Ukraine: What happened today, Wednesday, May 4?
Anna Shevchenko, 35, stands next to her destroyed home in Irpin, near Kyiv. The house, built by Shevchenko's grandparents, was nearly completely levelled by bombing in late March during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In her beloved flowerbed, some roses, lilies, peonies and daffodils survived. 'It is new life. So I tried to save my flowers,; she said. Picture: AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti
The European Union proposed its toughest sanctions yet against Russia today, including a phased oil embargo, as Kyiv said Moscow was intensifying its offensive in eastern Ukraine and close Russian ally Belarus announced large-scale army drills.
Nearly 10 weeks into a war that has killed thousands, uprooted millions and flattened cities and towns in eastern and southern Ukraine, Ukraine's defence ministry said Moscow had carried out nearly 50 air strikes on Tuesday alone.
Russia also stepped up attacks on targets in western Ukraine in strikes it said were disrupting Western arms deliveries.
A new convoy of buses began evacuating more civilians from the devastated southeastern port city of Mariupol, which has seen the heaviest fighting of the war so far and where Moscow said remaining Ukrainian forces remained tightly blockaded.
Piling pressure on Russia's already battered $1.8 trillion economy, the European Commission proposed phasing out supplies of Russian crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of 2022. The price of Brent crude jumped 4% to more than $109 a barrel after the news.
The proposal, if agreed by EU governments, would be a watershed for the world's largest trading bloc, which remains dependent on Russian energy.
"Putin must pay a price, a high price, for his brutal aggression," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament in Strasbourg this morning.
However, two countries - Hungary and Slovakia - said they want to be exempted from the ban for now.
Ms Von der Leyen also announced sanctions targeting Russia's largest bank Sberbank, two other lenders, three state broadcasters as well as army officers and other individuals accused of war crimes.
The EU has yet to target Russian natural gas, used to heat homes and generate electricity across the bloc.
The Kremlin said Russia was looking at various options in response to the EU plans, adding that the sanctions would greatly increase costs for European citizens.
- The Russian bombing of a theatre in Mariupol was far deadlier than estimated, killing closer to 600 people inside and outside the building, an investigation has found.
- Ukrainian officials and the United Nations say they hope to arrange more evacuations from the bombed-out steel mill in Mariupol.
- Russian businesses will be banned from using UK-based accountancy firms, as new sanctions against major media organisations from the country have been announced by the British Government.
Meanwhile, Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the US and its NATO allies were continuing to pump weapons into Ukraine and reiterated a warning that Moscow would seek to hit those shipments.
The Russian defence ministry said its forces had disabled six railway stations in Ukraine used to supply Ukrainian forces with Western-made arms in the country's east, along with 40 other military targets including four depots storing ammunition and artillery weapons.
Ukraine's defence ministry said Russian strategic bombers had fired 18 rockets at targets in Ukraine "with the aim of damaging our country's transport infrastructure."
Russia published what it said was video footage of two Kalibr cruise missiles being launched from the Black Sea and said they had hit unspecified ground targets in Ukraine.
Announcing the surprise military drills, Belarus's defence ministry said they posed no threat to its neighbours, but Ukraine's border service said it could not exclude the possibility that Belarusian forces might join Russia's assault.
"Therefore, we are ready," spokesman Andriy Demchenko said.
Some Russian forces entered Ukraine via Belarus when the invasion began on Feb 24 but Belarusian troops have not so far been involved in what Moscow calls a "special military operation" to disarm Ukraine and defend it from fascists.
Kyiv and its Western backers say Moscow's fascism claim is an absurd pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression that has driven five million Ukrainians to flee abroad.
Ukraine has accused Russia of planning to hold a ‘Victory Day’ military parade in the captured city of Mariupol on May 9 to celebrate the Soviet Union's victory over the Nazi Germany in the second world war.
Ukraine’s military intelligence said an official from Russia’s presidential administration had arrived in Mariupol, to oversee plans for the parade.
Mariupol will become a centre of ‘celebration'," a Ukrainian Government statement read.
"The central streets of the city are urgently being cleaned of debris, bodies and unexploded ordnance."
The Ukrainian military claimed a “large-scale propaganda campaign” around the city was now underway.
"Russians will be shown stories about the ‘joy’ of locals on meeting the occupiers," the statement added.
Mariupol’s mayor, Vadym Boichenko, told Ukrainian television there were ongoing “works” in the city, and he suggested the Russians were preparing for something.
"They are removing signs of the crimes they have committed." he said.
In Mariupol, which has been under siege for weeks, a convoy organised by the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross, managed to evacuate and head for the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, according to the Governor of Donetsk.
However, Pavlo Kyrylenko could not say how many buses were in the convoy or whether any more civilians had been evacuated from the vast Azovstal steel works, where the city's last defenders are continuing to hold out against Russian forces.
The evacuees from Azovstal arrived by bus in Zaporizhzhia on after cowering for weeks in bunkers beneath the sprawling Soviet-era steel works.
Mariupol's mayor, Vadym Boichenko, said heavy fighting was still going on at Azovstal, and that contact with the Ukrainian fighters there had been lost.
More than 30 children are among the civilians there awaiting evacuation, he added.
Russia now claims complete control of the port city, which was once home to over 400,000 people but has now largely been reduced to smoking rubble after weeks of shelling by the Russians.
The city is key to Moscow's efforts to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea, and its takeover would link the area to other Russian-controlled territory in the south and east of Ukraine.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has said there is no justification for the threatened use of nuclear weapons and reminded Russia that it said last January a nuclear war “must never be fought”.
The department was responding to reports on Russian state TV showing computer-simulated nuclear attacks on Britain, which also wipes out Ireland.
Environment Minister Eamon Ryan described the TV reports as “disturbing” and a “disgrace”.
The computer simulation was carried on State-owned Russia-1 TV at the weekend and showed the Poseidon torpedo being fired from a submarine, the Belgorod, and exploding some 300km north-west of Donegal.
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