At least nine people were killed, including a two-year-old child, and 21 wounded on Friday when a Russian missile strike hit residential buildings in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, emergency services in the Donetsk region said. The regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, told national TV earlier that seven Russian S-300 missiles had been fired and there were “no fewer than seven spots hit” in the city, west of Bakhmut. Rescue teams searching for victims sifted through rubble through the night using cranes, ladders and other heavy equipment.
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has signed a bill allowing authorities to issue electronic notices to draftees and reservists amid the fighting in Ukraine, sparking fears of a new wave of mobilisation. The bill signed into law was published Friday on the official register of government documents. Russia’s military service rules previously required the in-person delivery of notices to conscripts and reservists who are called up for duty.
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition politician, has been grappling with severe stomach pain in jail that could be the result of slow-acting poison, a close ally said on Friday. “His situation is critical. We are all very concerned,” Ruslan Shaveddinov said in a phone interview.
Ukraine’s security service has issued a warning to the millions of people in the country celebrating Orthodox Easter this weekend, Sky News reported. Ukrainians were asked to “limit the attendance of mass events” and avoid lingering “unnecessarily” in temples during the traditional blessing of the Easter basket.
Jack Teixeira has been detained pending a detention hearing that is set for Wednesday 19 April. The member of the US air force national guard has been charged with the unauthorised removal and retention of classified documents and materials. The 21-year-old made his first appearance in a federal court in Boston on Friday after the FBI arrested him in Massachusetts the previous day.
Ukraine retrieved the bodies of 82 of its soldiers from Russian-controlled territory on Friday, a government ministry said. It gave no details about how the bodies were retrieved but said it was carried out “in accordance with the norms of the Geneva convention”.
The parents of detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich have said they remained optimistic for a positive outcome to his detention, insisting that their son “still loved Russia”. “It’s one of the American qualities that we absorbed, you know, be optimistic, believe in a happy ending,” Gershkovich’s mother, Ella Milman told the WSJ, speaking out on Friday for the first time since his arrest on spying charges. “But I am not stupid. I understand what’s involved, but that’s what I choose to believe.”
China approved the provision of lethal aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine but wanted any shipments to remain a secret, according to leaked US government documents. A top-secret intelligence summary dated 23 February states that Beijing had approved the incremental provision of weapons to Moscow, which it would disguise as civilian items, according to a report in the Washington Post. China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, said on Friday that country would not sell weapons to parties involved in the conflict in Ukraine and would regulate the export of items with dual civilian and military use.
Ukrainian forces are finding a growing number of components from China in Russian weapons used in Ukraine, a senior adviser to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said.
Rishi Sunak denounced a video purporting to show the beheading of a Ukrainian prisoner of war and said those responsible should be brought to justice. The UK prime minister told Zelenskiy in a call on Friday that the footage was “abhorrent”, Downing Street said. Sunak also “discussed efforts to accelerate military support to Ukraine”.
The 15 Russian diplomats expelled by Norway this week had sought to recruit sources, conduct so-called signal intelligence and buy advanced technology, Norwegian security police said on Friday.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has written to Russia, Ukraine and Turkey raising concerns about recent impediments to the Black Sea grain export deal. The move comes after the UN said no ships were inspected on Tuesday under the deal “as the parties needed more time to reach an agreement on operational priorities”.
Ukraine has barred its national sports teams from competing in Olympic, non-Olympic and Paralympic events that include competitors from Russia and Belarus, the sports ministry said. The decision published in a decree on Friday, criticised by some Ukrainian athletes, comes after the International Olympic Committee angered Kyiv by paving the way for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, will meet with his counterparts in Sweden and Germany next week, including hosting a Ukraine-related defence meeting with top officials from almost 50 countries, the Pentagon said.