Yesterday at 1: 05 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 1: 09 a.m. EDT
Yesterday at 1: 05 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 1: 09 a.m. EDT
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Russian strikes destroyed an airport and damaged several civilian targets, including a school, on Sunday, Ukrainian authorities said, as people continued to flee eastern Ukraine, joining an exodus that now numbers more than 4.5 million refugees.
Russia’s offensive is proceeding on two primary fronts, according to Ukrainian officials, after forces shifted initial efforts to take Kyiv: against the southeastern port city of Mariupol and in Ukraine’s far east, especially the contested Luhansk region. In anticipation of possible attacks, the governor of eastern Donetsk said that more people need to evacuate.
Satellite images released by Maxar, a U.S. space technology firm, show that an eight-mile convoy of Russian military vehicles made its way through eastern Ukraine on Friday, heading south from the town of Velykyi Burluk.
The refocus to the east, away from the largest cities, could prove a challenge for Ukraine’s beleaguered forces and an advantage for Russian troops, who Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted last week are more skilled at fighting in rural terrain.
Here’s what to know
- For only the second time since Russian forces seized the site in late February, staffers at the Chernobyl plant were able to leave and rotate shifts.
- Ukraine has opened 5,600 war crimes cases since Russia’s invasion, top prosecutor Iryna Venediktova said Sunday, but the country will face an uphill battle getting Russian officials to court.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that he spoke to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about sanctions against Russia and Germany’s financial and military support for Ukraine. Zelensky stated that both Zelensky and Scholz “emphasized the need to identify all war criminals and punish them.” The Post’s Isaac Stanley-Becker explains why the war in Ukraine is a test for the German leader.
- The Washington Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel for updates.
UNDERSTANDING THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT
Ukraine’s economy could shrink 45 percent this year, World Bank says
The Ukrainian economy is projected to shrink by 45 percent this year, according to a report from the World Bank, and Russia is expected to lose more than one-tenth of its economic output.
The report also outlines severe fallout for neighboring countries. According to the World Bank, before Russia invaded Ukraine, its regional economy had been expected to grow by 3 per cent. Now, the region is expected to shrink by 4.1 percent — a hit “twice as large as the pandemic-induced contraction in 2020,” the international financial group said in a news release.
Recessions are also expected this year in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Tajikistan, the report says. According to the report, Russia is a key export destination for many Eastern European countries. Some Central Asian economies are heavily dependent on Russian remittances.
The World Bank — a cooperative of 189 member countries — gives grants, loans and financial advice to developing countries.
“Ukraine needs massive financial support immediately as it struggles to keep its economy going and the government running to support Ukrainian citizens who are suffering and coping with an extreme situation,” Anna Bjerde, the World Bank’s vice president for Europe and Central Asia, said in a statement.
The war’s effect on food supplies — a source of global concern — could be especially acute in the region around Ukraine, the World Bank report warns. According to the World Bank report, around three quarters of all wheat imports from Central Asia and the countries surrounding the Caucasus Mountains are from Russia.
Photos: Dueling protests in Germany show support for Russia, Ukraine
By News Services and Staff Reports8: 40 p.m.
To counter pro-Russian marches in Germany, thousands of people demonstrated their support for Ukraine in Frankfurt on Sunday, protesting the Kremlin’s invasion of its neighbor.
About 2,500 pro-Ukrainian demonstrators gathered in Frankfurt on Sunday, Reuters reported, while about 800 people marched through the city to show their support for Russia. Similar dueling demonstrations led to skirmishes and arrests in Hanover, Radio Free Europe reported.
McCarthy and other members of Congress visit Poland
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and nine other members of Congress traveled this weekend to Poland, a NATO ally hosting more than 2 million Ukrainians who have sought refuge from Russia’s invasion.
McCarthy’s office said he was joined by Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.
The delegation met in Warsaw with the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the U.S. ambassador to Poland.
The delegation met in Warsaw with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish defense minister and the U.S. ambassador to Poland, McCarthy’s office said in a news release. It said that members of Congress visited Ukrainians as well as U.S. troops.
The United Nations estimates that more than 2.5 million Ukrainians have fled to Poland since Russia’s invasion, out of about 4.6 million Ukrainians displaced total. President Biden traveled to Warsaw last month to meet with European leaders, address the humanitarian crisis and signal Western unity against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
McCarthy said in a statement Sunday that the delegation’s visit “should serve as a powerful message to Putin that we condemn his unprovoked attacks.”
2,200 detained for alleged evasion of military service, Ukraine says
Nearly 2,200 men accused of evading military service have been detained at the Ukrainian border, Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said Sunday.
Early in Russia’s invasion, Ukraine prohibited most men ages 18 to 60 from leaving the country and announced a mass mobilization of them to fight Kremlin forces.
In a Facebook post Sunday, the ministry said border guards have caught some people using fake documents. The ministry also cautioned that border crossings outside of checkpoints could be dangerous.
Russian students are turning in teachers who don’t back the war
RIGA, Latvia — When Irina Gen’s students in western Russia asked why a European sports competition had barred them from attending, the 55-year-old teacher let loose with a tirade against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She reacted by saying that Russia would not behave civilizedly if it continued to do so. Russia wanted to reach Kyiv to take down Zelensky’s government. She said, “This is a sovereign country.” “There’s a sovereign government there.”
Little did she know that her students were recording her outburst and that a copy would make its way to law enforcement authorities, who opened a criminal investigation under a new national law banning false information about the military.
Gen is one of at least four teachers recently turned in by students or parents for antiwar speech, in some of the starkest examples of the government’s quest to identify and punish individuals who criticize the invasion. It’s a campaign with dark Soviet echoes, inspired last month by President Vladimir Putin, who praised Russians for their ability to identify “scum and traitors” and “spit them out like a fly.”
“I am convinced that this natural and necessary self-cleansing of society will only strengthen our country,” Putin said March 16 in a televised speech, accusing the West of wanting to use a “fifth column” to destroy Russia.
Austin speaks to Ukrainian troops training in U.S.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sunday that he spoke to Ukrainian troops who have been training in the United States and are about to return home, armed with knowledge of special weapons included in a recent U.S. aid package.
“I made clear the U.S. will continue to provide them with the assistance they need,” Austin tweeted, sharing a photo of his video call.
The Ukrainian troops were in Mississippi for a “scheduled professional military education program” when Russia invaded Feb. 24, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. Although American troops have been training Ukrainian soldiers for many years, officials say that those programs were stopped as tension rose and Russia invaded.
Western countries have been leery of direct involvement in the Ukraine war, even as they back Ukraine with billions in aid and weapons. White House officials have worried that training Ukrainians on NATO bases within Russian missile range raises the risk of Moscow attacking those sites, administration officials previously told The Post.
Austin told members of Congress last week that Ukrainians would “have to have training” to use some gear from NATO. Kirby soon confirmed that the United States was instructing a “very small number of Ukrainian soldiers who were already in the United States” on how to use Switchblade drones.
U.S. leaders said in March that they would send Ukraine 100 of those explosive-packed, unmanned aircraft as part of a new aid package.
Sunday was to be the Ukrainian trainees’ last day in the United States, Kirby said.
Death toll from strike on train station rises to 57, governor says
Five more people have died from a Friday missile strike on an eastern Ukrainian train station, the governor of the Donetsk region said Sunday, bringing the death toll to 57.
At least 109 people were injured in the attack, which Ukraine has blamed on Russia. Moscow has said the missile belonged to Ukraine.
Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko stated that people who sustained minor injuries were allowed to return home, while those with serious injuries were taken to more secure areas to seek help.
Despite hurdles, Ukrainians flee eastern Ukraine as Russian offense looms
Ukrainians continued to flee eastern Ukraine through humanitarian corridors Sunday, though authorities said they were stymied by Russian troops violating cease-fires and holding up buses at checkpoints.
More than 2,800 people evacuated conflict areas via humanitarian corridors Sunday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said — far fewer than the more than 6,600 who fled conflict zones Friday.
Using personal transport and evacuation buses, 2,622 people arrived in Zaporizhzhia from Mariupol, Vereshchuk said in a Telegram post. Of them, 213 were residents of Mariupol, a port city that has been under Russian siege for weeks. Rest of them lived in Zaporizhzhia.
Columns of buses that departed Zaporizhzhia on Sunday morning to evacuate residents from several cities in southeastern Ukraine are being held by Russian forces at a checkpoint in Vasylivka, Vereshchuk said.
“However,” she said, “we will continue to break through to our people.”
In the Luhansk region, 202 people were evacuated from five cities despite what Vereshchuk described as “constant cease-fire violations by the occupiers.” In all, 2,824 people were evacuated Sunday.
The news came as authorities in Luhansk urged residents to flee amid signs that Moscow is intensifying its assault on eastern Ukrainian cities. In a post on Telegram, the Luhansk Regional Military Administration noted that “people are very intimidated by what the Russians did in Kramatorsk,” referring to a Friday missile strike on a train station that killed more than 50 people.
But, the post said, people are still encouraged to evacuate.
“Buses are waiting for you every day,” it said.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, also in eastern Ukraine, said the number of people evacuated there had also “decreased somewhat” but that local leaders were “working on all fronts” to ensure the civilian population is evacuated.
Annabelle Chapman and Zachary Nelson contributed to this report.
A former boxer turned Kyiv mayor becomes a rousing wartime leader
KYIV, Ukraine — The black SUV pulled up to a scene of ruin: A badly damaged apartment building. Tram car that was crushed. The sidewalk was covered in blood.
Just about an hour earlier, a suspected Russian strike had hit this residential area in the Ukrainian capital. Vitali Klitschko got out of his car and ran under the tape that kept civilians from this area. It was a familiar stop for a wartime mayor living in a city under siege.
A decade ago, Klitschko was best known as a legendary boxer and heavyweight world champion. Dr. Ironfist was his nickname — it’s a reference to his sports science doctorate and the fact that his hands were as large as dinner plates.
Now he has emerged as an outsize figure in Russia’s war in Ukraine. His city, standing at 6′ 7″ tall, has fought back against the Russian threat for six weeks.
Austrian chancellor will meet with Putin on Monday
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer announced Sunday that he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday.
Nehammer wrote on Twitter that Austria is “militarily neutral, but we have a clear position on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. It has to stop!”
“Humanitarian corridors, a cease-fire and full investigation of war crimes are needed,” he said.
Nehammer said he has informed European partners of the visit, including the president of the European Commission, Turkey’s president and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Austrian chancellor, who has held his position since December, recently visited Kyiv to speak with Zelensky and traveled to the devastated city of Bucha, Ukrainian state-run news agency Ukrinform reported.
Nehammer said Austria will help alleviate the humanitarian suffering brought on by the war.
More than 4.5 million have fled Ukraine, U.N. reports
More than 4.5 million Ukrainians have fled their country since the Russian invasion began Feb. 24, according to figures from the United Nations.
Neighboring Poland has received the biggest influx of Ukrainian refugees, taking in nearly 2.6 million since the war’s start, data from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees shows. Large numbers of Ukrainians have also arrived in Romania, Hungary and Moldova, each of which have received more than 400,000 refugees.
The exodus from Ukraine has sparked an outpouring of global support, with donors pledging 9.1 billion euros ($10 billion) for refugees at an event Saturday convened by Canada and the European Commission.
More than 3.3 million Ukrainians fled the war in March alone, according to UNHCR data.
Workers at Chernobyl rotate shifts for first time in three weeks
For only the second time since Russian forces seized the site in late February, drained staffers at the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear plant were able to leave and rotate shifts, according to an update from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, director of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said Ukraine informed the IAEA on Sunday of the prior day’s rotation — the first in three weeks.
Still, the agency said the situation at the plant remains “far from normal.”
“While it is very positive that Ukrainian authorities are gradually restoring regulatory control of the Chornobyl site, it is clear that a lot of work remains to return the site to normality,” Grossi said in a statement.
Before the only other shift change last month, staffers at the plant had been essentially trapped there while the facility was under the control of Russian forces.
The IAEA says the Russian military withdrew from the facility March 31.
People there, the agency said in an update, have been working under “extremely stressful and difficult circumstances during the conflict.” Grossi has stressed the need for the technical workers at the site to be able to return home and rest, and he said the rotation was critical for the safe operation of the plant.
The IAEA director also said he is planning a visit to the site to conduct a radiological assessment.
Hundreds of tiny shoes: Protest spotlights child death toll in Ukraine’s Mariupol
Rows of small shoes were placed alongside candles in Helsinki during a protest Sunday to draw attention to the children killed in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, specifically in the battered port city of Mariupol.
There were shiny black boots. Tiny, cozy slippers. Sneakers in pink and purple.
In all, there were 210 pairs. They symbolized the total number of young lives Ukrainian officials said were lost in southeastern city of Mariupol, including when the Drama Theater — where hundreds of civilians were sheltering — was hit March 16.
Airport among targets struck in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukrainian official says
An airport in the Dnipropetrovsk region has been destroyed by a Russian strike, according to a Ukrainian official — among multiple attacks that local officials reported across the region Sunday, some causing casualties.
Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of Dnipropetrovsk province, said the “attack on the airport in Dnipro” destroyed the facility and “nearby infrastructure.”
He added: “The missiles keep flying.”
Ukrainian airports and key airfields have been frequent targets since the start of the Russian invasion in late February, prompting concern at times that the assaults could deprive Ukraine of usable airstrips.
In early March, airstrikes hit a military air base about 150 miles southwest of Kyiv, as well as a commercial airport in Vinnytsia, about 70 miles southeast of the capital. Last month, an aircraft repair center was also struck near Lviv.
