Evacuation of civilians from Mariupol set to continue
Civilians evacuated from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol are expected to arrive in the Ukraine-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Monday, as part of an effort led by the Red Cross and the UN and coordinated with Russia and Ukraine.
“Today we finally managed to start the evacuation of people from Azovstal,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly address on Sunday.
Given all the complexities of the process, the first evacuees will arrive in Zaporizhzhia tomorrow morning. Hopefully this doesn’t fail. Our team will meet them there. I hope that tomorrow all the necessary conditions will be met to continue the evacuation of people from Mariupol. We plan to start at 8 am.
One group from the besieged plant, the last holdout of Ukrainian fighters in the city, has also arrived in the village of Bezimenne in Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine. In an interview with Reuters, one woman described the terror civilians holed up with the fighters endured as Russian forces bombarded the plant.
When the bunker started to shake, I was hysterical, my husband can vouch for that. I was so worried the bunker would cave in,” Natalia Usmanova said.
Mariupol’s city council separately said an evacuation convoy coordinated by the UN and the Red Cross would also be able to leave the city on Monday.
As many as 100,000 people may still be in blockaded Mariupol, including up to 1,000 civilians and an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters beneath the Soviet-era Azovstal plant.
Mariupol has been a key target for Vladimir Putin because of its strategic location near the Crimea Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.
The founder of one of Russia’s biggest banks, Oleg Tinkov, has denounced president Vladimir Putin in his first interview since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, and said he could be in physical danger.
“I’ve realized that Russia, as a country, no longer exists,” Tinkov told the New York Times from an undisclosed location, but predicted that Putin would stay in power a long time. “I believed that the Putin regime was bad. But of course, I had no idea that it would take on such catastrophic scale.
The 54-year-old made headlines in April when he offered some of the strongest criticism by a prominent Russian of the Kremlin’s military action, writing in an Instagram post that 90% of Russians were “against this war” and calling Russia’s forces a “shit army”.
“And how will the army be good, if everything else in the country is shit and mired in nepotism, sycophancy and servility?” he wrote.
In Sunday’s interview he said that many of his acquaintances in the business and government elite had told him privately that they agreed with him, “but they are all afraid.”
He also said that he had been forced by the Kremlin to sell his 35% stake in the bank he founded, Tinkoff, to a Russian mining billionaire for a fraction of what it was worth. The “fire sale” took place last week, said Tinkov. “It was like a hostage – you take what you are offered.”
Tinkoff denied his characterisation of events.
Tinkov also said he had hired bodyguards after friends with contacts in the Russian security services told him he should fear for his life.
Explosions heard in Russian city of Belgorod, governor says
Two explosions have taken place in the early hours of Monday in Belgorod, the southern Russian region bordering Ukraine, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor has written in a social media post.
“There were no casualties or damage,” Gladkov wrote, according to Reuters.
On Sunday Gladkov had said one person was injured in a fire at a Russian defence ministry facility in Belgorod, while seven homes had been damaged.
Posts on social media said fighter jets and loud explosions had been heard above the city overnight. The Guardian was unable to verify the reports.
Russia last month accused Ukraine of a helicopter attack on a fuel depot in Belgorod, for which Kyiv denied responsibility, as well as shelling villages and firing missiles at an ammunition depot.
Another video showing Jet Aircraft deploying Flares over the Western Russian city of Belgorod, Sonic Booms and possible Explosions have also been reportedly heard over the City tonight, something very strange is occurring. pic.twitter.com/09ZKf1Mnt1
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) May 2, 2022
Evacuation of civilians from Mariupol set to continue
Civilians evacuated from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol are expected to arrive in the Ukraine-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Monday, as part of an effort led by the Red Cross and the UN and coordinated with Russia and Ukraine.
“Today we finally managed to start the evacuation of people from Azovstal,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly address on Sunday.
Given all the complexities of the process, the first evacuees will arrive in Zaporizhzhia tomorrow morning. Hopefully this doesn’t fail. Our team will meet them there. I hope that tomorrow all the necessary conditions will be met to continue the evacuation of people from Mariupol. We plan to start at 8 am.
One group from the besieged plant, the last holdout of Ukrainian fighters in the city, has also arrived in the village of Bezimenne in Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine. In an interview with Reuters, one woman described the terror civilians holed up with the fighters endured as Russian forces bombarded the plant.
When the bunker started to shake, I was hysterical, my husband can vouch for that. I was so worried the bunker would cave in,” Natalia Usmanova said.
Mariupol’s city council separately said an evacuation convoy coordinated by the UN and the Red Cross would also be able to leave the city on Monday.
As many as 100,000 people may still be in blockaded Mariupol, including up to 1,000 civilians and an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters beneath the Soviet-era Azovstal plant.
Mariupol has been a key target for Vladimir Putin because of its strategic location near the Crimea Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.
More than a quarter of the units dedicated to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have likely since been rendered “combat ineffective”, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update on the conflict.
Some of the country’s most elite units had suffered the highest attrition rates, it continued, adding: “It will probably take years for Russia to reconstitute these forces.”
The update in full:
At the start of the conflict, Russia committed over 120 battalion tactical groups, approximately 65% of its entire ground combat strength.
It is likely that more than a quarter of these units have now been rendered combat ineffective.
Some of Russia’s most elite units, including the VDV Airborne Forces, have suffered the highest levels of attrition. It will probably take years for Russia to reconstitute these forces.
Summary
Hello, this is Helen Livingstone bringing you the latest news from the war in Ukraine. Here’s a summary of the latest developments:
- Civilians evacuated from the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol are expected to arrive in the Ukraine-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Monday, as part of an effort led by the Red Cross and the UN. One group from the besieged plant has also arrived in the village of Bezimenne in Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine. Mariupol’s city council separately said an evacuation convoy coordinated by the UN and the Red Cross would also be able to leave the city on Monday.
- Two explosions took place in the early hours of Monday in Belgorod, the southern Russian region bordering Ukraine, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor said. “There were no casualties or damage,” Gladkov wrote. On Sunday Gladkov had said one person was injured in a fire at a Russian defence ministry facility in Belgorod, while seven homes had been damaged. No further details were immediately available.
- Russia’s top uniformed officer, General Valery Gerasimov, visited dangerous frontline positions in eastern Ukraine last week in a bid to reinvigorate the Russian offensive there, the New York Times has reported citing Ukrainian and US officials. He left on Saturday shortly before a deadly Ukrainian attack on a school being used as a military base in the Russian-controlled city of Izium.
- US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is set to meet Polish president Andrzej Duda on Monday, after becoming the highest-ranking US official to visit Ukraine since the outbreak of war. In a press conference after meeting Zelenskiy, Pelosi said that the US would not be bullied by Russia. Adam Schiff, chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee, meanwhile told CNN it was “only a matter of time” before US president Joe Biden visits Ukraine.
- Russia’s latest strikes, including on grain warehouses and residential neighbourhoods, “prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army,” Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address, asking, “What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war?” The “ruined lives of people and the burned or stolen property will give nothing to Russia.”
- German chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged to continue supporting Ukraine with money, aid and weapons, saying a pacifist approach to the war is “outdated.”
His remarks to a May Day rally in Dusseldorf were an implicit rebuke to a group of intellectuals, lawyers and creatives who condemned Russia’s war of aggression in an open letter, but urged Scholz not to send heavy weapons to Ukraine.
- Russia’s latest strikes, including on grain warehouses and residential neighbourhoods, “prove once again that the war against Ukraine is a war of extermination for the Russian army,” Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address, asking, “What could be Russia’s strategic success in this war?” The “The ruined lives of people and the burned or stolen property will give nothing to Russia,” he continued.
- South Korea has become the latest country to reopen its embassy in Kyiv, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul has said. Ambassador Kim Hyung-tae is set to resume working from Kyiv on Monday.
- Russia’s Defence Ministry has confirmed an attack on an airfield near Odesa on Saturday. It said its forces had destroyed a runway and hangar at an airfield, which contained weapons supplied by the US and EU.
- The governor of the north eastern city of Kharkiv urged people not to leave shelters on Sunday due to intense shelling. Posting on Telegram, Oleh Synyehubov said: “In connection with the intense shelling, we urge residents of the northern and eastern districts of Kharkiv, in particular Saltivka, not to leave the shelter during the day without urgency.”
- The European Union could phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year, under the latest set of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s war machine being discussed in Brussels.The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said for weeks that the EU is working on sanctions targeting Russian oil, but the key question is how and when the commodity is phased out.
- Russia’s online trolling operation is becoming increasingly decentralised and is gaining “incredible traction” on TikTok with disinformation aimed at sowing doubt over events in Ukraine, a US social media researcher has warned. Darren Linvill, professor at Clemson University, South Carolina, who has been studying the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA) troll farm operation since 2017, said it was succeeding in creating more authentic-seeming posts.