- Moskva missile cruiser damaged after ammunition explosion
- Ukrainian official says ship hit by missiles
- Zelenskyj warns of new Russian offensives to avenge defeats
- Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine agrees to the opening of humanitarian corridors
KIEV/LVIV, Ukraine, April 14 – The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was badly damaged and its crew evacuated on Thursday after an explosion on board said Ukrainians said was caused by a missile attack.
The loss of the Soviet missile cruiser Moskva would be a blow – on the 50th day of the war – to the Russian military, which is preparing for a new attack in the eastern Donbass region that will likely determine the outcome of the conflict. Continue reading
The Russian Defense Ministry said a fire on the Moskva River detonated ammunition, the Interfax news agency reported, without saying what caused the fire.
Maksym Marchenko, the Ukrainian governor of the region around the Black Sea port of Odessa, said the Moskva River was hit by two Ukrainian-made Neptun anti-ship cruise missiles.
“Neptune missiles guarding the Black Sea have caused very serious damage,” he said in an online post.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment, and Reuters was unable to verify either side’s statements.
The Russian Navy has launched cruise missiles into Ukraine, and its activities in the Black Sea are crucial in supporting land operations in the south of the country, where it is fighting to take full control of the port of Mariupol.
Russia said Wednesday that more than 1,000 Ukrainian marines who were in Mariupol surrendered and that the devastated city is completely under its control. Ukrainian officials did not comment.
If captured, Mariupol – Ukraine’s main port on the Sea of Azov, which has been under siege and bombardment for weeks – would be the first major city to fall to Russian forces since invading on February 24.
Its capture would allow Russia to reinforce a land corridor between separatist-held eastern territories and the Crimea region captured and annexed in 2014, freeing up forces for a broader attack to the south and east.
“Russian forces are stepping up activities on the southern and eastern fronts and trying to avenge their defeats,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address on Wednesday evening.
HUMANITARIAN CORRIDORS
Russian news agencies said the Moskva, commissioned in 1983, was armed with 16 anti-ship Vulcan cruise missiles with a range of at least 700 km (440 miles).
Kyiv says the Moscow River featured in one of the landmark early exchanges of the war, when Ukrainian border guards on Snake Island, a small rocky outcrop in the Black Sea, told the ship to fuck itself after telling them to result. Continue reading
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said nine humanitarian corridors had been agreed for Thursday to evacuate civilians, including by private cars, from Mariupol.
Other evacuation routes are from Berdyansk, Tokmak and Enerhodar, and those in the eastern Luhansk region would work if Russian forces stopped shelling, Vereshchuk added in a statement.
Ukraine says tens of thousands of people are believed to have been killed in Mariupol and accuses Russia of blocking aid convoys to civilians trapped there.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said Russia used mobile crematoria “to get rid of evidence of war crimes” — a statement that could not be verified.
Moscow has blamed Ukraine for the deaths of civilians and accused Kyiv of denigrating Russian forces.
“FREE US FROM WHAT?”
In the village of Lubianka, northwest of Kyiv, from where Russian troops had attempted to subdue the capital before retreating, a message to Ukrainians had been written on the wall of a house occupied by Russian troops.
“We didn’t want that… forgive us,” it said.
The Kremlin says it has launched a “special military operation” to demilitarize and “rid” Ukraine of nationalist extremists, a message villagers say was repeated to them by Russian troops.
“To get rid of what? We are peaceful… We are Ukrainians,” said Viktor Shaposhnikov from Lubianka.
The Kremlin has denounced US President Joe Biden’s description of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine as genocide, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying it was unacceptable when it came from the leader of a country he said had committed crimes of his own.
An expert mission deployed by the Organization for Security and Co-operation and Europe (OSCE) nations said Wednesday it had found evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity by Russia in Ukraine. Continue reading
Russia has denied attacking civilians and said some reports were staged for propaganda purposes.
Andriy Nyebytov, head of the Kyiv region police, said more than 800 bodies had been found in three districts occupied by Russian forces.
“We find terrible things: buried and hidden corpses of people who were tortured and shot, and who died as a result of mortar and artillery fire,” Nyebytov said in TV comments. His statements could not be verified immediately.
Analysts say the Western-led sanctions have triggered Russia’s worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
More than 600 companies, including McDonalds, have announced their withdrawal from Russia, which will directly lead to the loss of about 1 million jobs. Continue reading
The World Bank estimates that a total of 2.6 million people could fall below Russia’s official poverty line this year.
Additional reporting from Natalia Zinets and Elizabeth Piper in Kyiv, Max Hunder in London, David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Reuters offices; writing by Michael Perry and Alex Richardson; Edited by Stephen Coates and Hugh Lawson