Ukraine: What happened today, Monday, April 18?
Men walk along a street filled with destroyed Russian military vehicles near Chernihiv, Ukraine. Picture: AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
On Monday, Russia said it had launched mass strikes overnight on the Ukrainian military and associated military targets, using its air force, missile forces, artillery and air defence systems to hit hundreds of targets right across Ukraine.
In a statement, the Russian defence ministry said air-launched missiles had destroyed 16 Ukrainian military facilities, including five command posts, a fuel depot and three ammunition warehouses, as well as Ukrainian armour and forces.
It said those strikes took place in the Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions and in the port of Mykolayiv, and that the Russian air force had launched strikes against 108 areas where it said Ukrainian forces and armour were concentrated.
The defence ministry accused Ukraine of planning "monstrous provocations" with mass civilian casualties designed to cast Russian forces in a bad light.
Specifically, it said Ukraine was plotting to shell Orthodox churches and cathedrals in various Ukrainian regions on the night of April 23, the eve of Orthodox Easter which is celebrated by most Ukrainians and Russians.
It said it had evidence to back its assertions but did not provide any. There was no immediate response to the allegations from Ukraine.
The Russian defence ministry also spoke of destroying 12 Ukrainian strike drones and tanks in other parts of Ukraine and of using Iskander missiles to destroy four arms and equipment depots in the Luhansk, Vinnytsia and Donetsk regions.
Russia has pledged to continue what it calls "a special military operation" to degrade the Ukrainian military and root out people it calls dangerous nationalists, until it has met all its objectives.
It is currently focused on trying to take full control of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, which has been besieged for weeks.
The defence ministry said Russian artillery had also struck 315 Ukrainian military targets overnight and that air defence systems had been used to bring down two MiG-29 fighters and one SU-25 plane.
- Ukraine’s state security service has posted a video of a Ukrainian politician held on a treason charge offering himself in exchange for the evacuation of Mariupol’s trapped civilians.
- Ukraine has vowed to “fight absolutely to the end” in Mariupol where the port’s last-known pocket of resistance is holed up in a sprawling steel plant laced with tunnels.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Russian troops in southern Ukraine have been carrying out torture and kidnappings as he called on the world to respond.
- Germany’s employers and unions have joined together in opposing an immediate European Union ban on natural gas imports from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, saying such a move would lead to factory shutdowns and the loss of jobs in the bloc’s largest economy.
Later on Monday, seven people were killed and almost a dozen more were wounded in Russian airstrikes on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, according to the region's governor. One of those who died was a child.
Lviv had been spared much of the heavier fighting since the Russian invasion began on February 24.
Situated about 50km from Polish border, the has become a city of refuge for displaced Ukrainians as well as acting as a logistical hub for western arms deliveries sent to Ukraine via Poland.
Now however, in apparent expansion of attacks in the region, there were reports of a handful of military infrastructure targets being hit.
"It was a barbaric strike at a service station, it's a completely civilian facility," Lviv governor Maksym Kozytskyy told a news conference.
The mayor added that Russian forces were "trying to intimidate Ukraine by going after civilians."
"Look at what’s going on in Mariupol. Thousands of innocent people were killed. What we have seen in Bucha and Hostomel is horrible."
Mayor Sadoyyi said that a hotel sheltering Ukrainians who had fled fighting in other parts of the country was among the buildings badly damaged.
"There are now no safe or unsafe locations in Ukraine," Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.
"All the cities and villages are in the same situation.
Military analysts say Russia is increasing its strikes on weapons factories, railways and other infrastructure targets across Ukraine to wear down the country’s ability to resist a major ground offensive in the Donbas, Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern industrial heartland.
Elsewhere, Russian forces carried out aerial attacks near Kyiv and elsewhere in an apparent effort to weaken Ukraine’s military capacity ahead of the anticipated assault on the Donbas.
After the humiliating sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet last week in what the Ukrainians boasted was a missile attack, the Kremlin has vowed to step up strikes on the capital.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was hit by shelling on Monday leaving at least three people dead, according to journalists on the scene.
Among them was a woman who appeared to be going out to collect water in the rain. She was found lying with a water canister and an umbrella by her side.
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