As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its 49th day, we take a look at the main developments.
Here are the key events so far on Wednesday, April 13.
Get the latest updates here.
Fighting
- Ukrainian forces are “surrounded and blocked” in Mariupol as Russian forces push to take the southeastern port city, Mykhailo Podolyak, an official from Ukraine’s presidential office said.
- Ukraine also fended off six Russian attacks in the southeastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, collectively known as Donbas, Ukraine’s General Staff of Armed Forces said.
- The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it is closely watching the war in Ukraine after an unconfirmed report of chemical weapons use in Mariupol.
- Russia’s appointment of Army General Aleksandr Dvornikov as commander of the Ukraine war shows how Ukrainian resistance and Russia’s pre-war planning are forcing it to reassess its operations, British military intelligence said.
Diplomacy
- US President Joe Biden said Russia’s invasion amounts to genocide.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has reappeared after a rare public silence to say the invasion was a “noble” cause and that peace talks were at a dead end.
- Ukraine told Russia to release prisoners of war if it wants the Kremlin’s top political ally Viktor Medvedchuk to be freed.
- Washington is expected to announce $750m in military assistance for Ukraine.
- Polish President Andrzej Duda and presidents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are on their way to Kyiv to meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
- A planned visit by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was not welcomed by Ukraine, he said on Tuesday, following a report that Zelenskyy was critical of Steinmeier’s historic advocacy of Western rapprochement with Russia.
People returning
- More than 870,000 Ukrainians, who fled abroad after the start of the war, have returned to the country, Ukraine’s border force said.
- Spokesman Andriy Demchenko says that 25,000 to 30,000 Ukrainians are returning each day, with growing numbers of women, children and the elderly among them.
- In total, more than 4.6 million Ukrainians have now fled their country, the United Nations reported.
Economy and business
- Russia’s economy is on track to contract by more than 10 percent in 2022, the biggest fall since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, a former finance minister said.
- Zelenskyy has urged the European Union to impose sanctions on all Russian banks and oil and to set a deadline for ending imports of Russian gas.
- Russia’s energy minister told Izvestia newspaper that Moscow is ready to sell oil and oil products to “friendly countries in any price range”, the Interfax news agency reported.
- The World Bank is preparing a $1.5bn support package for Ukraine
