The Washington Post

2022-04-17 23:44:55 Here is the latest from Ukraine:

- Five people were killed and at least 13 wounded in shelling in Kharkiv, the Ukrainian government said — the latest attack in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops are expected to intensify their offense in the days ahead.

- Russian forces are issuing passes for movement around the areas they control in Mariupol, which starting in the coming days will be required for anyone leaving their homes, said Petro Andrushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor.

- In an Easter address, Pope Francis called for “peace for war-torn Ukraine” and for caution in a conflict that could lead to nuclear war.

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2022-04-17 21:52:06 U.S., allies plan for long-term isolation of Russia

Nearly two months into Vladimir Putin’s brutal assault on Ukraine, the Biden administration and its European allies have begun planning for a far different world, in which they no longer try to coexist and cooperate with Russia, but actively seek to isolate and weaken it as a matter of long-term strategy.

At NATO and the European Union, and at the State Department, the Pentagon and allied ministries, blueprints are being drawn up to enshrine new policies across virtually every aspect of the West’s posture toward Moscow, from defense and finance to trade and international diplomacy.

Outrage is most immediately directed at Putin himself, who President Biden said last month “can’t remain in power.” While “we don’t say regime change,” said a senior E.U. diplomat, “it is difficult to imagine a stable scenario with Putin acting the way he is.”

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2022-04-17 21:30:01 In Bucha, the story of one man’s body left on a Russian killing field

BUCHA, Ukraine — Police found the body in an abandoned Russian military camp where occupying soldiers had sat around drinking wine, their laughter so loud that neighbors seethed as it echoed down Yablunska Street.

They had known for weeks that there was a body in the camp, yet another among so many corpses the Russians left behind. Overwhelmed crews picking them up simply hadn’t gotten to it yet. So no one knew it was Ivan Monastyrskyi.

His neighbor was the first to identify him, recognizing the unshaven face of a man who had watched his beloved street become a killing field. When his wife, Yulia, approached the body, her blue eyes froze.

There were bullet holes in his calves and his arms were stretched out at strange angles between slats of wood with nails through them. His wife looked at the thin sweater he was wearing and couldn’t help thinking how he must have been so cold in his final minutes.

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2022-04-17 19:00:05 In Lviv, displaced artists create antiwar, anti-Russian work

LVIV, Ukraine — When one of Ukraine’s most renowned visual artists left her home in Kyiv in the first days of the Russian invasion, she went to the Lviv Municipal Art Center. Vlada Ralko settled in among the hundreds of displaced people who sheltered at the facility last month.

Now it’s an art gallery again, showcasing the wartime work of artists from around Ukraine — including Ralko, who spent several weeks here in silence, churning out more than 100 drawings depicting the invasion.

Ukrainian daily life away from the front lines in the last two months has seen a wholesale rejection of all things Russian, paired with a need to tell the world — and especially Russians — what’s happened here. The country’s contemporary artists, who for years have fought an uphill battle against a Soviet legacy of rigidity governing freedom of expression, now find themselves at the forefront of that storytelling mission.

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2022-04-17 16:25:50 Attacks rock Ukrainian cities, as Mariupol nears full Russian control

MUKACHEVO, Ukraine — Deadly attacks rocked numerous cities and leveled buildings across Ukraine on Saturday, serving as ominous signals of how close destruction remains even in areas where Russian forces have recently pulled out.

Russia moved ever closer to controlling the already-devastated port city of Mariupol as its invasion of Ukraine continued into its eighth week. In Russian-occupied Kherson, satellite imagery that showed the digging of hundreds of fresh grave plots held haunting symbolism of the fate of civilians there.

U.S. officials and military experts are expecting that in the next phase of the war, Russian forces will concentrate their might on capturing the eastern region known as Donbas and the southern cities that provide crucial access to the Black Sea and beyond.

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2022-04-17 10:46:06 Here is the latest from Ukraine:

- The weeks-long resistance in besieged Mariupol appeared to be cracking as Russian forces moved closer to capturing the seaside port city in southeastern Ukraine, with a Russian-imposed deadline for Ukrainian forces in the city to surrender passing early Sunday local time.

- Officials in the capital Kyiv and the western city of Lviv reported explosions Saturday. Moscow has withdrawn its forces from those regions to focus on eastern Ukraine, but airstrikes have continued.

- Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and other senior officials will visit Washington in coming days to attend financial meetings, a World Bank official told The Washington Post on Saturday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the visit has yet to be officially announced. The visit marks the first time that a high-level Ukrainian delegation will travel to the United States since the invasion began.

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2022-04-17 08:44:10 Here is the latest on key battlegrounds in Ukraine.

Mariupol: Russian forces appear poised to capture this strategic southern port city, surrounding Ukrainian defenders holding out in the Azovstal steel plant, one of the largest iron and steel factories in Europe.

Kharkiv region: Indiscriminate bombardments in the eastern region have ramped up as Russian forces move into the area.

Luhansk region: Shelling by Russian forces in Lysychansk is making it difficult for civilians to evacuate, regional governor Serhiy Haidai said Saturday. The city of Severodonetsk is “70% destroyed,” he wrote, while other towns have been destroyed “beyond recognition.”

Kyiv region: Russian officials said Saturday that they had struck a military hardware facility in the city after Moscow warned of retaliatory strikes on Ukraine’s capital after Ukrainian forces struck the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the Moskva, with two Neptune missiles on Thursday.

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2022-04-16 21:31:41 Here is the latest from Ukraine:

- Officials in Kyiv and Lviv reported explosions early Saturday, after Russia warned it would step up strikes on Ukraine’s capital in retaliation for purported Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.

- Russia appears to be on the verge of capturing Mariupol, which a regional leader said has been “wiped off the face of the earth.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged in his nightly address Friday to do “everything to save our people.”

- Amid that battle for control, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and other senior officials plan to visit Washington next week for economic meetings

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2022-04-16 20:00:24 Ukraine’s prime minister to travel to D.C. for financial meetings

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and other senior officials will visit Washington in coming days to attend financial meetings, a World Bank official told The Washington Post on Saturday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the visit has yet to be officially announced.

Ukraine’s prime minister, along with the country’s finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, and the head of its central bank, Kyrylo Shevchenko, will attend the spring meetings hosted by the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, according to the official, although Ukraine has not yet confirmed their travel. The trip was first reported by Reuters. Representatives from the Group of Seven countries will also attend the meetings.

The event focused on Ukraine will take place on Thursday, along with bilateral meetings, according to the World Bank official.

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2022-04-16 18:15:05 Boris Johnson banned from entering Russia

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other senior British politicians have been banned from entering Russia in response to what the Russian government said was the United Kingdom’s “unprecedented hostile actions” over the war in Ukraine.

“This step was taken as a response to London’s unbridled information and political campaign aimed at isolating Russia internationally, creating conditions for restricting our country and strangling the domestic economy,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday.

Moscow has placed similar bans in recent weeks on U.S., Canadian and European leaders.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the British leadership was “deliberately aggravating the situation surrounding Ukraine, pumping the Kyiv regime with lethal weapons and coordinating similar efforts on the behalf of NATO.”

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