Today at 12: 54 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 2: 22 p.m. EDT
Today at 12: 54 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 2: 22 p.m. EDT
The United Nations resumed a “safe passage” operation Sunday to evacuate civilians from a steel plant in Mariupol that has been the last base for Ukrainian fighters and others in the besieged port city, according to a U.N. spokesman. About 100 civilians were being transferred to Ukrainian-controlled territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday.
On Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a surprise trip to Kyiv with a congressional delegation, telling Zelensky that “our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done.” The meeting with Pelosi, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, was disclosed by Zelensky on Sunday.
The evacuation of civilians from the steel plant in Mariupol has been a contentious issue as Russia seeks control of the port city, a strategic prize for President Vladimir Putin. For weeks, civilians who sought shelter at the sprawling facility have remained underground with dwindling supplies of food and medicine. A small group of women and children was allowed to leave the plant on Saturday.
Here’s what else to know
- Fighting continues in the eastern city of Kharkiv, with local officials suggesting that Russia may be finally reducing the intensity of its airstrikes and artillery attacks after a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
- Moscow’s recent actions in the Russian-occupied region of Kherson — where civilians are facing an Internet blackout and the implementation of a plan to use Russian currency — “are likely indicative of Russian intent to exert strong political and economic influence in Kherson over the long term,” according to a British intelligence update.
- Europe is scrambling to respond to the energy crisis prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, after Putin cut off natural gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland for refusing to pay in rubles.
- The Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel for updates.
Hundreds still stuck at besieged Mariupol steel plant, ministry says
While about 100 civilians have been evacuated from Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Sunday that hundreds more, including dozens of children, are still waiting to be taken to safety.
In a Twitter thread on its official account, the ministry welcomed the evacuation operation underway but warned that “more is still to be done,” pleading for additional humanitarian corridors to evacuate the rest of the civilians as well as the hundreds of wounded Ukrainian soldiers who remain at the plant and need “urgent” medical treatment.
“We demand immediate evacuation of wounded Ukrainian troops in accordance with international humanitarian law,” the ministry wrote.
According to the BBC, the commander of a national guard brigade, Denis Schlega, said at least 500 wounded soldiers and several hundred civilians are inside the plant.
Schlega pleaded for their evacuation, as well as the removal of the bodies of deceased fighters.
“We initiated this evacuation. We want around 500 more wounded soldiers to leave this area, and for our dead boys to be picked up. We’re going to stay here and continue our mission until the end,” the commander said.
In a statement sent to The Washington Post on Sunday, the United Nations said it will continue to push for safe evacuations for all civilians — not only those inside the plant — who wish to leave Mariupol.
Ukraine’s foreign minister presses for E.U. embargo on Russian oil
Ukraine’s foreign minister is calling for the next round of European Union sanctions on Russia to include an oil embargo.
Dmytro Kuleba wrote Sunday on Twitter that he spoke with Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s top diplomat, and told him that the new sanctions “must include an oil embargo.”
“I also emphasized there can be no alternative to granting Ukraine E.U. candidate status,” Kuleba said. “We paid separate attention to further safe evacuation from besieged Mariupol.”
Borrell said that the E.U. will continue to stand with Ukraine and that “work is ongoing on the next package of sanctions.”
E.U. nations have been scrambling to find alternatives to Russian energy since the invasion of Ukraine, moving to cut off dependence on Russian supplies and refusing to pay in rubles, The Washington Post previously reported.
Operation underway to evacuate civilians from Mariupol plant, U.N. says
The United Nations confirmed Sunday that an operation to evacuate civilians from a battered steel plant in the besieged port city of Mariupol is underway.
Saviano Abreu, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told The Washington Post that efforts to get people out of the industrial complex were “still on track and ongoing.”
A U.N. convoy left the city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles northwest of Mariupol, on Friday night and arrived at the plant Saturday morning to begin the evacuations. The safe-passage operation is being carried out in collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross and in coordination with Ukrainian and Russian officials.
Abreu described the operation as “extremely complex and risky.” He declined to offer more details about the number of civilians successfully evacuated because, he said, it could “jeopardize the operation” and put the safety of both civilians and U.N. workers at risk.
Officials believe that up to 1,000 people have sought refuge at the Azovstal complex, which has been pummeled for days by Russian strikes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed Sunday that a first group of about 100 people was headed to “Ukrainian-controlled” territory and said he will meet with the evacuees in Zaporizhzhia on Monday.
“I thank our team! Right now they, together with the representatives of the U.N., are working on the evacuation of the rest of the civilians from the territory of the factory,” he wrote on Twitter.
The ICRC also confirmed that the operation is going ahead. In a statement sent Sunday to The Post, the humanitarian organization added that “no more details can be shared until the situation allows.”
The Mariupol City Council said in a statement on Telegram that, due to security reasons, the evacuation of civilians from other parts of the city has been postponed until Monday morning.
Russian invasion worsens global food shortage, U.S. official says
The rippling effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have worsened food shortages in developing nations, according to Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Disruptions to the supply of wheat and fertilizer have threatened populations in areas such as the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa that relied heavily on Russia for these commodities, Power said, speaking Sunday on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.”
“As a result, we’re working with countries to think about natural solutions like manure and compost,” Power said. “And this may hasten transitions that would have been in the interest of farmers to make eventually anyway.”
Food prices globally are up 34 percent from a year ago, partly as a result of the Russian invasion, Power said.
Power said more funding is needed from Congress to continue U.S. efforts to help developing countries generate more food supply. “We really do need this financial support from the Congress to be able to meet emergency food needs so we don’t see the cascading deadly effects of Russia’s war extend into Africa and beyond,” she said.
Ukrainian envoy says Biden’s proposed aid package would meet needs
Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States said President Biden’s recent request to Congress for $33 billion in aid for Kyiv comprises everything it needs in defending against Russian forces.
“We need all the assistance we can get in defensive weapons, in military support and financial support, but also in humanitarian support, and I think this request covers all of these areas,” Oksana Markarova said Sunday on ABC News’s “This Week.”
Her comments came after a weekend visit to Ukraine by top Democratic lawmakers and after Secretary of State Antony Blinken updated his Ukrainian counterpart on the aid package, which the administration proposed to Congress last week.
Markarova said the visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues this weekend was a sign of strong support for Ukraine. “We feel and we know that Americans are our brothers and sisters in this fight for freedom, for democracy,” she said on the program.
Russia, she said, has shown no sign of withdrawing from Ukraine. “This war was started by Russians. It has to be ended by Russians,” Markarova said.
“We really hope they will make a decision faster.”
Pope Francis calls for safe evacuations, says Russia’s war makes him cry
Pope Francis, addressing thousands of spectators Sunday in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican, described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “macabre regression of humanity” that makes him weep.
“I suffer and cry thinking of the suffering of the Ukrainian population, in particular the weakest, the elderly, the children,” said the pope, who has condemned the war launched by Russia in late February. He mentioned the “children who are being expelled and deported” and called for peace, Reuters reported.
The 85-year-old pontiff called for more humanitarian corridors to be established so that civilians can be safely evacuated from the Mariupol steelworks, which has served as a refuge for civilians and where Ukrainian fighters defending the city from invading Russian forces are holding out.
While Francis has denounced the conflict on numerous occasions and has called for a truce during the Easter period, he has not directly referenced Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts told Reuters last month that naming and shaming is “not part of the Vatican’s diplomatic playbook.”
Evacuations from the devastated port city were set to resume around 4 p.m. Sunday local time, according to a representative of the city’s mayor.
Ukrainian official says Russian strikes have slowed in Kharkiv
Russian forces have reduced the intensity of their strikes on the embattled eastern city of Kharkiv, a local official said Sunday — although he said strikes occurred in nearby Derhachi and warned residents not to go outside.
Oleh Synyehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, issued the update after Ukraine’s military said Saturday that it has regained control of four settlements in Kharkiv that were seized by Russian forces — and after Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it shot down two Ukrainian bombers in the region of Kharkiv overnight, according to Reuters.
Synyehubov said Sunday on Telegram that Russian forces struck Derhachi, a settlement roughly 10 miles northwest of the center of Kharkiv. There was one victim, he said, although he did not clarify whether the person was injured or dead.
However, Russian strikes have slowed in Kharkiv, he said. “The enemy has reduced the intensity of the shelling; this is thanks to the Ukrainian armed forces, which are liberating residential points in Kharkiv region from the occupation,” he said. “But it is not worth ceasing to be vigilant.”
In a separate post, Synyehubov asked residents of northern and eastern Kharkiv not to leave their bomb shelters during the day unless absolutely necessary, even if air raid sirens were not blaring.
In the past 24 hours, Russian forces have fired three artillery shells and rocket-propelled grenades at Kharkiv, Synyehubov said. Firefighters extinguished 15 fires in and around Kharkiv and the district of Izyum, he added. One person was injured in Balaklia, a city south of Kharkiv, he said.
The Washington Post shadowed a brigade of paramedics in Kharkiv this week for a 24-hour shift marked by a civilian’s close call and the sounds of incoming and outgoing fire.
On Saturday, Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun announced in a news release on the Defense Ministry’s Facebook page that Ukrainian forces have made gains in the eastern part of the country.
“As a result of the offensive of the Ukrainian defense forces in the Kharkiv Oblast, control over the settlements of Verkhnya Rohanka, Ruska Lozova, Slobidske and Prilesne was restored,” Shtupun said.
Shtupun accused Russian forces of continuing “to carry out illegal actions in the occupied territories of Kharkiv region.”
Annabelle C. Chapman and Isabelle Khurshudyan contributed to this report.
‘You cannot fold to a bully,’ Pelosi says of Russian aggression
Speaking at a news conference in Poland after a trip to Ukraine, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the West cannot back down in the face of Russian threats.
“Let me just speak for myself,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said. “Do not be bullied by bullies. If they’re making threats, you cannot back down. We’re there for the fight, and you cannot fold to a bully.”
In an escalating war of words, Russia recently warned Western countries not to “test our patience” after the United States and Britain publicly backed Ukraine’s right to strike Russian territory following a spate of mysterious fires.
One of the members of the Democratic congressional delegation to Ukraine, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), said the emphasis of the trip was clear: “Weapons, weapons and weapons,” echoing a recent remark by Ukraine’s foreign minister. “We have to make sure the Ukrainians have the weapons to win.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory W. Meeks (N.Y.), another member of the delegation, said the trip showed a need for more pressure on Russia. “Nothing is going to decrease,” Meeks said.
British ambassador to Ukraine says war could last ‘through next year’
The United Kingdom’s ambassador to Ukraine, freshly returned to Kyiv, said in an interview that the war with Russia is “a long game” that could last until next year.
“You are looking at quite a long game … certainly through this year and probably through next year,” British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons told the Observer in an interview published Sunday.
The British diplomat, who said Friday that she was back in Kyiv — one of more than a dozen ambassadors to have returned recently for the first time since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion — said the Ukrainian capital “feels like the right place to be.”
Simmons made the journey to Kyiv in a car from western Ukraine, the Observer reported. “I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to Kyiv, so coming back is an extraordinary thing,” she said.
“It’s helpful to drive because you get a real sense of what was going on … and it’s truly shocking,” the ambassador said. “But what is equally extraordinary is to see how Ukraine kept Russia out of Kyiv.”
Simmons said although Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces have withdrawn from the areas around Kyiv to focus on eastern and southeastern Ukraine, the capital is not yet safe. “Politically, I don’t doubt that Putin’s objectives for Ukraine have not changed, even though their tanks had to withdraw back to the north from Kyiv,” she said. “I can also see that the Kyiv city administration and the Ukraine armed forces are not taking that gain for granted at all. And they’re right.”
British officials have attracted the ire of the Kremlin in recent days for appearing to give Ukraine the green light to attack Russian targets using weapons donated by the West, and for implying that the United Kingdom could support a push by Ukrainian forces to regain control of Crimea, a region that Russia annexed in 2014.
When asked whether Britain should support such an operation, Simmons appeared more restrained. “The most important thing right now is to push Russia back to where they were before February … because that’s where the existential threat lies. Let’s get to that stage. And then let’s see,” she said.
The British government announced on April 22 that it would reopen its embassy in Kyiv the next week, but Simmons said that the embassy has not yet opened and that consular services are not up and running.
Mariupol residents urged to evacuate in ‘one of the last real chances to leave city’
Residents of Mariupol will be able to try to evacuate starting 4 p.m. Sunday, Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, posted on Telegram, calling it “one of the last real chances to leave the city.”
Civilians will be taken 140 miles northwest of Mariupol to the city of Zaporizhzhia, where other survivors have found refuge from relentless Russian shelling. As many as 1,000 people were believed to be sheltering underground at the steel plant in Mariupol, which has been subjected to a brutal siege.
“The scariest thing was that when you went out in the street, you saw that nobody was allowed to collect the bodies,” one survivor who fled Mariupol for Zaporizhzhia told The Washington Post last month. “A lot of buildings were on fire. We know that a lot of families burned alive.”
On Saturday, a small group was evacuated from Mariupol’s sprawling steel works after a cease-fire took effect — although President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. officials expressed concern that communication between Ukraine and Russia could soon break down.
Past agreements to evacuate civilians through humanitarian corridors have collapsed because of mistrust amid the conflict.
On Sunday, Pope Francis said Mariupol has been “barbarously bombarded and destroyed,” and he called for a safe path out of the city for those trapped inside the steel works industrial site, Reuters reported.
Zelensky awards Pelosi with Order of Princess Olga, Ukrainian civil honor
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the Order of Princess Olga following their meeting in Kyiv, conferring on her a Ukrainian civil decoration that, according to a 1997 presidential decree, is given to women who have made outstanding contributions to the Ukrainian state.
Photos supplied by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service and published by Reuters show Zelensky presenting Pelosi (D-Calif.) with the award, which highlights her “significant personal contribution” to strengthening America’s ties with Ukraine, and “supporting sovereign, independent and democratic Ukraine,” according to a Ukrainian government statement.
In March, as Russian forces continued their brutal invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv residents flocked to the capital’s statue of Princess Olga to protect it from shelling, along with other surrounding monuments dear to the Ukrainian people.
Photos taken in Kyiv at the time showed volunteers stacking sandbags to protect the monument dedicated to the princess, a regent of Kievan Rus, a medieval empire founded by Vikings in the 9th century, the New York Times reported.
Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, was also awarded the Order of Princess Olga by Zelensky last month during her visit to the capital.
Metsola tweeted that she was “honoured” and “humbled” to receive the award, which officials said marked her “significant personal contribution to the consolidation of international support for Ukraine” during Russia’s invasion.
“It means a great deal to me personally & is symbolic of the special bond the [European Parliament] has with Ukrainians,” she wrote. “We are with Ukraine today & we will be with them tomorrow.”
Blinken discusses U.S. aid to Ukraine on call with Ukrainian counterpart
Secretary of State Antony Blinken updated his Ukrainian counterpart on U.S. efforts to reopen its embassy in Kyiv and on a Biden administration push to secure significantly more funding from Congress for Ukraine, the State Department said Saturday.
Blinken spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba “to follow up on their April 24 meeting in Kyiv,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Saturday in a statement. Blinken visited Kyiv with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last Sunday. The two officials announced new commitments to Ukraine’s defense and said the United States would start sending its diplomats back to Ukraine and eventually reopen the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, after President Biden announced he would nominate Bridget Brink as ambassador to Ukraine.
In his call with Kuleba, Blinken “emphasized the United States’ robust support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s brutal aggression,” Price said.
“The Secretary provided an update on plans for U.S. diplomats to return to Ukraine, including initial visits to Lviv this week and plans to return to Kyiv as soon as possible,” Price said. He added that the pair “discussed the Administration’s April 28 request to Congress for $33 billion in security, economic, and humanitarian aid to empower Ukraine to defeat the Kremlin’s unconscionable war.”
On Twitter, Kuleba said he and Blinken “discussed further sanctions on Russia, arms deliveries and financial support to Ukraine,” as well as policies to facilitate Ukrainian exports to the United States.
Spoke with @SecBlinken. Grateful to the U.S. for keeping the promise to stand by Ukraine resolutely. We discussed further sanctions on Russia, arms deliveries and financial support to Ukraine. I also called on the U.S. to provide maximum liberalization for Ukrainian exports.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) May 1, 2022
In Kharkiv, a 24-hour shift with paramedics amid Russian shelling
KHARKIV, Ukraine — When paramedics arrived at the scene of the latest Russian bombardment, there were two victims on the ground. One was facedown in the dirt, with a trail of his blood flowing into a puddle of water. He was already dead.
The other was someone whom Stepan Yaremko and Natalia Mykytenko could save, so they turned quickly to him. The man no longer had a right foot, and his shin was mangled. He told the paramedics his back hurt — a piece of shrapnel was lodged in it.
In the ambulance, Mykytenko asked for his name. He said it was Sasha. He had stepped out to feed the stray cats when the Russian artillery shell landed. It just felt as if something hit him, he told her.
Ten minutes passed as Mykytenko and Yaremko applied a tourniquet to Sasha’s leg, hooked him up to a morphine drip to numb his pain and kept him talking. All that time, parked in the middle of a field with no cover around, the medics themselves were in the line of fire if another round of bombardment started. There’s always the risk of a “double tap”: Russian forces tend to strike the same place twice within the hour, to finish off the target or perhaps deliberately target first responders.
The Washington Post shadowed a brigade of paramedics for a 24-hour shift in Kharkiv, the eastern Ukrainian city about 25 miles from the Russian border that has been heavily battered by airstrikes and artillery since the first day of the war.
Russian threats redraw the global energy map
Europe is scrambling to respond to the energy crisis prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent days lashed out at his foes in the West by cutting off natural gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland for refusing to pay in rubles. Other large consumers of Russian gas, including Germany and Italy, have sought to reassure their citizens that they are seeking workarounds if Putin expands the cutoff as he has threatened.
But under almost every scenario, the next 18 months are going to be a harrowing time for Europe, as the impacts of high prices ripple around the world and governments struggle to power their factories, heat their homes and keep their electricity plants running.
There are not enough alternatives in the near term to avoid major economic pain in the coming winter if Russia shuts down supply. This month, for instance, the German central bank warned that the country’s economy could shrink by 2 percent if the war persists.
