April 17, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Pope Francis on Sunday said the world is marking an “Easter of war,” and called for peace in Ukraine, which he said has been dragged into a “cruel and senseless war.” 

“We have seen all too much blood, all too much violence. Our hearts, too, have been filled with fear and anguish,” the Pope said while delivering his annual "Urbi et Orbi" Easter blessing, adding “our eyes, too, are incredulous on this Easter of war.” 

"May there be peace for war-torn Ukraine, so sorely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged. In this terrible night of suffering and death, may a new dawn of hope soon appear! Let there be a decision for peace. May there be an end to the flexing of muscles while people are suffering,” Pope Francis said from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica after Easter Mass. 

Around 100,000 people attended the Pope’s Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square and nearby areas, according to the Vatican's press office. 

Among them were several Ukrainian politicians, including Ivan Fedorov, the elected mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol who was detained by Russian forces last month and accused of terrorism offenses. 

“I hold in my heart all the many Ukrainian victims, the millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, the divided families, the elderly left to themselves, the lives broken and the cities razed to the ground. I see the faces of the orphaned children fleeing from the war,” Pope Francis continued.  

The Pope also highlighted acts of charity amid the “pain of war," such as “the open doors of all those families and communities that are welcoming migrants and refugees throughout Europe.” 

Three sappers -- or military engineers -- from Ukraine’s State Emergency Service were killed and four others seriously injured while removing cluster munitions in the northeastern Kharkiv region on Sunday, according to the head of the regional administration.  

Separately, three civilians were killed and dozens were wounded in shelling by Russian troops in the last 24 hours in the region, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, Oleg Sinegubov, wrote on a verified Telegram page on Sunday. 

"They are currently receiving treatment in the hospital. 31 people were injured in Russian shelling, including four children,” Sinegubov said.  

Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, has been subjected to intense bombardments throughout the past weeks of conflict.

According to Sinegubov, Russian forces have fired 23 artillery, mortar and cluster shells in the areas of Northern Saltivka, Pyatihatki, Oleksiyivka, the city center, Kharkiv Tractor Plant and Dergachi. There was also one missile strike in the area. 

"The enemy cannot approach Kharkiv as our armed forces are holding strong positions and are even advancing in some directions. Therefore, Russians resort to shameful shelling of residential neighborhoods," he said.  

He appealed to people not to go out unnecessarily and to comply with limits on the number of people allowed to stay in one place.  

Before Russia’s war on Ukraine began, Kira Obedinsky was a joyful, loved 12-year-old girl. Now orphaned, injured and alone in a Russian-controlled hospital in eastern Ukraine, she has become an unwitting pawn in Moscow’s information war.

Obedinsky’s mother died when she was a baby. Her father Yevhen Obedinsky, a former captain of Ukraine’s national water polo team, was shot and killed as Russian forces fought their way into the southeastern city of Mariupol on March 17.

Days later, Kira and her father’s girlfriend tried to flee the city on foot alongside neighbors. But after she was injured in the blast from a landmine, Kira was taken to a hospital in the Donetsk region, which is controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. 

Now Kira’s grandfather, Oleksander, fears he will never see her again. He said an official from the breakaway government in Donetsk phoned and invited him to travel there to claim her, which is impossible because of the war.

He says he spoke to the hospital and was told Kira will eventually be sent to an orphanage in Russia. They took away her documents, he said, and was told Kira will be provided with new ones in Russia.

The Russian government has said it has helped move at least 60,000 Ukrainian people to safety across the Russian border. The Ukrainian government has said around 40,000 have been relocated against their will describing it as abduction and forced deportation.

Russian media, which has repeatedly downplayed the brutality of the conflict in Ukraine, has shown video of Kira talking happily about how she's sometimes allowed to call her grandfather. 

This is “proof” that she wasn’t abducted, according to one Russian TV presenter, who dubbed the claim another “Ukrainian fake.”

Meanwhile, Oleksander has received an audio message from Kira telling him not to cry. But the young girl who has lost her family, her freedom and her home in Russia’s war, cannot stop her own tears.

“I haven't seen you for so long”, she says. “I want to cry.”

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Russia or die: After weeks under Putin's bombs, these Ukrainians were given only one way out

Russia's Ministry of Defense on Sunday threatened the "elimination" of resistance soldiers still fighting in the besieged southwestern Ukraine city of Mariupol as it confirmed that an ultimatum demanding their surrender had been ignored.

In a statement, it said that Ukrainian soldiers surrounded in a gigantic steelworks in the city had been urged "to voluntarily lay down arms and surrender in order to save their lives."

"However, the Kiev nationalist regime, according to the radio intercept, forbade negotiations about surrendering," the ministry claimed.

The ministry also asserted that according to Ukrainian soldiers who had previously surrendered "there are up to 400 foreign mercenaries who joined the Ukrainian forces" trapped at the steel plant, including, it said, Europeans and Canadians.

"In case of further resistance, all of them will be eliminated," it said.

The Defense Ministry claimed that dozens of military facilities in eastern Ukraine had been destroyed in the latest Russian attacks. These included fuel and ammunition depots, the ministry said, around Severodonetsk, Kremmina and other towns in Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

It also claimed that Russian air defense system had shot down 10 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles in the Donbas region.

Read the full story here:

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Russia says Mariupol surrender ultimatum rejected and threatens elimination of resistance

The European Union is allocating a further €50 million ($54 million) in humanitarian aid to support those impacted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the European Commission said Sunday.

The package includes €45 million ($48.6 million) for humanitarian projects in Ukraine and €5 million ($5.4 million) for neighboring Moldova. Neither country is an EU member state.

According to the statement, the funding will be used to “address the most pressing humanitarian needs by providing emergency medical services, access to safe drinking water and hygiene, shelter and protection, cash assistance, and support against gender-based violence.”

“With millions of people on the move or trapped in active war zones, the needs in Ukraine are already massive. Now, we need to be prepared for a further increase in Russia's ruthless attacks on Ukraine, notably in the east,” the EU's commissioner for crisis management, Janez Lenarčič, said.

“[The money] will help people in hard-to-reach areas who are cut off from access to healthcare, water and electricity, and those, who have been forced to flee and leave everything behind," he said, adding:

The EU has so far put €143 million ($154.6 million) toward humanitarian help in Ukraine.

This funding is part of the €1 billion ($1.08 billion) support package pledged by the European Commission earlier this month.

Civilians trapped by the intense fighting in southern and eastern Ukraine had no way of escaping on Sunday after Ukraine was unable to agree evacuation routes with Russia

"We again demand providing the humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians, especially women and children from Mariupol," Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukrainian deputy prime minister, said on her Telegram channel.

Late Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry laid down conditions for the surrender on Sunday of the remaining Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol -- an ultimatum rejected by officials in the city.

Serhii Haidai, the head of Luhansk regional military administration, said that people should leave even though there were no official humanitarian corridors.

He urged people to "evacuate to the safe regions of Ukraine to survive and not to become a cheap labor for the Russians."

He said attempts would be made to evacuate civilians from Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Rubizhne, Popasna, and the Hirske community -- all places that have seen widespread devastation in recent weeks.

Haidai also accused the Russians of bombing despite agreed ceasefires to allow for evacuation:

He also repeated an allegation made by other Ukrainian officials in recent weeks, saying that Ukrainians "from the occupied part of Rubizhne and other cities are being forcibly deported to remote regions of Russia, where cheap labor is needed."

CNN has been unable to confirm the scale or details of forced deportations of Ukrainian civilians to Russia.

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Russia or die: After weeks under Putin's bombs, these Ukrainians were given only one way out | CNN

The southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv has now been without piped water for four days, forcing people to use water from streams and rivers.

Access to water was lost when the pipeline from Dnipro was damaged during fighting several days ago.

The head of Mykolaiv regional military administration Vitalii Kim said Sunday that attacks by Russian forces were continuing including cruise missile strikes.

He said the water problem would soon be fixed:

Kim said the military situation was in the defenders' favor. "While the enemy is preparing troops and mobilization, weapons are coming towards us."

Some context: The territory between Mykolaiv and Kherson to the south has seen intense fighting over the last three weeks as Ukrainian forces have launched counter-attacks

Mykolaiv itself has been regularly shelled by Russian forces but remains under Ukrainian control.

Ukrainian forces will continue to defend the city of Mariupol despite an ultimatum by Russia, Mariupol officials said Sunday.

An adviser to the mayor of Mariupol has responded to the demand by the Russian Ministry of Defense that Ukrainian soldiers still resisting in part of the city should surrender, saying Ukrainian forces continue to fight.

"In the (Saturday) evening, the occupiers announced they would provide 'a surrender corridor' for the remaining troops," Petro Andriushchenko said on Telegram.

"But as of today, our defenders continue to hold the defense," he said.

Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov, lies in the center of Russia's push to link up its forces in the east and south of Ukraine.

Andriushchenko also said resistance to the Russians continued beyond the Azovstal steel works, a gigantic facility that has been a bastion for Ukrainian forces fighting in Mariupol.

"Despite the occupiers' desire to show that the place of hostilities is limited to the Azovstal steel plant, this does not correspond with reality," he said. "Last night there were fights on the Taganrog Street that is located five kilometers away from Azovstal."

He said that "during the fighting, the occupiers shelled private residential houses with heavy artillery again. The shelling of the port area also continued."

CNN could not immediately confirm fighting elsewhere in Mariupol.

As Russia continues its relentless and devastating attack on Mariupol, it has issued an apparent ultimatum demanding Ukrainian fighters to surrender by Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, Kyiv and its surrounding region have been under attack once again, following a lull in strikes around the city. 

Here are the latest developments: