Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has used his late-night address on Saturday to say Russia is targeting “the whole European project”. He said Russian aggression “was not intended to be limited to Ukraine alone” and the “entire European project is a target for Russia”.
Zelenskiy also said it was the “moral duty of all democracies, all the forces of Europe, to support Ukraine’s desire for peace”, adding that the country was ready to simultaneously fight and look for diplomatic ways to put an end to the war.
Civilians continued to flee eastern parts of Ukraine before an expected onslaught from Russian troops and firefighters searched for survivors in a northern town no longer occupied by Russian forces.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced nine corridors for evacuation in a Telegram post.
Officials have said a grave with dozens of Ukrainians civilians was found in Buzova village near Kyiv, the latest such discovery as Russian forces retreat from their offensive on Kyiv and shift their assault to the east.
Boris Johnson’s visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv was “very timely and very important”, said Ihor Zhovkva, a senior diplomatic adviser to Zelenskiy. The UK prime minister “did not come empty handed”, as Johnson and Zelenskiy discussed various types of support the UK could offer, including anti-ship missiles and financial support. Zelenskiy called for more weapons.
The Ukrainian military’s latest operational report said Russian forces are attempting to break through the Ukrainian defences in Izum, Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, while also attempting to establish full control over the city of Mariupol.
Satellite images released by US private space technology company Maxar Technologies show an eight-mile-long military convoy moving south through the eastern Ukraine town of Velkyi Burluk on 8 April. The town sits to the east of Kharkiv, close to Ukraine’s border with Russia.
The Russian ministry of defence claimed its forces carried out missile strikes in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions. The Guardian could not immediately verify those claims. The Russian military has repeatedly claimed it is targeting “foreign mercenaries” and “nationalist” formations in Ukraine and denies targeting civilian infrastructure, despite evidence to the contrary.
A school and several apartment buildings were hit by shelling in the Luhansk and Dnipro areas early on Sunday morning, wounding one person and causing a fire, officials said.
Zelenskiy has warned his country “does not have time to wait”, while pushing for an oil embargo on Russia in his latest national address. “Oil is one of the two sources of Russian self-confidence, their sense of impunity,” he said.