"Today for lunch": Putin's "bloodhound" predicts capture of Mariupol - new mass grave find near Kyiv

Created: 04/21/2022, 14:53

By: Richard Strobl, Markus Hofstetter, Fabian Müller

The Ukraine war has entered a new phase.

Mass graves were found in a suburb of Kyiv.

Four buses with civilians left Mariupol.

The military ticker.

• Capture of steelworks

  in

  Mariupol

  threatened

  :

  Russian forces intend to take control

  of Azovstal

  today (April 21).

• A commander is reaching out to the world about Mariupol with a cry for help.

• In the Ukraine conflict*, the large-scale attack by the Russian armed forces has begun in the east of the country.

Update from April 21, 10:30 a.m .:

According to Ukrainian information, two more mass graves have been discovered in the Kiev suburb of Borodjanka.

Moreover, according to Ukrainian sources, most of the Luhansk region is now under Russian control.

The evacuation of civilians from the hard-fought city of Mariupol on the Azov Sea failed again on Wednesday.

The remaining Ukrainian fighters still have the opportunity to surrender in the morning, according to the leader of the Russian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, on Thursday night.

You can find the latest news on the military situation in the Ukraine war in our news ticker.

Update from April 21, 8:43 a.m

.: In the midst of fierce fighting: Four buses with civilians were able to leave Mariupol this Thursday morning.

This was announced by the Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, according to AFP.

The strategically important port city is about to fall under Russian control for good

.

Ukraine war: Putin troops want to take Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol

Update from April 21, 6:33 a.m .:

On Thursday, the Azovstal steelworks in the heavily contested city of Mariupol will fall to Russian units - at least that's what the leader of the Russian republic of Chechnya said.

"Today before or after lunch, Azovstal will be completely under the control of the Russian armed forces," Ramzan Kadyrov, whose units are fighting in Ukraine, explained on Telegram on Thursday night.

Kadyrov said that the remaining Ukrainian fighters could still surrender in the morning.

If they do, he is certain that the Russian leadership will make "the right decision."

According to Russian information, around 2,500 Ukrainian fighters and foreign mercenaries are still in the steelworks.

According to Ukrainian reports, around 1,000 civilians are said to have sought protection there.

Ukraine war: Kharkiv and Kherson under fire, according to Ukraine

In the night of Thursday, however, another shelling was reported from Ukraine.

In the city of Kharkov in eastern Ukraine, at least two high-rise buildings in the northeastern district of Saltivka and several parked cars caught fire after explosions.

This was reported by the Ukrainian newspaper

.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, the neighboring towns of Zelenodolsk and Welyka Kostromka came under heavy fire, said the head of the local military administration, Olexander Wilkul, on Facebook early Thursday morning.

Wilkul did not provide any information about the exact targets or damage.

According to Wilkul, villages in the Cherson region that are now again under Ukrainian control were also shelled late on Wednesday evening.

The information could not be independently verified.

Photo from April 21: Soldiers of the militia of the Donetsk "People's Republic" in Mariupol © Alexei Alexandrov/dpa

Kyiv reports new discovery of mass graves: nine bodies of civilians in suburb

Update from April 21, 5:29 a.m

.: According to Ukrainian information, two more mass graves have been discovered in the Kiev suburb of Borodjanka.

It contained a total of nine bodies of civilians, men and women, said Andriy Nebitov from the Kyiv region police on Thursday night on Facebook.

Some of them showed signs of torture, it said.

Borodyanka is one of the most heavily damaged cities in the capital region.

Atrocities by the Russian units that have meanwhile withdrawn were reported from the city.

The information could not be independently verified.

Moreover, according to Ukrainian sources, most of the Luhansk region is now under Russian control.

After the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the small town of Krimenna, Russian units now controlled 80 percent of the Luhansk region, Luhansk governor Serhiy Hajdaj said on Telegram on Wednesday evening.

Kyiv again reports failure of evacuation in Mariupol in the Ukraine war

Update from April 20, 9:25 p.m .:

The evacuation of civilians from the hard-fought city of Mariupol on the Azov Sea failed again on Wednesday, as the Ukrainian government announced on Wednesday evening.

"Unfortunately, the humanitarian corridor from Mariupol did not work as planned today," Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told the Telegram news channel.

There was therefore no ceasefire required for the evacuation.

The "disorganized occupiers" did not manage to get people to the agreed point in time "where our buses and ambulances were waiting," Vereshchuk went on to criticize.

The information cannot be independently verified.

A new attempt to evacuate around 1,000 civilians from the city should therefore be made on Thursday.

The situation is particularly tense around the Azovstal steelworks, in which, according to Russian information, around 2,500 Ukrainian fighters and foreign mercenaries are said to have holed up, who have not yet given up defending the city.

The Russian forces have asked the soldiers to lay down their arms and become prisoners of war.

Civilians walk past a tank destroyed in heavy fighting in a Russian-backed separatist-controlled area in Mariupol.

© Alexei Alexandrov/dpa

Ukraine War News: Mayor now calls on residents to flee Mariupol

Update from April 20, 3:15 p.m .:

According to CNN, the mayor of the port city of Mariupol, which was contested in the Ukraine war, asked the residents to evacuate.

Earlier, the establishment of a humanitarian corridor was announced.

"Dear people of Mariupol, during these long and incredibly difficult days you survived in inhumane conditions," the US broadcaster quoted local politician Vadym Boichenko as saying.

“They were in an information vacuum with no access to information.

You may have heard different things.

But I want you to know the most important things," he stressed. Citizens are expected in Zaporizhia.

"It's safe there."

A resident walks past a damaged house with luggage.

The port city of Mariupol has been completely surrounded and almost completely conquered by Russian troops since March 1, 2022.

© Victor/dpa

Update from April 20, 1:33 p.m

.: The situation in eastern Ukraine continues to deteriorate.

Serhiy Haidai, Luhansk regional governor, reported completely destroyed infrastructure in several towns and villages in the region.

The supply of electricity, gas and water cannot be restored before the end of the war.

portal

.

Ukraine War News: Moscow resumes airstrikes

Update from April 20, 10:40 a.m.:

According to their own statements, the Russian air force bombed 73 military targets in Ukraine during the night.

"As a result of the impact of high-precision missiles in the Novovorontsovka and Kiselivka regions, up to 40 soldiers of the Ukrainian troops and seven armored vehicles were killed," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday.

This information could not be confirmed independently.

According to him, the attacks were primarily aimed at tactical targets.

In addition to the air force attacks, Russian missile forces and artillery shelled 1,053 military targets, he said in his daily morning briefing.

Ukraine war: Kyiv names gigantic number of people abducted to Russia

Update from April 20, 9:30 a.m.:

According to Ukraine, 500,000 people have been deported from the country to Russia so far.

According to Serhiy Kyslytsia, Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, more than half a million people have been "forcibly transferred" to Russia, the Kyiv Independent reports.

This would have included 121,000 children.

This representation cannot be independently verified.

According to the report, Kyslytsia went on to say that Ukrainian citizens were mainly brought to economically dependent regions of Russia, such as the north of the country or the island of Sakhalin off Russia's east coast.

They are not allowed to leave the country again for two years.

Ukraine War News: Hope for Mariupol?

Apparently civilian escape corridors planned

Update from April 20, 9:08 am

: Hope for the residents of Mariupol

?

According to Kyiv, it has agreed with Putin's troops on a civilian escape corridor from the embattled port city.

This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Wereschuk on Telegram, according to dpa.

The civilians are to be taken to the city of Zaporizhia.

"In view of the catastrophic situation in Mariupol, we are focusing our efforts in this direction today," Vereshchuk said.

This is the first escape corridor from Mariupol since Saturday.

Ukraine War: Probably up to 20,000 mercenaries in action for Moscow

Update from April 20, 7:37 a.m.:

According to Western estimates, Russia uses between 10,000 and 20,000 mercenaries in the Ukraine war.

The mercenaries are members of the notorious Russian Wagner Group and fighters from Syria and Libya, a European government official told journalists in Washington on Tuesday.

The mercenaries did not have heavy vehicles or weapons, rather they would be used primarily as a "mass against the resistance of the Ukrainians".

Above all, "relocations" of these fighters to the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass were observed.

Ukraine War News: According to Zelenskyy, the situation in Mariupol is extremely serious

Update from April 20, 6:39 a.m

.: The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj is also extremely concerned about Mariupol

.

The situation there is more than “as difficult as possible”.

The Russian military is blocking all attempts to organize humanitarian corridors and rescue Ukrainian citizens, Zelensky said in his nightly video message, which was published on Telegram on Wednesday night.

City residents who are in the hands of Russian units are being tried to be “deported” or mobilized into Russian troops.

Unfortunately, Zelenskyy said, no responses were received to the proposal for an exchange that would allow civilians and defenders to be rescued from the city.

Ukraine War: Troops in Mariupol request evacuation to third country

Update from April 20, 6:19 a.m

.: "The enemy is superior to us 10 to 1": This call for help came from the heavily contested Mariupol at night.

Serhiy Volyna, Ukrainian commander of the remaining marines in the port city, said it.

"We appeal to all world leaders to help us," he said in a one-minute video message published on Facebook this Wednesday morning.

The dpa reports.

Volyna says Putin's troops have advantages in the air, artillery, ground forces, equipment and tanks.

The Ukrainian side is defending only one object, the Azovstal Steel Works, where, in addition to the military, there are also civilians.

Volyna asks to use the "procedure of extraction" and to take everyone - the military of the Mariupol garrison, more than 500 wounded combatants and hundreds of civilians - to safety on the territory of a third country: "This could be the last appeal of our lives."

Ukraine War: Moscow calls on Ukrainian forces to surrender

Wolyna told the US TV broadcaster CNN that an evacuation could be carried out by ship or helicopter.

An international humanitarian mission is also a possibility.

He did not say how many Ukrainian soldiers were on the premises of the steel mill.

Video screenshot of the city of Mariupol from April 18: the Azovstal Group steelworks there under fire © Cover-Images/Imago

Ukraine-News - Russia reports 120 civilians have left Mariupol 'fortress'

Update from April 19, 9:17 p.m .:

In Mariupol, a nearly two-hour ceasefire announced unilaterally by Russia probably passed without result.

“No one used the new humanitarian corridor formed around Asovstal for civilians.

Alexei Nikonorov, a spokesman for the pro-Russian separatists, told Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti.

However, Russian television reported that 120 civilians had left the steelworks.

The Ukrainian fighters, on the other hand, are said to continue to entrench themselves in the factory.

'Will be wiped off the face of the earth': Ukraine likely intercepts Russia radio message

Update from April 19, 7:18 p.m .:

Russia is probably planning to “level the ground” with air strikes at the steel factory in Mariupol, in which the Ukrainian troops and civilians have holed up.

This emerges from a Russian radio message intercepted by the Ukrainian SBU, reported by CNN.

Accordingly, the leader of a Russian train stationed a few kilometers away reported in the radio message.

He therefore speaks of the order to “level everything to the ground” and of “surprises from Russia” that are expected.

When asked, he specified: "Three tons (surprises, editor's note), from the sky".

The last remaining Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol are probably holed up in the Azovsteel plant.

In addition, civilians who fear Russian attacks are also said to be hiding there.

According to the report, this is also addressed in the radio message.

"Everyone left - everyone who wanted to." According to the report, the Russian also speaks about the Ukrainian city of Lysychansk in Luhansk, which "is being wiped off the face of the earth.

The third day in a row.”

This satellite photo provided by Maxar Technologies shows an overview of the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works © dpa/Maxar

War in Ukraine: USA only sees the beginning of the large-scale attack and expects more Russian attacks

Update from April 19, 7:04 p.m .:

The US Department of Defense sees the recent Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine only as a sign of a major Russian offensive.

"We understand these attacks are a prelude to major offensive actions that the Russians are planning," a senior Pentagon official said in Washington on Tuesday.

He emphasized that this does not contradict the representations that the expected large-scale attack by Russian troops in the east of the country had begun.

It's just a matter of underlining that the current attacks are just the beginning.

Even if there is already intensified fighting on the ground southwest of Donetsk and south of Izyum, Russia is still in the process of expanding its logistical capacities and also bringing units into the country from outside Ukraine.

In the past 24 hours, Russia has brought two more tactical battalions to Ukraine* - there are now 78 of these units in the country.

He didn't give an exact figure for each unit, but such battalions typically consist of around 600 to 1,000 soldiers.

According to Ukrainian information, the previously expected Russian offensive has been underway since Monday.

President Volodymr Zelenskyy* said in a video message on Monday evening: "We can now state that the Russian troops have started the battle for the Donbass, for which they have been preparing for a long time." Russia avoided the term offensive.

However, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that the next phase of the "special operation" had begun.

Ukraine war: Putin's "bloodhound" predicts Mariupol capture today

First report from April 19:

Kiev – The Ukraine war * has reached a new phase after around eight weeks with a major attack by Russian troops in the east of the country.

"I am sure this will be an important moment in this entire special operation," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

in an interview with the television station , according to

IndiaToday.

It is about achieving the "complete liberation of the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk*", according to Lavrov, referring to the separatist areas that Moscow has recognized as independent states.

Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu* has also reaffirmed his country's military goal of wanting to "liberate" eastern Ukraine.

"We are gradually implementing our plan to liberate the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics," he said on Tuesday.

He accused Washington and its allies of "prolonging" the military operation by supplying arms to Ukraine.

Ukraine war: Russia promises unenviable fate to Mariupol defenders

"We are taking measures to restore peaceful life," Shoigu said in a televised meeting with Russian military commanders.

"The United States and the western states it controls are doing everything they can to delay the military operation for as long as possible."

The situation is escalating dramatically, especially in the badly damaged port city of Mariupol.

Russia once again issued an ultimatum to the hundreds of fighters who were locked up in a steel plant there and called on them to surrender.

All soldiers in the country were asked to "put down your arms immediately," a statement said.

"We address all members of the Ukrainian army and foreign mercenaries: they face an unenviable fate because of the cynicism of the Kiev authorities."

War in Ukraine: Kadyrov announces imminent capture of Mariupol steelworks

The defenders of Mariupol will be "guaranteed for survival" if they lay down their arms from noon.

Then, in a cease-fire between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., “all Ukrainian armed units and foreign mercenaries could come out without weapons and ammunition.”

Then her life would be saved, it said.

Pro-Russian separatists had previously announced that the storming of the Azovstal steelworks in the port city had begun with Russian help.

The ruler of the Russian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov*, who is often referred to as Putin's "bloodhound", has even announced that the contested steelworks will be conquered later in the day.

Today, Azovstal will be taken completely, says the confidante of Russian President Vladimir Putin*, according to the

portal in an audio message on the Telegram platform. 

According to Russian information, around 2,500 fighters, including 400 foreign mercenaries, are said to have holed up in the steelworks.

According to Ukrainian media, around 1,000 civilians are also said to be staying in the plant.

Ukraine* had previously criticized the fact that Russia had turned down requests to set up escape corridors in Mariupol so that residents who had sought refuge in the steel mill could get to safety.

Ukraine War: Russian army attacks at multiple points simultaneously

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said the aim of the Russian advance in the Luhansk region was to isolate Ukrainian troops in the cities of Rubishne, Lysychansk and Sieverodonetsk.

In the Kharkov region, 25,000 soldiers of the Russian army would attack from Izyum in the direction of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region.

An offensive is also being attempted at Avdiivka near Donetsk.

At the same time he is certain that Russia will fail with its offensive in the Donbass*.

This is only "very cautious" and Russian forces lack the strength to break through the Ukrainian defense lines.

"Your offensive will fail, I give you a 99 percent guarantee," said Arestovych.

The governor of the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, Serhiy Hajday, spoke of a difficult situation.

"Our defenders hold the line of defence," says Hajdaj on Ukrainian television.

Attacks at Rubischne and Popasna were repelled.

At the same time, he called on the remaining residents to get to safety.

Authorities tried to organize buses to take people to provided trains.

70,000 people are said to remain in the area.

(dpa/afp/fmü) *