Russia-Ukraine updates | $1.25 billion grant received by Ukraine

Ukraine's Finance Ministry on Friday stated it had received $1.25 billion in grants from the US which will be used to pay salaries and pension of Ukrainian emergency and healthcare workers. 

According to Ukrainian Interior Ministry, a Russian missile strike on Friday left 22 people dead in central Ukraine city of Uman. The deceased included two 10-year-old children and a toddler. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday said he had requested his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to to help bring back children deported by Russia. 

"We need to involve everyone... to put pressure on the Russian aggressor and the terrorists who kidnapped so many of our children. The UN, many others want to do something, but so far the results have been poor. So I have appealed to the leader of China," said Zelensky. 

Referring to the West's 'economic aggression', Russian President Vladimir Putin egged different bodies of the government to pull their weight and act quickly.  

"Today, in the face of the West's economic aggression, the parliament, the government, all regional and local authorities need to act clearly and quickly work as one cohesive team," Putin told a meeting of Russian lawmakers.

Prosecutors in Milan have ended their investigation against lobbyists who are alleged to have sought Russian funds for Matteo Salvini's pro-Moscow party.

The allegations say the plan was to buy oil at lower rates from the Russian energy conglomerate Rosneft and then sell it to Italian energy corporation ENI at full price.

Prosecutors were expecting that the League would have received the majority of the estimated $64 million in profit, reported Al Jazeera.
 

Putin signed a decree allowing residents of the parts of Ukraine under Russian control to apply for Russian citizenship; however, those who do not accept the offer or legalise their place of residence risk being deported.

The declaration covers Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, four territories of Ukraine that Russia claims as its own and partially controls, as reported by Al Jazeera.

As part of a parade in Moscow on May 9 to commemorate the anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War Two, the Kremlin has announced that soldiers who fought in Ukraine will be represented.

“They (fighters of the Northern Military District) will be presented, but in detail this, of course, is up to the Ministry of Defence,” the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

“It’s better to wait for the parade itself,” he said.

Russia, on Friday claimed that in its recent overnight missile barrage across the Ukraine which has killed over a dozen people it targeted reserve units of the Ukrainian military.

In its recent statement, the Russian defence ministry said that it used long-range precision missiles to target "points of temporary deployment of reserve units of the Ukrainian armed forces", adding that "all assigned objects were hit," reported news agency, AFP. 

Click here to read more about the recent Russian strikes in Ukraine...

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in its recent findings, on Friday (April 28) said that it was deeply concerned about human rights violations by Russian forces and private military companies in Ukraine. 

Some of these violations, as per the UN committee include, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and extrajudicial executions. Additionally, they have also listed, excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions, killings and the forcible transfer of children from Ukraine to Russia among the violations committed.

They have also called on the Russian authorities to investigate allegations of human rights violations committed during the invasion of Ukraine. Russia had also refused to provide the UN committee with information and has since denied committing atrocities. 

The Russian government sacked Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev from the deputy defence minister's post, the news agency Reuters reported on Friday (April 28) citing media reports. Colonel General Mizintsev, also dubbed the "Butcher of Mariupol", had orchestrated the siege of the Ukrainian city in the early months of the conflict that started in February last year. 

Click here to read more...

The Russian-installed leader of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, said Friday that seven people were killed in the centre of the territory's main city by shelling from Ukrainian positions.

"The Ukrainian armed forces hit a hospital, a park and residential buildings. According to initial reports seven people, including a child, died after a bus was hit," said the Moscow-appointed head of the region.

Air raid sirens echoed across Ukraine, on Friday. Quoting local sources, Interfax Ukraine news agency reported that explosions were witnessed throughout the nation, “in cities in widely separated regions.”

As per a report by news agency AP, Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Ukraine. Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko reported strikes on a nine-story residential building in central Ukraine's Uman city.

After the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took to Twitter and wrote, "Uman... The rubble is still being cleared. There are already 13 dead. Two of them are children that can’t be identified. The fate of their parents is unknown... The rescuers will work until they make sure that no one else is left under the rubble. We can defeat Russian terror together only - with weapons for Ukraine, the toughest sanctions against the terrorist state, and fair sentences for the (Russian) killers."

 

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, on Friday (April 28) said that Ukraine is wrapping up preparations for a counteroffensive against Russian forces and largely to go ahead, reported Reuters. 

"As soon as there is God's will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it," said Reznikov as quoted by the news agency. However, no official date was announced.