "elimination" of resistance soldiers still fighting in the besieged city of Mariupol in southwestern Ukraine, confirming that an ultimatum demanding their surrender had been ignored.
In a statement, it said Ukrainian soldiers surrounded by a giant steel plant in the city had been urged to "voluntarily lay down their arms and surrender for their lives".
"However, the nationalist regime in Kyiv, according to the radio intercept, forbade negotiations on surrender," the ministry said.
The Ministry also claimed that according to Ukrainian soldiers who had previously surrendered, "there are up to 400 foreign mercenaries who joined the Ukrainian forces" trapped in the steel plant, including, it said, Europeans and Canadians.
"In case of more resistance, everyone will be eliminated," he said.
The Defense Ministry claimed that dozens of military installations in eastern Ukraine had been destroyed in the latest Russian attacks.
These included fuel and ammunition depots, the ministry said, around Severodonetsk, Kremmina and other cities in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
He also claimed that the Russian air defense system had shot down 10 Ukrainian UAVs in the Donbas region.
1 hour ago
If Mariupol falls, now in ruins, the war could have a turn
Where apartment buildings, hospitals and schools once stood, there is now charred rubble scattered among bomb craters;
and in the green spaces of a city constantly under a rain of projectiles, improvised cemeteries now proliferate.
Mariupol, a Ukrainian city in the Donetsk region and on the Sea of ​​Azov, was attacked by Russian forces at the beginning of the invasion in late February and has been under siege since March 1.
Ukraine accuses Russian troops of preventing the departure of civilians from Mariupol
The population and the military forces of Ukraine - among which is the controversial Azov battalion, a militia historically linked to members of the far right and later incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guards, and Marine infantry units - are completely surrounded by the sea ​​behind them, and they have been suffering from the incessant bombardment of the Russian artillery.
Why is this Ukrainian port city of more than 400,000 pre-war residents, and key to steel and grain exports, so important to Russia?
Read more here: Mariupol is in ruins and the Russian siege continues: why is this a key battle in the war in Ukraine?