Invasion of Ukraine LIVE: Kiev announced that it shot down 17 Russian air targets, including three planes and nine drones

The region of southern Ukraine continues to await the establishment of new humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians caught in the middle of the Russian attacks, which this Sunday reach the 60th day of the invasion.

On that day, the arrival in Kiev of the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is expected to arrive in Kiev, who is traveling with the US Secretary of Defense. Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelesnky said he hopes to complete new shipments of heavy weapons to confront the invading troops.

Here is the minute by minute of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (Ukrainian time, GMT+3):

Sunday, April 24

5.30: It is not yet clear what military means Moscow will deploy in this “second phase” of the campaign in Ukraine, nor what its objectives are. But ambition could cost Vladimir Putin dearly, according to analysts consulted by AFP.

“The deeper Russian forces enter Ukraine, the more vulnerable they will be,” Michel Goya, former colonel in the French army, said on Twitter.

Pascal Ausseur, director of the Institute for Strategic Studies FMES, said that the Russian army may well be hoping to establish an axis that runs from Kherson, on the banks of the Dnipro River, to the city of the same name to the north and then to Izyum in the east. “They realized that the Blitzkrieg option didn't work,” Ausseur said. “So they returned to the traditional Soviet model of the bulldozer: If you can't bend the will of your enemies, you crush them.”

“It seems that the Russian military is simply pursuing a scorched earth approach, trying to break the will of the Ukrainian military by using overwhelming force and indiscriminate shelling to force the remaining civilians to flee,” said Colin Clarke, senior investigator at the Soufan Center, a group of experts. Some experts hope that the Russian army will try to trap Ukrainian forces in claw movements east of the Dnipro River. To avoid encirclement, Ukrainian defenders can disperse on several fronts, Clarke said, in order to stretch Russian supply and communication lines. “That strategy has been successful so far,” he said.

4.30: The Ukrainian army reported that it attacked 17 air targets on Saturday and shot down two cruise missiles launched from the Black Sea.

“Air Force and Ground Forces anti-aircraft missiles hit nine tactical-operational drones, three planes and five cruise missiles,” the Ministry of Defense statement said. They had previously reported that soldiers from Odessa shot down two rockets launched from a ship.

3.30: The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, announced that before traveling to Moscow and Kiev, he will visit the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Monday, whose country is acting as mediator.

This role as Ankara's interlocutor has been applauded by the UN Secretary General himself, who in a telephone call last March 14 thanked Erdogan for his role in the search for peace between Russia and Ukraine.

Following the meeting with the Turkish President, Guterres will travel to Russia's capital, Moscow, where the next day he will meet President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The meeting with Zelenski will take place next Thursday and the Secretary General is also expected to hold a meeting with the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Dimitro Kuleba.

2:05: The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Ukrainian Parliament, Liudmila Denisova, denounced this Saturday the forced deportation of 308 Ukrainian citizens from the besieged city of Mariupol to Russian territory, specifically to the Vladivostok region.

“Russia has forcibly deported citizens of Ukraine from Mariupol to the Primorsky region, 8,000 kilometers from their homeland,” Denisova said on her Telegram channel. Denisova explained that, according to volunteers, a train arrived on 21 April in the city of Nakhodka with 308 Ukrainians from Mariupol, including mothers and young children, people with disabilities and students, and has published photographs of the arrival at the station of these displaced persons.

“The occupying country, Russia, is in flagrant violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilians in Time of War, which prohibits the forced relocation and deportation of persons from the occupied territories,” Denisova warned.

1.30: At least 21 journalists and people linked to the sector have died during the current war in Ukraine, said the NGO Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), which keeps up to date on the murders of media professionals around the world.

Fourteen of the journalists died while covering information in areas of hostilities, while the other seven were reporters turned into soldiers or volunteers in the hardest hit areas of the conflict, such as southern or eastern Ukraine.

1:02: The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) revealed that it is attempting to secure the release of several personnel of the Special Observation Mission (SMM) who had been arrested in eastern Ukraine.

“The OSCE is very concerned that several members of the SMM national mission have been deprived of their liberty in Donetsk and Luhansk. The OSCE is using all available channels to facilitate the release of its staff,” said its press office in response to an inquiry, without giving further details.

British Deputy Ambassador to the Vienna-based OSCE Deirdre Brown criticized Russia for refusing to extend the SMM's mission in Ukraine beyond March. “And now we have received alarming reports that Russia's allies in Dombas are threatening mission personnel, equipment and facilities, and that Russian forces have taken SMM staff members prisoner,” Brown said in the speech, published by the British government.

Saturday, April 23:

23:50

The UK Ministry of Defence has released an intelligence update detailing allegations that Russia is planning to recruit Ukrainian civilians in the partially occupied southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

This would follow similar practices in the Russian-occupied regions of Crimea and Donbas.

“Any enlistment of Ukrainian civilians into the Russian armed forces, even if submitted by Russia as a volunteer or as military service in accordance with Russian law, would constitute a violation of Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention,” the Ministry of Defense tweeted.

Just today, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the UK government continued to help gather evidence of war crimes in Ukraine.

20:50: Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced the closure of his country's airspace to Russian military or civilian aircraft transporting soldiers from Russia to Syria after consultations with Moscow. “We have closed our airspace to military aircraft and even civilian aircraft flying to Syria and carrying military personnel,” he explained.

Turkey, a member of NATO, has positioned itself as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on 24 February.

20:15: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced this Saturday that US Secretaries of State and Defense Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, respectively, will visit Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, this Sunday. “I don't think it's a secret that tomorrow people from the United States, the Secretary of State, Mr. Blinken, and the Secretary of Defense, are coming to see us,” Zelensky said at a press conference held in the Kiev metro.

20:00: The deputy mayor of the besieged city of Mariupol, Petr Andriushchenko, has confirmed that plans to evacuate part of the population this Saturday have been suspended due to the danger of further clashes. “We were going to evacuate about 200 residents but the Russian Army approached them and ordered them to disperse because there was going to be shelling,” he explained in statements to the UNIAN agency.

The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Irina Vereschuk, announced on Saturday the beginning of a new attempt to evacuate civilians through a humanitarian corridor at noon local time from the Port City shopping center. However, throughout the afternoon, the pro-Russian separatist forces in Donetsk, participating in the siege, claimed that the operation had been suspended because of the “Ukrainian nationalists”, according to the note collected by the Russian agency TASS.

Ukraine, on the other hand, has denounced a Russian attack on the Azovstal steel mill, one of the city's last defensive strongholds, which ended up canceling the exit plans for the population.

Kiev estimates that 120,000 people are still trapped in Mariupol, who have been under siege practically since the beginning of the Russian invasion, on February 24.

19:45: The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, summoned the international press to a conference in which Infobae participated and consulted on the role of Pope Francis in the conflict, criticized a few weeks ago for his refusal to directly condemn Russia. “I want Pope Francis to come to Kiev to unlock the humanitarian corridors in Mariupol,” he assured Infobae.

“That is exactly the request we have made to you. There are some signs, but we're waiting. We are waiting for him because he has a mission assigned by the lord and many people trust him,” said the Ukrainian president.

19:30: the head of the United Nations, Josep Borrell, defended cooperation between States to prosecute those responsible for the crimes in the “war of aggression of Russia against Ukraine” through multiple international forums.

In a statement sent this Saturday, the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace, Borrell once again condemned the aggression against Ukraine not only as “a humanitarian catastrophe for Ukraine and its people, but also a flagrant violation of international law.”

18:45: a Ukrainian attempt to evacuate civilians from the shattered city of Mariupol, where many are still trapped, was “thwarted” by Russian forces this Saturday, said a city official.

“The evacuation was thwarted,” Mariupol city official Petro Andryushchenko said on Telegram, adding that about 200 residents had gathered at the evacuation meeting point announced by Kiev, but Russian forces “dispersed” them.

He claimed that others were told to board buses heading to places controlled by Russia.

18:00: at least five people were killed this Saturday and 18 were injured in Russian bombardments against the port city of Odessa, in southern Ukraine, reported the chief of staff of the Ukrainian Presidency.

“Odessa: five Ukrainians killed and 18 injured. And they are just the ones we have been able to find” so far, said the official, Andrii Yermak, on Telegram.

“The balance is likely to be greater,” he added, noting that among the fatalities there was “a three-month-old baby.”

17:32: Ukrainian presidential adviser Aleksey Arestovich reported that the Ukrainian defense forces destroyed the Russian command post in the Kherson region, in which there was about 50 military personnel.

The city of Kherson, as well as most of the region, have been under Russian occupation for more than a month.

In the coup against the occupation troops, two Russian generals were killed and another was seriously injured.

17:15: The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, most prominent figure of the Orthodox Churches, has expressed his solidarity with the people of Ukraine in his Easter message, a holiday celebrated among the Orthodox tomorrow.

“We are together with the devout and courageous people of Ukraine, who carry a heavy cross, and we suffer with them,” Bartholomew wrote in his letter to the faithful, published on the website of the Patriarchate, whose headquarters are in Istanbul, ancient Constantinople.

“The radiant message of the resurrection resonates today alongside the horrible sound of weapons, the heartbreaking cries of innocent victims of military aggression and the suffering of refugees, among whom there are many innocent children,” the ecclesiastical wrote.

16:40: the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture denounced that to this day 242 episodes of Russian war crimes against Ukrainian cultural heritage have been documented.

“The enemy chooses targets to fulfill its main objective; to destroy the centers of Ukrainian culture,” the ministry writes in a statement, stating that crimes have been recorded by Russian troops against Ukrainian cultural heritage in eleven regions and the capital, Kiev.

15:44: Ukraine claimed that it reconquered three localities near Kharkiv, located in the east and second city of the country, while the Russian army focuses on the Donbas and in the south.

“Our Ukrainian army successfully launched a counteroffensive yesterday morning. After long and fierce fighting, our troops evicted Russian troops from Bezruki, Slatine and Prudyanka,” the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Synegubov, told Telegram.

Prudyanka is located about 15 kilometers from the Russian border.

15:30: The United States convened about twenty countries to a military meeting on the situation in Ukraine to be held next Tuesday at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

Department of Defense spokesman Jack Kirby explained that he has invited some 40 countries to this conference, but he has not specified which countries are invited, nor is the list of those who have confirmed their presence known following the invitation of US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

It is known that among the invited countries there are nations that are not members of NATO and that the meeting does not have the signature of the Atlantic Alliance.

14:55: Russian forces have resumed airstrikes against the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where Ukrainian troops remaining in the city resist, as declared by Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych.

Speaking on national television, Arestovych also said that Russian forces are trying to storm Azovstal. “The enemy is trying to strangle the last resistance of the defenders of Mariupol in the Azovstal area,” said Arestovych.

This comes after a change in tactics on Thursday, when Vladimir Putin called for troops to block the area “so that not a fly can pass.”

14:40: Pope Francis criticized the wars, that of Ukraine and those that occur in other parts of the world, because “they destroy all” and said that it is urgent that societies regain the “civilization of love”.

Pope Francis made these two reflections in two hearings this Saturday at the Vatican, when he resumed the agenda after he had to cancel his acts on Friday to undergo medical checks, according to official sources.

“Mary's tears are a sign of God's cry for the victims of the war that is destroying not only Ukraine, but all the peoples involved in the war: because war not only destroys the defeated people, but also the victors, and those who look with superficial eyes. War destroys everyone,” Francis said in an audience with the participants in a pastoral pilgrimage from the Italian town of Treviglio (north).

13:18: the collection and exhumation of the dead discovered in Bucha following the withdrawal of Russian troops from that Ukrainian city has concluded with the discovery of a total of 412 bodies, reported the mayor, Anatoly Fedoruk.

“An important and difficult process ends in Bucha: the collection and exhumation of the bodies of those killed and killed in the territory of the community of Bucha. The figure we have today is 412 ″, he specified in a Facebook message collected by the Unian agency.

He added that this figure will be specified by researchers and experts “who work tirelessly”.

12:46: The Office of the Juvenile Prosecutor of Ukraine reported that 208 children have died and 387 have been injured in attacks perpetrated by Russia since the beginning of its invasion of the country, last February 24, until this Saturday.

The majority of child casualties, including deaths and injuries, occurred in the capital Kiev region with 129, followed by Donetsk with 120, Kharkiv (91), Chernigov (66), Mikolaiv (40), Kherson (41), Zaporiyia (22), Zytomyr (15) and Sumy (16).

The Prosecutor's Office has also reported that 1,500 educational institutions have suffered material damage since the beginning of the invasion, 102 of which have been completely destroyed.

12:05: Ukrainian deputy Dimitro Gurin has estimated that at least 10,000 people could be buried in mass graves outside the city of Mariupol, besieged for weeks by Russian forces.

The estimates come after the appearance a few hours ago of aerial photographs taken by Maxar Technologies and showing the appearance of a second mass grave near Vinohradne, near the city. Maxar estimates that the tombs were excavated between mid-March and mid-April.

“Nobody knew where the Russians were taking their bodies, and now we know that,” Gurin, a local MP, told Sky News.

11:15: the Russian federal air transport agency, Rosatiatsia, extended this Saturday for another five days the temporary closure of eleven airports in the center and south of the country, in force since last 24 February, when Russia launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“The regime of temporary restriction of flights to airports in the south and central part of Russia has been extended until 03:45 Moscow time (00:45 GMT) on May 1, 2022, ″ the regulator said in a statement.

The airports affected by the measure, whose deadline before the new extension was 25 April, are those in the cities of Anapa, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Guelendzhik, Krasnodar, Kursk, Lipetsk, Rostov-on-Don, Simferopol and Elista.

10:20: Russian forces have destroyed in recent hours more than 20 warehouses with weapons and military materiel in Ukraine, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense in its morning military part.

“The operational-tactical aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out attacks on 66 military installations in Ukraine,” said military spokesman Igor Konashenkov.

The Russian Armed Forces also carried out high-precision ground missile attacks against 11 targets, he added.

9:00: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted that equipping Ukrainian troops with the necessary weapons is the highest priority of the state, while thanking the support received by his partners, noting that the invasion of Ukraine is just the beginning and that Russia wants to invade other countries.

“As every morning, as every day, as every evening, today we pay the utmost attention to equipping our soldiers with all the weaponry they need,” said Zelensky, quoted by the Ukrinform agency, in his daily video message.

He added that “this is task number one” for the State.

7:40: In the course of the war in Ukraine, 3,640,000 people left the country and more than a million have already returned, Ukrainian Minister of the Interior Denis Monastirski reported in a video message.

“Throughout the war, 3,640,000 people left Ukraine and 1,130,000 returned. Some 31,000 humanitarian aid vehicles were introduced into the country,” he said.

He noted that border guards on the western border practice a simplified regime of entry and exit of citizens with the countries of the European Union and with Moldova.

6:15: The Government of Ukraine announced a new evacuation attempt from the south of the country during this Saturday.

A new attempt to evacuate civilians from the port city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine and largely controlled by the Russian army, is scheduled for Saturday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk reported.

“Today we are again trying to evacuate women, children and the elderly,” she said on her Facebook account, adding that civilians had begun to gather near a shopping center in the city and that they hoped to begin evacuation around noon.

5:02: Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that more than 20 countries agreed to participate in a “consultative” meeting next week at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

As reported by The Washington Post, defense ministers and senior military officials of the United States and partner countries will discuss what long-term assistance the Ukrainian military needs to remain powerful, even after the war with Russia.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has no specific outcome in mind for the meeting, first announced Thursday, Kirby said.

“He's not going to this meeting on Tuesday with a pre-set list of things we need to get to,” Kirby said. “He wants to hear from allies and partners, and the Ukrainians themselves about what they are doing and what they will need in the future.”

4:16: the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, assured that the Russian invasion is intended “as a beginning” and that Moscow's intention is to “capture other countries” in the face of the recent claims of the Russian Armed Forces about the Moldavian region of Transnistria.

“With reference to the Russian Army, news spread that its task is now supposedly to establish control over southern Ukraine and reach the border with Moldova. And allegedly there, in Moldova, the rights of Russian speakers are violated,” explained the Ukrainian president in reference to the words of Rustam Minnekaev, commander of the Central District of the Army.

Zelensky replied that it is Russian territory that “should take care of the rights of Russian speakers”, since in Russia there is “no freedom of speech” or “freedom of choice”. “There is simply no right to dissent,” he said, adding that in the country “poverty prospers” and “human life is worthless.”

3:45: the Department of Defense authorized the eighth withdrawal of equipment following the announcement by US President Joe Biden of an aid package endowed with 800 million dollars aimed at providing further military assistance to Ukraine in the framework of the Russian invasion.

“The United States has committed more than $4 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration, including approximately $3.4 billion since the start of the unprovoked invasion of Russia on February 24,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

Specifically, the military assistance package, announced this Thursday by Biden, includes more than 1,400 'Stinger' anti-aircraft systems; a number of more than 5,500 'Javelin' anti-armor systems, as well as more than 700 'Switchblade' unmanned aerial systems, 90 155mm shells and 183,000 artillery shells of the same caliber.

The Pentagon has also detailed that 72 tactical vehicles will be sent to tow 155mm howitzers; at least 16 'Mi-17' helicopters; hundreds of high-mobility wheeled armored vehicles and more than 200 armoured vehicles 'M113′.

03:09: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will meet with President Volodymir Zelensky in Ukraine next week, after a stop in Moscow to consult with President Vladimir Putin on the war, the UN said on Friday.

Guterres will meet with Zelensky and the Ukrainian Foreign Minister on Thursday, two days after his visit to Moscow, the UN said in a statement.

02:59: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken repudiated the arrest of an opposition leader in Russia. “The Kremlin's absurd accusations against Vladimir Kara-Murza - “spreading false information” about the brutal war in Ukraine - are another cynical attempt to silence truth-tellers. Mr. Kara-Murza should be released immediately.”

02:04: in a statement, the British Ministry of Defense held that “the declared intention by Defense Secretary Shoygu to introduce 'new methods of war' is a tacit admission that Russian advances are not being as expected”.

“Although it may indicate that it is understood that the war is not progressing as planned, it will take some time to translate this into tactics, techniques and procedures adopted, and then implement them to improve the operational effect, particularly with regard to the war of maneuvers on land bases,” the statement added.

Along these lines, the Ministry concluded: “Therefore, in the meantime, bombing is likely to continue to be resorted to as a means of attempting to suppress Ukrainian opposition to Russian forces. As a result, Russian forces are likely to continue to be frustrated by the inability to quickly overcome Ukrainian defenses.”

01:18: senior US officials are renewing pressure for sanctions to be imposed on billionaire Roman Abramovich, after the recent trip of the Russian tycoon to Kiev to revive the peace talks did not make any progress.

Abramovich did not meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on that trip, but instead spoke with his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, according to three people familiar with the discussions who asked not to be identified because the conversations were private. Zelenskiy is increasingly pessimistic about negotiations to end the war after seeing evidence of Russian atrocities in cities like Bucha and Mariupol, two of the people said.

00:22: Canadian authorities have made a new shipment of artillery and ammunition, including howitzers, to Ukraine to help the European nation cope with the new Russian offensive initiated from the east.

The material included four M-777 howitzers, as acknowledged by the Minister of Defense, Anita Anand, in a statement released this Friday. However, Canadian broadcaster CBC has added that these are four of the shells acquired by Ottawa in the context of the Afghan war, according to Defense sources consulted on condition of anonymity.

00:18: the European Commission (EC) is weighing “a lot” including sanctions on the import of oil from Russia in its next package of measures against the Slavic giant, revealed this Friday the Vice President and Trade Commissioner of the 27, Valdis Dombrovskis.

Dombrovskis, who is in Washington this week to attend the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), said in a roundtable discussion with journalists that Russia's “some kind of oil embargo” is one of six new sanctions that the Commission is working on.

“We must impose sanctions in a way that maximizes pressure on Russia while minimizing collateral damage for us,” said the Trade Commissioner, one of the eight vice-presidents of the European governing body.

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