(LONDON) — An intruder infiltrated the barracks housing the soldiers who protect Queen Elizabeth in Windsor, The Sun newspaper revealed Tuesday.
The man, who was posing as a priest, talked his way into the Victoria Barracks, situated just outside the confines of Windsor Castle. According to The Sun, the man, who has not been named, claimed to be a friend of the chaplain for the Cold Stream Guards — one of the regiments that protects the queen. Soldiers allowed him in without checking for any identification.
The UK’s Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying it’s taking the breach “extremely seriously,” adding “it will be thoroughly investigated as a matter of priority.”
The intrusion took place while the Queen was away at Sandringham. The imposter was reportedly entertained by officers, eating and drinking with them before being offered a bed for the night. The police were eventually called the following morning, April 27.
“We received a report of an intruder at Victoria Barracks in Sheet Street, Windsor, at 9.20am on Wednesday,” Thames Valley Police said in a statement. “Officers attended and removed the intruder from the barracks. No further action was required.”
According to The Sun, which quoted TalkTV sources, “The man was known to local police as having mental health issues.”
An anonymous source told the newspaper: “The guy turned up at the gate, said his name was Father Cruise and claimed to be a friend of the battalion’s Padre, the Rev. Matt Coles. He was invited in and offered something to eat.”
The source added: “It was only later when he started talking about how he had worked as an ejector-seat test pilot and had some organs replaced that the chaps started to get suspicious.”
The incident was not the first security breach in Windsor; a man was apprehended last year on the grounds of the castle with a crossbow, police said.
ABC News Royal Contributor Robert Jobson explained that it’s harder to protect the Queen at Windsor Castle than it is at Buckingham Palace.
“Buckingham palace is like the White House; it has a strong parameter with very stringent security protocols and Scotland Yard officers within the compound,” Jobson said. “But Windsor Castle is more difficult to protect — it’s open to the public and it’s a vast area with many different entrances.”
Jobson added, “But it’s important to note that in this instance the castle grounds weren’t penetrated. That said if this had been a serious terrorist intent on causing mayhem the consequences could have been catastrophic.”
An increase in security ahead of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June is therefore likely as a result of this incident, according to Jobson.
The UK will celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years on the throne with a holiday weekend in June. There will be a special Trooping of the Colour, a thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s cathedral and a concert at the palace. The finale to the four days of celebration will be a pageant through the streets of London.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military last month launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, attempting to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and to secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 02, 3:22 pm
Biden to deliver remarks on security assistance while at Javelin missile facility
President Joe Biden will head to Troy, Alabama, on Tuesday to visit a Lockheed Martin facility that manufactures weapons systems such as Javelin anti-tank missiles, which have been key in Ukraine’s defense against Russia.
Javelin missiles “are lightweight, portable, shoulder fired, anti-tank weapons system that can hit targets up to 2.5 miles away,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. “They’re highly lethal, and we’ve sent over 5,500 Javelin anti-armor systems to Ukraine to support the Ukrainian people’s fight for freedom.”
This facility can manufacture up to 2,100 Javelins per year, Psaki said.
She said Biden will also “deliver remarks about the security assistance we are providing, highlighting the urgency of the request to Congress to pass funding quickly to help Ukraine continue to succeed against Russian aggression and to make sure that the United States and our allies can replenish our own stocks of weapons to replace what we have sent to Ukraine.”
Asked if there is any concern about depleting stockpiles if the U.S. keeps up this pace of giving Javelin missiles to Ukraine, Psaki said the Department of Defense ensures that the U.S. maintains enough to defend itself.
-ABC News’ Justin Ryan Gomez
May 02, 2:14 pm
Russians leaving Mariupol, progress in Donbas ‘minimal at best’: US
Russia’s progress in Ukraine’s Donbas region remains “minimal at best,” with troops slowed by morale problems, supply issues and risk aversion in combat, a senior U.S. defense official said Monday.
“They are not making the progress that they had scheduled to make, that progress is uneven and incremental,” the official said.
The official added, “That’s not just because of Russian planning or lack of logistics — a lot of it is because the Ukrainians have really been resisting quite well.”
And Russia’s gains, particularly east of Izium and in the city of Popasna in eastern Ukraine, have been fleeting, the official said.
“What we saw there in Popasna is not unlike what we’ve seen in other hamlets in the Donbas — they’ll move in and then declare victory, and then withdraw their troops only to let the Ukrainians take it back. So there was a lot of back and forth over the last couple of days,” the official said.
Russian troops have also been leaving the Mariupol area to push north and northwest in recent days, according to the official.
“Largely the efforts around Mariupol for the Russians are now in the realm of airstrikes,” the official said.
Russia is likely pushing these troops north as part of its plan to encircle and trap Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region, according to the official.
More Ukrainian troops are completing training on the U.S.-made M777 howitzer system at multiple sites outside of Ukraine, according to the official. Ukrainians have also completed training on the Phoenix Ghost drone system.
-ABC News’ Matt Seyler
May 02, 12:37 pm
Top Russian general visited Donbas last week: US
Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, spent several days in Ukraine’s Donbas region last week, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Monday.
The U.S. believes Gerasimov is now back in Russia, the official said.
The official couldn’t confirm whether the general was targeted by Ukrainian forces during his visit and said the purpose of his trip is not clear to U.S. officials.
“It’s certainly possible that his trip was a manner of oversight and trying to gauge for himself what was going on in the Donbas. But what he came away with, what he learned, what he transmitted to his commanders, if anything, we just don’t know,” the official said.
May 02, 12:29 pm
Ukraine claims it targeted two Russian naval vessels
Valeriy Zaluzhniy, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said Ukrainian troops targeted two Russian naval vessels in the Black Sea on Monday.
He shared video on his Facebook page that he says shows drones striking the boats.
Russian officials have not confirmed the strikes.
May 02, 11:29 am
School in Luhansk region destroyed in shelling
The Lysychansk Gymnasium, an acclaimed secondary school in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, burned to the ground after coming under fire in targeted shelling, said Serhiy Haidai, the head of Luhansk’s Regional Military Administration. The school was more than a century old.
May 02, 11:23 am
Ukraine regains control over several areas near Kharkiv
Ukrainian forces have carried out an offensive in the country’s Kharkiv region, taking back control of several settlements, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said Monday. This includes the settlements of Verkhnya Rohanka, Ruska Lozova, Slobidske and Prilesne.
May 02, 10:31 am
US Embassy staff back in Ukraine for first time in months
U.S. Embassy staff returned to Ukraine for the day on Monday, marking the first trip back in the country since February.
“We expect to continue to do day trips for the next week or two and we very much hope that the conditions will permit us to go back to Kyiv by the end of the month,” Kristina Kvien, the U.S. chargé d’affaires to Ukraine, said in a statement.
Kvien said, “The message to Russia is: you failed — Ukraine is still standing, the government is still functioning and we are going back to Lviv first and then Kyiv to help the government.”
Kvien continued, “We are listening to the security professionals and when they tell us we can go back we go back. And while we are eager to do so we also want to make sure we are listening to the experts. So, the fact that we are here in Ukraine means that the security officials just said that it is ok and safe to meet here in Lviv and hopefully we will get the clearance to go back to Kyiv.”
May 02, 10:10 am
First group of civilians leave Mariupol steel plant
Dozens of civilians trapped for weeks inside a steel plant in the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol were expected to reach Zaporizhzhia on Monday, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In a statement posted to Twitter on Sunday, Zelenskyy said a first group of about 100 people were already en route to the Ukrainian government-controlled city, about 140 miles northwest of Mariupol.
“Tomorrow we’ll meet them in Zaporizhzhia,” Zelenskyy tweeted. “Grateful to our team!”
Many more civilians remain trapped at the sprawling Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant in Mariupol — the last holdout of Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s bombardment of the strategic southeastern port city — which Russian forces resumed shelling overnight.
“Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vitally needed green corridor has started working,” Zelenskyy said Sunday in his nightly address.
May 02, 10:02 am
Two explosions heard in Russian city of Belgorod
A pair of “powerful explosions” were heard early Monday in the western Russian city of Belgorod, about 15 miles from the border with Ukraine, according to the regional governor.
“I woke up to the sound of two powerful explosions half an hour ago. According to the anti-crisis center, there were no reports of casualties or damage. Footage showing flashes in the sky has emerged on social media,” Belgorod Oblast Gob. Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a statement posted on Telegram.
The blasts followed a series of other explosions and fires at industrial and military facilities across Russia in recent weeks. On Sunday, the governor of Russia’s western Kursk Oblast, which also shares a border with Ukraine, said a railway bridge used to transfer Russian troops to Ukraine had partially collapsed. In a video posted on Telegram, Kurk Oblast Gov. Roman Starovoit blamed the incident on sabotage.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Irene Hnatiuk and Fidel Pavlenko
May 02, 9:55 am
Quarter of Russian units in Ukraine now ‘combat ineffective,’ UK says
Over a quarter of Russian military units committed to fight in Ukraine have been likely rendered “combat ineffective,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Monday in an intelligence update.
“At the start of the conflict, Russia committed over 120 battalion tactical groups, approximately 65% of its entire ground combat strength,” the ministry said. “It is likely that more than a quarter of these units have now been rendered combat ineffective.”
Meanwhile, some of Russia’s most elite units, including the Russian Airborne Forces or VDV, “have suffered the highest levels of attrition,” according to the ministry.
“It will probably take years for Russia to reconstitute these forces,” the ministry added.
On Sunday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said at least 30 senior Russian military officers have been eliminated in the previous five days.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Irene Hnatiuk and Fidel Pavlenko
May 02, 9:30 am
Israel lashes out at Russia over Lavrov comparing Zelenskyy to Hitler
Israel on Monday lashed out at Russia over “unforgivable and scandalous” remarks made by its top diplomat about Nazism and antisemitism, including claims that Adolf Hitler was Jewish.
During an interview Sunday with an Italian television channel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was asked about Moscow’s assertion that it invaded neighboring Ukraine to “denazify” the country. Lavrov said the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish does not negate the Nazi elements in his country, drawing a parallel with Hitler, the chancellor of Nazi Germany.
“So when they say: ‘How can Nazification exist if we’re Jewish?’ In my opinion, Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean absolutely anything. For some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest antisemites were Jewish,” Lavrov said, speaking to the station in Russian, dubbed over by an Italian translation.
Russia does not insist on Zelenskyy’s surrender, Lavrov said, but wants the Ukrainian president to order “neo-Nazi battalions to halt resistance, lay down their arms and let civilian hostages go.” Lavrov alleged that Moscow only seeks to guarantee the security of pro-Russia Ukrainians in the eastern regions.
Lavrov’s comments came at a time when Israel, which was created as a refuge for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust, has sought to remain neutral amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. However, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid condemned the statement made by his Russian counterpart as “unforgivable and scandalous and a horrible historical error.”
“The Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust,” Lapid, the son of a Holocaust survivor, said Monday. “The lowest level of racism against Jews is to blame Jews themselves for antisemitism.”
Ukraine also denounced Lavrov’s statement, with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba saying it exposes “the deeply-rooted antisemitism of the Russian elites.”
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Irene Hnatiuk and Fidel Pavlenko
May 02, 7:18 am
Jill Biden to meet with Ukrainian refugees in Romania, Slovakia
U.S. first lady Jill Biden will travel to Romania and Slovakia this week to meet with American soldiers, U.S. embassy staff as well as displaced Ukrainian families, the White House announced Monday.
Romania and Slovakia are hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine who were forced to flee their homes due to Russia’s invasion.
According to a press release from the White House, Biden will depart the United States for Romania on Thursday evening. On Friday, she will visit Mihail Kogalniceau Airbase in southeastern Romania, where she will meet with U.S. military service members.
On Saturday, Biden will travel to Romania’s capital, Bucharest, to meet with Romanian government officials, U.S. embassy personnel, humanitarian aid workers as well as educators who are helping teach displaced Ukrainian children. She will then travel to Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava, to meet with U.S. embassy staff there, according to the White House.
On Sunday, which is celebrated as Mother’s Day in the U.S., Biden will travel to the eastern Slovak city of Kosice and the small village of Vysne Nemecke, the largest of three border crossings between Slovakia and Ukraine, to meet with Ukrainian refugees, humanitarian aid workers as well as local Slovakians who are supporting the displaced families, according to the White House.
“On Mother’s Day, she will meet with Ukrainian mothers and children who have been forced to flee their home country because of Putin’s war,” the White House said in a statement.
On Monday, Biden will meet with Slovakian government officials before heading back to the U.S.
-ABC News’ Armando Garcia
May 02, 5:48 am
Pelosi leads delegation to Poland after visiting Ukraine
A high-level U.S. congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw on Monday, a day after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
“Our distinguished Congressional delegation came to Poland to send an unmistakable message to the world: that America stands firmly with our NATO allies in our support for Ukraine,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Pelosi said their talks with Duda and other Polish officials in the Polish capital “will be focused on further strengthening our partnership, offering our gratitude for Poland’s humanitarian leadership, and discussing how we can further work together to support Ukraine.”
Earlier, Pelosi and the half dozen U.S. lawmakers with her traveled to the southeastern Polish city of Rzeszow, where they met with U.S. Army soldiers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division stationed in Poland to reassure NATO allies and deter Russian aggression.
“These engagements are even more meaningful following our meeting in Kyiv with President Volodymr Zelenskyy and other top Ukrainian leaders,” Pelosi said. “In that profound and solemn visit, our delegation conveyed our respect and gratitude to President Zelenskyy for his leadership and our admiration of the Ukrainian people for their courage in the fight against Russia’s diabolical invasion. Our Members were proud to deliver the message that additional American support is on the way, as we work to transform President Biden’s strong funding request into a legislative package.”
Pelosi, second in line to the U.S. presidency after the vice president, was the most senior American lawmaker to visit Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24. The delegation’s trip to the Ukrainian capital was not disclosed until they were safely out of the country.
-ABC News’ Chad Murray
May 01, 4:57 pm
Russian shelling of Mariupol steel plant resumes: Ukrainian officials
Russian forces resumed shelling the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol on Sunday after some civilians inside the facility and in nearby homes were evacuated during a brief cease fire, according Ukrainian officials.
“They are shelling the plant with all kinds of weapons,” said Denis Schlega, commander of the 12th Brigade of Operational Assignment in Mariupol.
Earlier Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations and Russian Ministry of Defense all confirmed that some civilians were evacuated from the steel plant, where a Ukrainian military unit is making a last stand in the port city that is almost entirely under Russian control.
Zelenskyy said about 100 civilians were evacuated from the steel plant on Sunday and were being taken to Zaporizhia, a city under Ukrainian control.
The Mariupol City Council said in a statement that evacuations from Mariupol had stopped Sunday afternoon due to “security reasons.” The city council said the evacuations would resume on Monday.
May 01, 4:13 pm
Civilians killed, injured in shelling of Kharkiv region: Ukrainian official
At least three civilians were killed and eight others injured on Sunday as a result of heavy shelling from Russian forces in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian official.
The casualties were reported in the residential areas of Saltivka, Bohodukhiv and Zolochif, according to Oleg Sinegubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
May 01, 12:24 pm
Pope Francis condemns ‘macabre regression of humanity’ in Ukraine
Pope Francis on Sunday described the war in Ukraine as a “macabre regression of humanity” that makes him “suffer and cry.”
Speaking to thousands of people crowded into St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, the pope called for humanitarian corridors to be opened to evacuate civilians trapped inside or near a steel plant in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.
Evacuation of civilians at the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian forces have been staging a last stand against Russian troops, have started, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Red Cross and the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed on Sunday.
During Sunday’s Vatican service, Francis repeated his criticism of Russia for invading Ukraine.
“My thoughts go immediately to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the city of Mary, barbarously bombarded and destroyed,” the pontiff said of the Russian-controlled southeastern port city, which is named after Mary. “I suffer and cry thinking of the suffering of the Ukrainian population, in particular the weakest, the elderly, the children.”
In Catholicism, the month of May is dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Francis asked for monthlong prayers for peace in Ukraine.
“While we are witnessing a macabre regression of humanity, I ask you, together with so many anguished people, if we are really seeking peace, if there is the will to avoid a continuous military and verbal escalation, if we are doing everything possible to make the weapons stop? Please, let us not give in to the logic of violence, to the perverse spiral of arms. Let us take the path of dialogue and peace. Let us pray.”
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military last month launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, attempting to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and to secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 03, 5:32 am
Russia’s military ‘now significantly weaker,’ UK says
Russia’s military is “now significantly weaker, both materially and conceptually,” than it had been prior to its invasion of Ukraine, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday.
“Recovery from this will be exacerbated by sanctions,” the ministry said in an intelligence update. “This will have a lasting impact on Russia’s ability to deploy conventional military force.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 03 May 2022
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military last month launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, attempting to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and to secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 02, 10:31 am
US Embassy staff back in Ukraine for first time in months
U.S. Embassy staff returned to Ukraine for the day on Monday, marking the first trip back in the country since February.
“We expect to continue to do day trips for the next week or two and we very much hope that the conditions will permit us to go back to Kyiv by the end of the month,” Kristina Kvien, the U.S. chargé d’affaires to Ukraine, said in a statement.
Kvien said, “The message to Russia is: you failed — Ukraine is still standing, the government is still functioning and we are going back to Lviv first and then Kyiv to help the government.”
Kvien continued, “We are listening to the security professionals and when they tell us we can go back we go back. And while we are eager to do so we also want to make sure we are listening to the experts. So, the fact that we are here in Ukraine means that the security officials just said that it is ok and safe to meet here in Lviv and hopefully we will get the clearance to go back to Kyiv.”
May 02, 10:10 am
First group of civilians leave Mariupol steel plant
Dozens of civilians trapped for weeks inside a steel plant in the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol were expected to reach Zaporizhzhia on Monday, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In a statement posted to Twitter on Sunday, Zelenskyy said a first group of about 100 people were already en route to the Ukrainian government-controlled city, about 140 miles northwest of Mariupol.
“Tomorrow we’ll meet them in Zaporizhzhia,” Zelenskyy tweeted. “Grateful to our team!”
Many more civilians remain trapped at the sprawling Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant in Mariupol — the last holdout of Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s bombardment of the strategic southeastern port city — which Russian forces resumed shelling overnight.
“Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vitally needed green corridor has started working,” Zelenskyy said Sunday in his nightly address.
May 02, 10:02 am
Two explosions heard in Russian city of Belgorod
A pair of “powerful explosions” were heard early Monday in the western Russian city of Belgorod, about 15 miles from the border with Ukraine, according to the regional governor.
“I woke up to the sound of two powerful explosions half an hour ago. According to the anti-crisis center, there were no reports of casualties or damage. Footage showing flashes in the sky has emerged on social media,” Belgorod Oblast Gob. Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a statement posted on Telegram.
The blasts followed a series of other explosions and fires at industrial and military facilities across Russia in recent weeks. On Sunday, the governor of Russia’s western Kursk Oblast, which also shares a border with Ukraine, said a railway bridge used to transfer Russian troops to Ukraine had partially collapsed. In a video posted on Telegram, Kurk Oblast Gov. Roman Starovoit blamed the incident on sabotage.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Irene Hnatiuk and Fidel Pavlenko
May 02, 9:55 am
Quarter of Russian units in Ukraine now ‘combat ineffective,’ UK says
Over a quarter of Russian military units committed to fight in Ukraine have been likely rendered “combat ineffective,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Monday in an intelligence update.
“At the start of the conflict, Russia committed over 120 battalion tactical groups, approximately 65% of its entire ground combat strength,” the ministry said. “It is likely that more than a quarter of these units have now been rendered combat ineffective.”
Meanwhile, some of Russia’s most elite units, including the Russian Airborne Forces or VDV, “have suffered the highest levels of attrition,” according to the ministry.
“It will probably take years for Russia to reconstitute these forces,” the ministry added.
On Sunday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said at least 30 senior Russian military officers have been eliminated in the previous five days.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Irene Hnatiuk and Fidel Pavlenko
May 02, 9:30 am
Israel lashes out at Russia over Lavrov comparing Zelenskyy to Hitler
Israel on Monday lashed out at Russia over “unforgivable and scandalous” remarks made by its top diplomat about Nazism and antisemitism, including claims that Adolf Hitler was Jewish.
During an interview Sunday with an Italian television channel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was asked about Moscow’s assertion that it invaded neighboring Ukraine to “denazify” the country. Lavrov said the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish does not negate the Nazi elements in his country, drawing a parallel with Hitler, the chancellor of Nazi Germany.
“So when they say: ‘How can Nazification exist if we’re Jewish?’ In my opinion, Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean absolutely anything. For some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest antisemites were Jewish,” Lavrov said, speaking to the station in Russian, dubbed over by an Italian translation.
Russia does not insist on Zelenskyy’s surrender, Lavrov said, but wants the Ukrainian president to order “neo-Nazi battalions to halt resistance, lay down their arms and let civilian hostages go.” Lavrov alleged that Moscow only seeks to guarantee the security of pro-Russia Ukrainians in the eastern regions.
Lavrov’s comments came at a time when Israel, which was created as a refuge for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust, has sought to remain neutral amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. However, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid condemned the statement made by his Russian counterpart as “unforgivable and scandalous and a horrible historical error.”
“The Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust,” Lapid, the son of a Holocaust survivor, said Monday. “The lowest level of racism against Jews is to blame Jews themselves for antisemitism.”
Ukraine also denounced Lavrov’s statement, with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba saying it exposes “the deeply-rooted antisemitism of the Russian elites.”
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Irene Hnatiuk and Fidel Pavlenko
May 02, 7:18 am
Jill Biden to meet with Ukrainian refugees in Romania, Slovakia
U.S. first lady Jill Biden will travel to Romania and Slovakia this week to meet with American soldiers, U.S. embassy staff as well as displaced Ukrainian families, the White House announced Monday.
Romania and Slovakia are hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine who were forced to flee their homes due to Russia’s invasion.
According to a press release from the White House, Biden will depart the United States for Romania on Thursday evening. On Friday, she will visit Mihail Kogalniceau Airbase in southeastern Romania, where she will meet with U.S. military service members.
On Saturday, Biden will travel to Romania’s capital, Bucharest, to meet with Romanian government officials, U.S. embassy personnel, humanitarian aid workers as well as educators who are helping teach displaced Ukrainian children. She will then travel to Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava, to meet with U.S. embassy staff there, according to the White House.
On Sunday, which is celebrated as Mother’s Day in the U.S., Biden will travel to the eastern Slovak city of Kosice and the small village of Vysne Nemecke, the largest of three border crossings between Slovakia and Ukraine, to meet with Ukrainian refugees, humanitarian aid workers as well as local Slovakians who are supporting the displaced families, according to the White House.
“On Mother’s Day, she will meet with Ukrainian mothers and children who have been forced to flee their home country because of Putin’s war,” the White House said in a statement.
On Monday, Biden will meet with Slovakian government officials before heading back to the U.S.
-ABC News’ Armando Garcia
May 02, 5:48 am
Pelosi leads delegation to Poland after visiting Ukraine
A high-level U.S. congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw on Monday, a day after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
“Our distinguished Congressional delegation came to Poland to send an unmistakable message to the world: that America stands firmly with our NATO allies in our support for Ukraine,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Pelosi said their talks with Duda and other Polish officials in the Polish capital “will be focused on further strengthening our partnership, offering our gratitude for Poland’s humanitarian leadership, and discussing how we can further work together to support Ukraine.”
Earlier, Pelosi and the half dozen U.S. lawmakers with her traveled to the southeastern Polish city of Rzeszow, where they met with U.S. Army soldiers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division stationed in Poland to reassure NATO allies and deter Russian aggression.
“These engagements are even more meaningful following our meeting in Kyiv with President Volodymr Zelenskyy and other top Ukrainian leaders,” Pelosi said. “In that profound and solemn visit, our delegation conveyed our respect and gratitude to President Zelenskyy for his leadership and our admiration of the Ukrainian people for their courage in the fight against Russia’s diabolical invasion. Our Members were proud to deliver the message that additional American support is on the way, as we work to transform President Biden’s strong funding request into a legislative package.”
Pelosi, second in line to the U.S. presidency after the vice president, was the most senior American lawmaker to visit Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24. The delegation’s trip to the Ukrainian capital was not disclosed until they were safely out of the country.
-ABC News’ Chad Murray
May 01, 4:57 pm
Russian shelling of Mariupol steel plant resumes: Ukrainian officials
Russian forces resumed shelling the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol on Sunday after some civilians inside the facility and in nearby homes were evacuated during a brief cease fire, according Ukrainian officials.
“They are shelling the plant with all kinds of weapons,” said Denis Schlega, commander of the 12th Brigade of Operational Assignment in Mariupol.
Earlier Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations and Russian Ministry of Defense all confirmed that some civilians were evacuated from the steel plant, where a Ukrainian military unit is making a last stand in the port city that is almost entirely under Russian control.
Zelenskyy said about 100 civilians were evacuated from the steel plant on Sunday and were being taken to Zaporizhia, a city under Ukrainian control.
The Mariupol City Council said in a statement that evacuations from Mariupol had stopped Sunday afternoon due to “security reasons.” The city council said the evacuations would resume on Monday.
May 01, 4:13 pm
Civilians killed, injured in shelling of Kharkiv region: Ukrainian official
At least three civilians were killed and eight others injured on Sunday as a result of heavy shelling from Russian forces in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian official.
The casualties were reported in the residential areas of Saltivka, Bohodukhiv and Zolochif, according to Oleg Sinegubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
May 01, 12:24 pm
Pope Francis condemns ‘macabre regression of humanity’ in Ukraine
Pope Francis on Sunday described the war in Ukraine as a “macabre regression of humanity” that makes him “suffer and cry.”
Speaking to thousands of people crowded into St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, the pope called for humanitarian corridors to be opened to evacuate civilians trapped inside or near a steel plant in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.
Evacuation of civilians at the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian forces have been staging a last stand against Russian troops, have started, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Red Cross and the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed on Sunday.
During Sunday’s Vatican service, Francis repeated his criticism of Russia for invading Ukraine.
“My thoughts go immediately to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the city of Mary, barbarously bombarded and destroyed,” the pontiff said of the Russian-controlled southeastern port city, which is named after Mary. “I suffer and cry thinking of the suffering of the Ukrainian population, in particular the weakest, the elderly, the children.”
In Catholicism, the month of May is dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Francis asked for monthlong prayers for peace in Ukraine.
“While we are witnessing a macabre regression of humanity, I ask you, together with so many anguished people, if we are really seeking peace, if there is the will to avoid a continuous military and verbal escalation, if we are doing everything possible to make the weapons stop? Please, let us not give in to the logic of violence, to the perverse spiral of arms. Let us take the path of dialogue and peace. Let us pray.”
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military last month launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, attempting to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and to secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 02, 10:02 am
2 explosions heard in Russian city of Belgorod
A pair of “powerful explosions” were heard early Monday in the western Russian city of Belgorod, about 15 miles from the border with Ukraine, according to the regional governor.
“I woke up to the sound of two powerful explosions half an hour ago. According to the anti-crisis center, there were no reports of casualties or damage. Footage showing flashes in the sky has emerged on social media,” Belgorod Oblast Gob. Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a statement posted on Telegram.
The blasts followed a series of other explosions and fires at industrial and military facilities across Russia in recent weeks. On Sunday, the governor of Russia’s western Kursk Oblast, which also shares a border with Ukraine, said a railway bridge used to transfer Russian troops to Ukraine had partially collapsed. In a video posted on Telegram, Kurk Oblast Gov. Roman Starovoit blamed the incident on sabotage.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Irene Hnatiuk and Fidel Pavlenko
May 02, 9:55 am
Quarter of Russian units in Ukraine now ‘combat ineffective,’ UK says
Over a quarter of Russian military units committed to fight in Ukraine have been likely rendered “combat ineffective,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Monday in an intelligence update.
“At the start of the conflict, Russia committed over 120 battalion tactical groups, approximately 65% of its entire ground combat strength,” the ministry said. “It is likely that more than a quarter of these units have now been rendered combat ineffective.”
Meanwhile, some of Russia’s most elite units, including the Russian Airborne Forces or VDV, “have suffered the highest levels of attrition,” according to the ministry.
“It will probably take years for Russia to reconstitute these forces,” the ministry added.
On Sunday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said at least 30 senior Russian military officers have been eliminated in the previous five days.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Irene Hnatiuk and Fidel Pavlenko
May 02, 9:30 am
Israel lashes out at Russia over Lavrov comparing Zelenskyy to Hitler
Israel on Monday lashed out at Russia over “unforgivable and scandalous” remarks made by its top diplomat about Nazism and antisemitism, including claims that Adolf Hitler was Jewish.
During an interview Sunday with an Italian television channel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was asked about Moscow’s assertion that it invaded neighboring Ukraine to “denazify” the country. Lavrov said the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish does not negate the Nazi elements in his country, drawing a parallel with Hitler, the chancellor of Nazi Germany.
“So when they say: ‘How can Nazification exist if we’re Jewish?’ In my opinion, Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean absolutely anything. For some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest antisemites were Jewish,” Lavrov said, speaking to the station in Russian, dubbed over by an Italian translation.
Russia does not insist on Zelenskyy’s surrender, Lavrov said, but wants the Ukrainian president to order “neo-Nazi battalions to halt resistance, lay down their arms and let civilian hostages go.” Lavrov alleged that Moscow only seeks to guarantee the security of pro-Russia Ukrainians in the eastern regions.
Lavrov’s comments came at a time when Israel, which was created as a refuge for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust, has sought to remain neutral amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. However, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid condemned the statement made by his Russian counterpart as “unforgivable and scandalous and a horrible historical error.”
“The Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust,” Lapid, the son of a Holocaust survivor, said Monday. “The lowest level of racism against Jews is to blame Jews themselves for antisemitism.”
Ukraine also denounced Lavrov’s statement, with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba saying it exposes “the deeply-rooted antisemitism of the Russian elites.”
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Max Uzol, Irene Hnatiuk and Fidel Pavlenko
May 02, 7:18 am
Jill Biden to meet with Ukrainian refugees in Romania, Slovakia
U.S. first lady Jill Biden will travel to Romania and Slovakia this week to meet with American soldiers, U.S. embassy staff as well as displaced Ukrainian families, the White House announced Monday.
Romania and Slovakia are hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine who were forced to flee their homes due to Russia’s invasion.
According to a press release from the White House, Biden will depart the United States for Romania on Thursday evening. On Friday, she will visit Mihail Kogalniceau Airbase in southeastern Romania, where she will meet with U.S. military service members.
On Saturday, Biden will travel to Romania’s capital, Bucharest, to meet with Romanian government officials, U.S. embassy personnel, humanitarian aid workers as well as educators who are helping teach displaced Ukrainian children. She will then travel to Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava, to meet with U.S. embassy staff there, according to the White House.
On Sunday, which is celebrated as Mother’s Day in the U.S., Biden will travel to the eastern Slovak city of Kosice and the small village of Vysne Nemecke, the largest of three border crossings between Slovakia and Ukraine, to meet with Ukrainian refugees, humanitarian aid workers as well as local Slovakians who are supporting the displaced families, according to the White House.
“On Mother’s Day, she will meet with Ukrainian mothers and children who have been forced to flee their home country because of Putin’s war,” the White House said in a statement.
On Monday, Biden will meet with Slovakian government officials before heading back to the U.S.
-ABC News’ Armando Garcia
May 02, 5:48 am
Pelosi leads delegation to Poland after visiting Ukraine
A high-level U.S. congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw on Monday, a day after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
“Our distinguished Congressional delegation came to Poland to send an unmistakable message to the world: that America stands firmly with our NATO allies in our support for Ukraine,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Pelosi said their talks with Duda and other Polish officials in the Polish capital “will be focused on further strengthening our partnership, offering our gratitude for Poland’s humanitarian leadership, and discussing how we can further work together to support Ukraine.”
Earlier, Pelosi and the half dozen U.S. lawmakers with her traveled to the southeastern Polish city of Rzeszow, where they met with U.S. Army soldiers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division stationed in Poland to reassure NATO allies and deter Russian aggression.
“These engagements are even more meaningful following our meeting in Kyiv with President Volodymr Zelenskyy and other top Ukrainian leaders,” Pelosi said. “In that profound and solemn visit, our delegation conveyed our respect and gratitude to President Zelenskyy for his leadership and our admiration of the Ukrainian people for their courage in the fight against Russia’s diabolical invasion. Our Members were proud to deliver the message that additional American support is on the way, as we work to transform President Biden’s strong funding request into a legislative package.”
Pelosi, second in line to the U.S. presidency after the vice president, was the most senior American lawmaker to visit Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24. The delegation’s trip to the Ukrainian capital was not disclosed until they were safely out of the country.
-ABC News’ Chad Murray
May 01, 4:57 pm
Russian shelling of Mariupol steel plant resumes: Ukrainian officials
Russian forces resumed shelling the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol on Sunday after some civilians inside the facility and in nearby homes were evacuated during a brief cease fire, according Ukrainian officials.
“They are shelling the plant with all kinds of weapons,” said Denis Schlega, commander of the 12th Brigade of Operational Assignment in Mariupol.
Earlier Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations and Russian Ministry of Defense all confirmed that some civilians were evacuated from the steel plant, where a Ukrainian military unit is making a last stand in the port city that is almost entirely under Russian control.
Zelenskyy said about 100 civilians were evacuated from the steel plant on Sunday and were being taken to Zaporizhia, a city under Ukrainian control.
The Mariupol City Council said in a statement that evacuations from Mariupol had stopped Sunday afternoon due to “security reasons.” The city council said the evacuations would resume on Monday.
May 01, 4:13 pm
Civilians killed, injured in shelling of Kharkiv region: Ukrainian official
At least three civilians were killed and eight others injured on Sunday as a result of heavy shelling from Russian forces in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian official.
The casualties were reported in the residential areas of Saltivka, Bohodukhiv and Zolochif, according to Oleg Sinegubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
May 01, 12:24 pm
Pope Francis condemns ‘macabre regression of humanity’ in Ukraine
Pope Francis on Sunday described the war in Ukraine as a “macabre regression of humanity” that makes him “suffer and cry.”
Speaking to thousands of people crowded into St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, the pope called for humanitarian corridors to be opened to evacuate civilians trapped inside or near a steel plant in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.
Evacuation of civilians at the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian forces have been staging a last stand against Russian troops, have started, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Red Cross and the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed on Sunday.
During Sunday’s Vatican service, Francis repeated his criticism of Russia for invading Ukraine.
“My thoughts go immediately to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the city of Mary, barbarously bombarded and destroyed,” the pontiff said of the Russian-controlled southeastern port city, which is named after Mary. “I suffer and cry thinking of the suffering of the Ukrainian population, in particular the weakest, the elderly, the children.”
In Catholicism, the month of May is dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Francis asked for monthlong prayers for peace in Ukraine.
“While we are witnessing a macabre regression of humanity, I ask you, together with so many anguished people, if we are really seeking peace, if there is the will to avoid a continuous military and verbal escalation, if we are doing everything possible to make the weapons stop? Please, let us not give in to the logic of violence, to the perverse spiral of arms. Let us take the path of dialogue and peace. Let us pray.”
— The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) May 1, 2022
In keeping with the Cambridge birthday tradition, the photos were taken by Duchess Kate over the weekend in Norfolk, where the Cambridges have a country home. The duchess has released a photo of each child on their birthdays each year.
Last week, Duchess Kate also shared photos of her son, Prince Louis, to mark his fourth birthday.
Charlotte’s sixth birthday comes a few days after Prince William and Kate celebrated their 11th wedding anniversary.
Charlotte is currently fourth in line to the British throne behind her grandfather, Prince Charles, father, and older brother, Prince George.
(HONG KONG and NEW YORK) — As countries around the world slowly emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, China is battling its worst outbreak as the last holdout of a hardline “Zero-COVID” policy.
Residents are growing increasingly weary in Shanghai, where a lockdown of 25 million people is entering its fifth week. Cases in the economic powerhouse fell to their lowest levels in weeks on Thursday, raising hope that authorities might ease lockdown measures.
Kenie, a Shanghai resident whose last name ABC News is not including for privacy reasons, has been confined to her home with her two kids and elderly parents since March.
Like others in Shanghai, they are facing a shortage of food and finding it difficult to get deliveries. Kenie said in her neighborhood in the suburbs of Shanghai, the government rations are sparse, and she’s been forced to eat one meal a day so her kids and parents can eat more.
“I cannot cook because we have nothing to cook. I have only instant noodles left,” said Kenie. “Actually, I feel very disappointed and depressed.”
Kenie was finally able to source some insulin for her diabetic father through a friend, but she said authorities weren’t helping her find the medicine.
She was once supportive of the Chinese government’s policies, but her view has changed since she’s had to endure such tough conditions in lockdown.
“I’m angry, but I have no choice,” she told ABC News. “You feel helpless. I have no power to use. I’m angry, but I’m here. I don’t have any right to do something.”
Kenie said she’s more fearful of being sent to the city’s isolation facilities where everyone who tests positive must be sent than of the virus itself. The official death toll is comparatively low. In Shanghai, there have been nearly 300 deaths from more than half a million infections since the lockdown began.
Alessandro Pavanello, who moved to Shanghai several years ago to study and now lives there with his girlfriend, recorded his experience at one of the isolation facilities this month where he said he had no showering facilities or privacy.
While some expats have chosen to remain quiet out of concern for the consequences, Pavanello said he felt the need to share something he “was not OK with.”
“Sure, people have been quiet about this issue, presumably because they are maybe interested in staying in China after all this happens or they are afraid of repercussion,” he said.
Pavanello said that while in quarantine for six days, he lost weight and gained new grey hairs. He said that only sleeping for four hours each night and being constantly surrounded by loud sounds affected his mental well-being.
“A lot of other people that I have talked with that have been going to these places suffered in a variety of different ways, but mostly on their mental health, which I think is one of the aspects that was never taken into consideration when they decided here to start creating these isolation centers,” he said.
Other residents are also questioning a policy in which the social and economic costs are mounting.
Yet Chinese President Xi Jinping appears determined to stick with the country’s no-tolerance “Zero-COVID” policy, whatever it takes.
The toolkit of lockdowns, testing and surveillance helped China suppress infections to relatively low levels in the first two years of the pandemic, but with each new variant, maintaining the approach has become difficult.
China political expert and former State Department official Susan Shirk told ABC News’ “Nightline” last week that “Zero-COVID” required “a system of social control that was much more invasive, expansive, than anything that most other countries would be able to carry out.”
Shirk said the consequences of China locking down its economic powerhouse will be felt globally. Shanghai is home to one of the world’s major shipping ports, and cargo ships are currently backed up around the coast.
“We should care because it definitely is going to affect our ability of our economy to function smoothly,” Shirk said, “The disruption of the supply chains, aggravating inflation, is going to make our economic lives more difficult too.”
Two weeks ago, American writer Jamie Peñaloza, who lives in Shanghai, was remaining optimistic. The former chef made the most of the situation, getting creative with government food rations by making ricotta cheese out of milk supplies.
Now, Peñaloza’s tone has shifted after losing her main freelance job and seeing videos of harsh life in lockdown.
“It’s a bit like Groundhog Day in a bad way. It’s a bit surreal,” she told ABC News.
Peñaloza said she’s lucky compared with others who have experienced food shortages, but she feels a sense of helplessness.
Pavanello is now back at home in Shanghai, but he’s tested positive again and is worried he may be sent back to a facility.
The residents ABC News spoke with shared a common sense of helplessness, as if they were on a merry-go-round of restrictions and easing, with no end in sight.
Peñaloza said she is sticking it out in China for the near future, while Kenie and Pavanello both expressed plans to leave because of what they’d experienced under lockdown.
“I don’t know when this is going to end, and there’s nothing I can do about this,” said Pavanello.
As Peñaloza said, “One person can test positive and that just sets the score back to zero.”
(NEW YORK) — As Russians seek to subtly protest the invasion of Ukraine amid a crackdown on anti-war sentiment, “Swan Lake” has been a go-to symbol.
The famous Russian ballet may seem like an unlikely choice to foreigners, but it is a powerful historical reference for Russians that is being used as one of several coded forms of protest during the war, according to Russian State University anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova.
“It’s quite dangerous now to protest in Russia,” Arkhipova, who was abroad when the invasion started and has decided not to return to Moscow, told ABC News’ podcast “Start Here” from Berlin.
Anti-war demonstrations in Russia have been shut down by authorities and led to mass arrests. A law passed by the Russian parliament in early March criminalizes public opposition to the war — and makes it illegal to call the “military operation” a war.
“It’s almost impossible now in Russia to protest in direct forms, like to go in street and say, ‘Putin, go away,'” Arkhipova said. “But people are trying to invent as many other ways to protest as possible.”
One of those ways is through the image of ballerinas from “Swan Lake.” Graffiti depicting the line of four ballerinas in the “Dance of the Cygnets” has been popping up on walls in Russian cities. Earlier last month, when independent Russian news outlet TV Rain signed off indefinitely due to pressure over its coverage of the conflict, it did so with a clip from “Swan Lake.”
The moment was a nod to when Soviet state TV interrupted programming by airing the ballet on a loop after the death of Premier Leonid Brezhnev in 1982 while Soviet leaders selected a successor. The same thing happened again after the deaths of Yuri Andropov in 1984 and Konstantin Chernenko in 1985, as well as during a failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 — becoming a sign of political instability and upheaval.
“In the late Soviet times, this ballet was a symbol of all of the deaths of the Soviet leaders,” Arkhipova said. “And so that’s why it became a sign that we are waiting for Putin to die.”
“Swan Lake” graffiti has popped up before the war as well, including when Russian President Vladimir Putin was inaugurated to his fourth presidential term.
Another type of coded message that’s been popping up “everywhere,” including on the walls of buildings, is a slogan with eight asterisks that stands for “no war,” or “net voyny” in Russian, Arkhipova said.
“Very often, people are changing their avatars in social media to these eight asterisks,” she said. “It’s the way to say no war instead of saying no war.”
Despite the risk of fines or possibly jail, protesters persist in an attempt to cut through the misinformation and “informational blockades” about the circumstances of the war, Arkhipova said.
“Many Russian people, they even don’t know what is going on because the blockage is quite severe,” she said. “The more people can hear about massacre in Bucha, about violence, about soldiers killed from both sides, about bombing and so on, the harder for them to accept the fact that we are not saviors anymore, we are aggressors.”
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military earlier this month launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 30, 3:02 pm
Angelina Jolie visits refugees in Ukraine
Actress Angelina Jolie visited Lviv, Ukraine, on Saturday, meeting with officials and posing for photos with children at a railway station.
Jolie is a special envoy for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. More than 12 million people have fled their homes in Ukraine and more than 5 million have fled to neighboring countries, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday.
The Lviv Regional State Administration shared photos of Jolie being informed about the situation in the area as did several residents of the city, including those at a bakery, Lviv Croissants, where the actress stopped.
Apr 30, 8:26 am
7,000 disappearances reported since the war began, Ukraine says
In just two months, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have received over 7,000 reports of disappearances. About half of them were found, according to Mary Akopyan, Ukraine’s deputy minister of internal affairs.
The number of people in Ukraine who have disappeared due to the war is unprecedented in modern world history, Hakobyan claimed in a meeting with a delegation of the International Commission on Missing Persons, an intergovernmental organization that addresses the issue of missing persons as a result of armed conflict, human rights violations and natural disasters.
The government received 2,000 unrecognizable bodies, 1,282 of which were later identified, according to the ministry.
An ICMP group of specialists will be arriving in Kyiv in a few weeks to provide help in identifying victims, according to the ministry.
Apr 29, 4:03 pm
Russian troops behind schedule by ‘at least several days’: U.S.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday that Russia’s military has weakened since invading Ukraine.
“They have suffered thousands of casualties. They have lost airplanes. They have lost tanks. They have certainly lost battles,” he said.
Russian forces are now trying to avoid mistakes they made around Kyiv earlier in the invasion, but stiff Ukrainian resistance and a more cautious approach seem to be slowing their advance, a senior U.S. defense official said.
The Russians, who were plagued by fuel and food shortages during earlier fighting in the north, are now wary of getting too far ahead of their supply lines, the official said.
Another factor slowing their progress is that their tactic of launching artillery and airstrikes to soften areas before moving ground troops forward is not working well.
“Their ground movements are fairly plodding because the artillery and airstrikes that they’re launching against Ukrainian positions are not having the effect that they want them to have,” the official said. “Ukrainians are still able to resist.”
The Pentagon believes Russian forces are behind schedule by “at least several days” on their various lines of approach, the official said.
“We believe they meant to be much further along in terms of the total encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the east, and they have not been able to link north with south. In fact, they’re nowhere close to linking north and south as the Ukrainians continue to fight back,” the official said.
But Russia retains certain advantages in the eastern Donbas region, where its forces have high numbers and benefit from shorter lines of communication because they’re fighting closer to their own border.
And while there is already fighting in Donbas, the Pentagon believes Russia is still setting conditions “for a sustained and larger and longer offensive” in the region, the defense official said.
“It could go on for some time. We’ve described it as a potential knife fight, and I think it’s beginning to shape up to be exactly that,” the official said.
Almost 20 shipment flights have arrived from seven different nations in the last 24 hours carrying mines, small arms ammunition, rockets and body armor, according to the official.
Over the next 24 hours, more than 12 flights carrying U.S. military aid for Ukraine are expected to arrive in the region, including howitzers, 155mm artillery rounds and the first shipment of Phoenix Ghost drones, the official said.
Apr 29, 3:39 pm
American killed while fighting in Ukraine
U.S. citizen Willy Joseph Cancel was killed in Ukraine while fighting alongside Ukrainian troops against invading Russian forces, his family confirmed to ABC News early Friday. The news was first reported by CNN.
Cancel, a 22-year-old former U.S. Marine, “was eager to volunteer” when he learned about the war in Ukraine, according to his wife, Brittany Cancel.
“He went there wanting to help people, he had always felt that that was his main mission in life,” Brittany Cancel told ABC News in a statement. “My husband was very brave and a hero.”
Before going to Ukraine, Cancel was working as a detention officer in Kentucky. He also had dreams of becoming a police officer or firefighter, according to his wife.
“I did not expect to be a widow at 23 years old or for our son to be without a father,” she said. “All I want is for him to come home, and to give him the proper burial he deserves.”
An official with the U.S. Department of State told ABC News on Friday morning that they “are aware of these reports and are closely monitoring the situation,” but declined to comment further “due to privacy considerations.”
State Department spokesperson Ned Price told MSNBC later on Friday that the department is “in the process of reaching out to the family … to learn more details, to ascertain how we might be in a position to best support the family.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki expressed her condolences to Cancel’s family at Friday’s briefing, saying he “certainly sounded like a very passionate young man.”
“A wife is mourning and our hearts are with them,” she said.
Psaki also urged Americans not to travel to Ukraine.
“We know people want to help, but we do encourage Americans to find other ways to do so rather than traveling” to Ukraine, she said.
Apr 29, 2:36 pm
Pentagon spokesman emotional while speaking about Putin’s ‘depravity’
When Pentagon press secretary John Kirby was asked at Friday’s briefing whether he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is a rational actor, he first responded by saying he couldn’t speak to his psyche, adding, “It’s hard to look at what he’s doing in Ukraine, what his forces are doing in Ukraine, and think that any ethical, moral individual could justify that.”
Kirby then appeared to get choked up and paused for several seconds. He said, “Sorry, it’s difficult to look at some of the images and imagine that any well-thinking, serious, mature leader would do that. So I can’t talk to his psychology, but I think we can all speak to his depravity.”
Kirby later apologized, saying, “I didn’t mean to get emotional. I apologize for that. I don’t want to make this about me. But I’ve been around the military a long, long time and I’ve known friends who didn’t make it back. It’s just hard.”
He went on, “It’s difficult to look at that and it’s hard to square his — let’s just call it what it is, his BS: This is about Nazism in Ukraine, and it’s about protecting Russians in Ukraine, and it’s about defending Russian national interests when none of them, none of them were threatened by Ukraine. It’s hard to square that rhetoric by what he’s actually doing inside Ukraine to innocent people. Shot in the back of the head, hands tied behind their backs. Women, pregnant women being killed. Hospitals being bombed. I mean, it’s just unconscionable.”
Kirby announced at Friday’s briefing that the U.S. has started “training with Ukrainian armed forces on key systems at U.S. military installations in Germany.”
“These efforts build on the initial artillery training that Ukraine’s forces have already received elsewhere, and also includes training on radar systems and armored vehicles that have been recently announced as part of security assistance packages,” Kirby said.
Apr 29, 9:14 am
Pentagon spokesman: Putin ‘absolutely shouldn’t be’ welcome at G-20
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told CNN Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin “absolutely shouldn’t be” at the G-20 summit, set for November in Bali.
“He has isolated Russia by his own actions and he should continue to be isolated by the international community,” Kirby said.
“I can’t speak for President Biden or what the schedule might offer for the president, for United States attendance. But it’s inappropriate, I think, for the entire international community to keep treating Russia as if things were normal, because it’s not,” Kirby said.
-ABC News’ Matt Seyler
Apr 29, 5:53 am
Journalist killed by Russian bombardment in Kyiv
At least one person — a journalist — was killed in a rocket attack on a residential building in Kyiv on Thursday evening, ABC News has learned.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Kilitschko said Friday that rescuers had found the body of a victim amid the rubble.
Radio Liberty, a service of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reported that one of its employees, Vira Gyrych, was killed when a Russian missile hit her apartment in the Ukrainian capital on Thursday. Her body was found beneath the wreckage Friday morning, according to the report.
Gyrych had worked as a journalist and producer for Radio Liberty’s Kyiv bureau since 2018. Prior to that, she worked for leading Ukrainian television channels, according to Radio Liberty.
“The editorial staff of Radio Liberty expresses its condolences to the family of Vira Gyrych and will remember her as a bright and kind person, a true professional,” Radio Liberty said in its report.
Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Michael Brodsky also confirmed Gyrych’s death in a Twitter post, saying she was a former employee of the Israeli embassy in Kyiv.
Thursday’s rocket attack came as United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited Kyiv. Five Russian missiles flew into the city, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At least 10 people were injured, including four who were hospitalized, according to the Kyiv City Council.
Apr 29, 5:02 am
UN chief pledges to ‘fight with the use of force’
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres admitted Thursday that “the U.N. Security Council has not been able to do everything in its power” to resolve the war in Ukraine, as he pledged to “fight with the use of force.”
“We will not give up,” Guterres said during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
According to Guterres, U.N. staff are already providing on-site assistance in 30 locations across Ukraine. The U.N. chief called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “a violation of the U.N. Charter.” One of the organization’s values, he said, “is the need that territorial integrity of the countries must be respected.”
“This is fundamental,” Guterres added.
Guterres visited Kyiv as the Ukrainian capital was hit by two missile strikes on Thursday evening. Five missiles flew into the city, according to Zelenskyy. At least 10 people were injured, including four who were hospitalized, according to the Kyiv City Council.
“This says a lot about Russia’s true attitude to global institutions. About the efforts of the Russian leadership to humiliate the U.N. and everything that the organization represents,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly broadcast.
Earlier on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Western countries of openly calling on Ukraine to attack Russian territory with the weapons they supply to Kyiv.
“We have already commented the other day on statements by British Deputy Defense Minister [James] Heappey about okaying Ukraine’s strikes on Russian military targets,” Zakharova told reporters in Moscow, according to Russian state media. “In other words, the West is openly calling on Kiev to attack Russia, even with weapons received from NATO countries.”
According to Zakharova, Kyiv has taken this as a guide to action, evidenced by the Ukrainian military’s shelling of Russian border territories over the past few weeks that resulted in casualties and destruction. Zakharova said the Ukrainian strikes were “further evidence that Zelenskyy’s regime is not independent in its decisions and is completely dependent on external handlers.”
Zakharova also stressed that such “criminal activity” of the Ukrainian military against Russian territory cannot go unanswered.
“I would like Kyiv and Western capitals to take seriously the statements of our country’s defense ministry that further Ukrainian provocations to strike Russian targets will definitely lead to a harsh response from Russia,” she said.
At a press conference in Vienna on Thursday, International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi warned that Russian missiles over Ukrainian power plants could cause a nuclear accident. Grossi, who recently visited Ukraine and its Chernobyl nuclear power plant, said the Ukrainian government officially informed his agency, the nuclear watchdog of the U.N., of a video surveillance camera recording the flight of a missile directly over the South Ukraine nuclear power plant near the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk on April 16.
“The IAEA is studying the evidence and if it is confirmed, the incident will have extremely serious consequences,” Grossi said. “If such a missile changed its trajectory, it could seriously affect the physical integrity of the nuclear power plant, which could lead to a nuclear accident.”
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Uliana Lototska and Nataliia Kushnir
Apr 28, 6:41 pm
Russia could be ‘intensifying’ forced displacement of civilians: US official
The U.S. has “credible information” that Russia could be “intensifying” the forced displacement of civilians as it plans to overthrow local governments in southern and eastern Ukraine, a senior U.S. diplomat said Thursday.
Michael Carpenter, the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told reporters there is “credible reporting” that after failing to topple the central government in Kyiv, Russian forces are forcibly removing Ukrainian civilians from areas in the south and east — and could be “intensifying” those efforts as they seek to set up proxy local governments.
Carpenter said he has also now deemed “credible” the reports that Russian forces are forcibly displacing Ukrainian civilians, often through “filtration camps” where many are “brutally” interrogated, to tamp down on Ukrainian support in these parts of the war-torn country.
Carpenter repeatedly declined to provide more details to back up these claims, saying only, “We have very credible information from a variety of different sources that point to Russia’s plans.”
Just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was offered the chance by the U.S. government to leave the city of Kyiv for his own safety. What he is said to have responded has come to embody the defiance of the former comedic actor turned wartime leader: “The fight is here,” he reportedly said, “I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Early U.S. intelligence assessments suggested that Russia would take Kyiv within days of attacking Ukraine, but a succession of setbacks for the Russian military, and fierce resistance on the Ukrainian side, means the war is now dragging into its third month. Throughout it all, President Zelenskyy has been the face of Ukrainian resistance – addressing his people on social media daily, as well as parliaments and leaders around the world.
The Ukrainian government’s communications strategy has proved important in both rallying morale and helping the country secure key military aid as the war has progressed, experts and analysts say.
‘A man on the street’
In the early phase of the war, the defiant message of Zelenskyy’s early addresses, often filmed by himself in front of his office in the heart of the capital and posted on his social media accounts, was “critical,” according to Orysia Lutsevych, a research fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the think tank Chatham House.
“The very first weeks of war were very dark times where there was a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about Kyiv, whether it will be able to stand Russian assault,” she said. “And that voice of Zelenskyy, almost like it was breaking that darkness, gave a communication channel to the world.”
Zelenskyy has appeared in a constant stream of addresses since the war started, often decked out in combat fatigues, directly addressing the Ukrainian people but also the international media, who relied on these broadcasts as a daily source of information that would be reached by millions in the west.
By remaining in Kyiv at the time, Zelenskyy also faced personal danger, broadcasting from the capital despite Russian missiles hitting targets in the city every night and Russian saboteur units allegedly sent to kill him.
“We are all here. Our military are here, as are our people and whole society,” Zelenskyy said in one of his characteristic selfie-style videos posted at the time. “We’re all here defending our independence and our country. And we’ll go on doing that. Glory to our defenders! Glory to Ukraine.”
It’s a style which now seems familiar, but at the time was a clear indication that the current Ukrainian government had appreciated the importance of wartime messaging, according to David Patrikarakos, a contributing editor at the online magazine UnHerd and author of the book “War in 140 Characters: How Social Media Is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century.”
“You see in those videos that Zelenskyy is both the President of Ukraine and a literal man in the street,” Patrikarakos told ABC News. “And the Ukrainian messaging at the beginning of the war was really focused on one message, which is, we will fight, but we are civilians who do not want to fight. The war has imposed this upon us.”
While Zelenskyy has a background as a performer — famously playing a teacher who accidentally become president in the sitcom ‘Servant of the People’ — as a leader on the international stage he was perhaps best known as a figure in the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump, during which he was notably quiet. Now, he has drawn praise for rising to the challenges of a wartime communicator.
“I think what is interesting is that he is metamorphosing, right, how he changed and completely and blended with the new reality fast,” Lutsevych said. “That transformation happened quickly, partially because he is an actor, he understands the new setting, the new scene and he plays it.”
Channeling Churchill, Shakespeare and MLK
Yet for all his success as a communicator, at the core of Zelenskyy’s success as been the moral authority he carries in the face of the Russian invasion, according to John Herbst, the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
“His prominence is a result of his what I would call his sound and statesmanlike response to, again, this absolutely dreadful circumstance in which he found himself,” Herbst told ABC News. “He’s demonstrated courage, boldness and, of course, the ability to frame his dilemma and his needs for all who want to listen, which includes the entire Western world.”
That framing, as seen during his addresses to parliaments and legislatures around the world, has made his calls for international aid particularly effective. For the American people Zelenskyy invoked Pearl Harbor and quoted Martin Luther King. For the British, he quoted Shakespeare and Winston Churchill.
Zelenskyy’s tour was met with widespread acclaim, with tearful legislators resonating with his country’s struggle as Zelenskyy appealed for more armaments and aid. He has not held back his criticism too, particularly for the U.N. Security Council, who he accused of failing to stand up to the Russian veto.
“What he’s done is humanize the conflict,” Patrikarakos. “He made people care about Ukraine. And that’s what affects policy.”
The U.N. General Assembly has since adopted a procedure requiring a meeting of the body within 10 days if a veto is used in the Security Council by one of the five permanent members, including Russia.
“In an ideal world, if you have extraordinary needs, which Zelenskyy most definitely has, and you have nations that are sympathetic to you, they will meet your extraordinary needs when their interests require it,” Herbst said. “And then you do everything behind closed doors. The problem is that with this administration in Washington and with other governments in the West, you had the sympathy, but you had a certain nearsightedness that prevented them from doing what Ukraine needed. So he appealed publicly others in the United States and elsewhere to find satisfaction of his needs.”
Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, found a more mixed reception in the Israeli Knesset, where his evocation of the actions of Nazi Germany drew criticism from some lawmakers and the media.
“The war is terrible but the comparison to the horrors of the Holocaust and the final solution is outrageous,” one Israeli minister tweeted.
And his performances when being questioned by journalists have not been as strong as his pre-written speeches, according to Lutsevych, but Zelenskyy and his small team of advisers essential to shaping the communications strategy have largely been successful.
The regular communications of the government via social media, as well as the provision of translation and logistical services to news outlets, has proved important in disseminating their messages wider, according to Diane Nemec Ignashev, professor of Russian and the liberal arts at Carleton College.
“In terms of outreach, my estimation would be that Ukrainian official sources, insofar as they feed the Ukrainian news agencies, which in turn feed social media and the foreign media, are doing an excellent job getting information out to diverse audiences,” Ignashev told ABC News.
The future
For the most part, Zelenskyy has found a receptive audience in the west. Ukraine has also found a friendly reception in other key areas of diplomacy, with Politico reporting last month on Ukraine’s network of lobbyists — some of whom are working pro bono — who have pushed for military aid and sanctions on Russia in Washington, D.C., and London.
Now, the war looks set to drag on much longer than anticipated, with some analysts now suggesting the fighting could continue through to the end of the year, and with that the focus of messaging has already changed. Early on, Ukraine’s messaging highlighted its defiance, hammering home that there was a war that they believed they can win. Now the focus is on evidence of war crimes to keep the international community focused on meeting their obligations to Ukraine, Lutsevych said.
Russia has defended itself vigorously against accusations of war crimes, even alleging that photographs and videos published by the Ukrainian authorities alleging “crimes” by Russian troops in cities like Bucha were a “provocation.”
“That is important because that could also lead to defections and splits within the elite inside Russia,” Lutsevych said on Ukrainian efforts to demonstrate evidence of war crimes. “So I think we’ll see more and more information on war crimes and also what is happening on the occupied territories, temporarily occupied territories Russia controls.”
And the problem the Ukrainian authorities face is how to keep the international community fixed on their interests, continuing to send the arms and financial aid the country needs to fight and stay afloat.
“The challenge for the Ukrainians is how do you keep all this fresh. News cycles are fickle things, especially in this day and age,” according to Patrikarakos.
“In the final analysis, the war on the ground is the most important thing, that’s how people are getting killed,” he said. “But let’s not forget this: communications, information warfare, whatever you want to call it, affects policy. Policy affects war. If policy brings you Stingers and Javelins and N-LAWs, all those things that have faced the Russian army for the last two months, that’s what they’ve done very well.”
