Ukraine-Russia war latest news: Vladimir Putin admits he is facing ‘serious challenges’

Wagner, Russia’s strongest mercenary group, despatched not less than 100 Ukrainian prisoners of conflict again to Ukrainian forces to mark Orthodox Easter, in accordance with a video posted by the group’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on Sunday.

“Put together all of them, feed and water them, verify the wounded,” Prigozhin was proven saying in a video posted on Telegram by his press service.

A bunch of Ukrainian prisoners was then proven being advised that they’d be handed again to Ukrainian forces to mark Orthodox Easter.

“I hope you do not fall again into our palms,” an armed Wagner soldier was advised telling the boys earlier than they have been ordered right into a truck, some loading packs of water bottles.

Greater than 100 males, some limping and a few being carried on stretchers by their comrades, have been proven making their method in line alongside a muddy highway as a person standing on a tank held a white flag.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of workers, Andriy Yermak, stated 130 Ukrainian prisoners of conflict have been launched and returned dwelling in a “nice Easter trade”. It was not clear what number of Russians have been despatched again the opposite method.

Russia’s Wagner Group has been steadily pushing out Ukrainian forces from Bakhmut in jap Ukraine. Wagner now claims management of many of the metropolis, although Ukraine has repeatedly disputed claims its forces have nearly been pushed out.

Prigozhin was proven greeting refugees within the metropolis, together with a boy named Vladimir, earlier than they have been evacuated. The folks gave the impression to be sleeping in a cramped underground cellar of some type. Prigozhin handed out chocolate bars to the kids.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has been urged to finish the conflict in Ukraine by the pinnacle of the Wagner mercenary military deployed by the Kremlin.

Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed Russia had taken a “fats chunk” of Ukrainian territory and stated president Putin ought to inform the world Russia has achieved the goals of its “particular army operation,” in a video posted on-line on Friday evening.

Mr Prigozhin additionally stated Russian armed forces – who’ve suffered extreme losses – ought to defend current features.

The Wagner mercenary chief additionally warned that the Russian folks could search a “scapegoat” for army failures because the conflict drags on, which may result in revolutionary fervour.

Mr Prigozhin claimed Russia has destroyed “a big a part of the energetic male inhabitants of Ukraine” and induced others to flee the nation.

“For the authorities and society as a complete, it’s right this moment mandatory to place a strong full cease on the particular army operation,” stated Mr Prigozhin.

“The perfect possibility is to announce the top of the particular army operation, to tell everybody that Russia has achieved the outcomes that it deliberate, and in a way now we have truly achieved them.

“We’ve got floor down an enormous variety of fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and we will report back to ourselves that the duties of the particular army operation have been accomplished.”

He continued: “Theoretically, Russia has already [made a point] by destroying a big a part of the energetic male inhabitants of Ukraine, and by intimidating one other a part of it, which fled to Europe.

“Russia lower off the Sea of Azov and a big piece of the Black Sea, seized a fats piece of Ukrainian territory and created a land hall to the Crimea.

“Now there is just one factor left: to firmly acquire a foothold, to claw in these territories that exist already.”

The feedback mark the primary time a senior Putin henchman straight concerned in combating on the bottom has publicly known as for the Kremlin to halt the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted he’s going through “severe challenges” as he celebrates the second Orthodox Easter of his conflict with Ukraine.

“The great, beloved Easter vacation provides believers hope, conjures up good ideas and deeds, and serves to affirm excessive ethical beliefs and values in society,” stated Putin, who’s waging a conflict on Ukraine that’s feared to have already killed greater than 200,000 folks.

“The Church has at all times been along with the folks, sharing joys and hardships with them. And right this moment, within the face of significant challenges, it’s actively concerned within the affairs of mercy and charity, serving to folks discover a sturdy non secular help.”

Putin attended an Easter service performed by the Russian Orthodox Church, which has strongly backed the Kremlin chief’s resolution to invade Ukraine, on Sunday.

Putin, wearing a darkish swimsuit, white shirt and darkish purple tie, stood to at least one facet in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral, holding a lit pink candle, reside pictures of the midnight service confirmed. He additionally attended final 12 months.

The Russian chief crossed himself a number of occasions through the ceremony, referred to as the Divine Liturgy. When Patriarch Kirill introduced “Christ has risen”, Putin joined the opposite members of the congregation with the reply “Actually he’s risen”. He in any other case didn’t converse.

Kirill’s statements backing Russia’s invasion, which Kyiv and Western nations condemn as an act of aggression, have splintered the worldwide Orthodox Church.

In January, Putin praised the church for supporting Moscow’s forces combating in Ukraine in an Orthodox Christmas message designed to rally folks behind his imaginative and prescient of contemporary Russia.

A Polish ban on imports of Ukrainian grain and different meals may even apply to the transit of those merchandise via the nation, the event and know-how minister stated on Sunday.

Poland and Hungary stated on Saturday that that they had determined to ban imports from neighbouring Ukraine to guard the native agricultural sector after a flood of provide depressed costs throughout the area. The Polish ban got here into impact on Saturday night.

“The ban is full, together with the ban on transit via Poland,” Waldemar Buda wrote on Twitter, including that talks could be held with the Ukrainian facet to create a system that ensures items solely cross via Poland and don’t find yourself on the native market.

Ukraine’s ministry of agrarian coverage and meals stated on Saturday that the Polish ban contradicted current bilateral agreements on exports, and known as for talks to settle the problem.

After Russia’s invasion blocked some Black Sea ports, massive portions of Ukrainian grain, which is cheaper than that produced within the European Union, ended up staying in Central European states as a consequence of logistical bottlenecks, hitting costs and gross sales for native farmers.

The difficulty has created a political drawback for Poland’s ruling Legislation and Justice (PiS) get together in an election 12 months because it has angered folks in rural areas the place help for the get together is normally excessive.

YouTube is internet hosting movies glamorising and elevating funds for the Wagner Group, it has been reported, resulting in claims the platform may have breached sanctions legislation.

A number of propaganda clips function on the video and social media platform glorifying the Russian personal army firm accused of conflict crimes, reported The Sunday Occasions. The movies additionally increase cash for ammunition for the mercenaries, who’ve been accused of rape, torture and homicide in Ukraine and elsewhere. The clips, which embrace rap songs, even encourage viewers to hitch the paramilitary organisation, which embrace tens of hundreds of convicts from jails in Russia and Africa.

The group, which is main the bloodiest battle of the conflict in Bakhmut, jap Ukraine, has been sanctioned by many western governments, with the US designating it a “transnational prison organisation” and the UK sanctioning its chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Specialists stated YouTube, which is owned by Google, could possibly be breaching sanctions legislation. Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant US secretary of state for worldwide legislation enforcement, advised The Sunday Occasions: “Tech platforms like YouTube don’t get a free cross in offering providers to sanctioned entities just like the Wagner Group.”

The algorithm of YouTube, which is owned by Google, additionally seems to be fuelling pro-Russian disinformation, evidenced by the platform directing viewers to extra violent Wagner movies after the earlier one ends.

The clips additionally appear to interrupt the platform’s neighborhood pointers, which ban “content material praising or justifying violent acts carried out by violent extremist, prison, or terrorist organisations”.

One recruitment promotional video is of dancing balaclava-clad mercenaries chanting the lyrics: “Warfare is our component / Come on, Russia, stand up / Come on Russia / Come on, Wagner play / It’s the breath of Armageddon / That is the delivery of a brand new nation / Russia, rise below the holy banners / Holy banners of holy conflict.”

A YouTube spokeswoman advised The Sunday Occasions: “Content material meant to reward, promote, or support violent extremist or prison organisations is just not allowed on YouTube. Google is dedicated to compliance with US sanctions legal guidelines and enforces associated insurance policies unader its phrases of service.”

“Bloody battles unprecedented in latest many years” are going down between Ukrainian and Russian armed forces within the jap metropolis of Bakhmut, however pro-Kyiv forces are nonetheless holding on, Ukraine’s army reported on Saturday.

Fighters of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group additionally captured two extra areas of Bakhmut, Russia’s Defence Ministry stated earlier on Saturday, however the report couldn’t be independently confirmed.

Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s jap army command, advised the 1+1 tv channel: “Bloody battles unprecedented in latest many years are going down in the midst of town’s city space.

“Our troopers are doing all the things in bloody and fierce battles to grind down [the enemy’s] fight functionality and break its morale. Daily, in each nook of this metropolis, they’re efficiently doing so.”

As Russia launched a renewed assault in Bakhmut, Ukrainian troops had been pressured to cede some territory there, the UK stated in an intelligence replace on Friday.

The terribly bloody combating comes because the loss of life toll from a Russian assault on residential buildings in close by Sloviansk rose to 11. Russian missiles hit residential buildings within the jap Ukrainian on Friday, killing 11 folks, wounding 21 and lowering elements of condominium blocks to a tangled mess of steel and concrete.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says Russia ought to pay for the harm induced in Ukraine throughout Moscow’s invasion.

Ms Yellen stated talks are ongoing on the potential mechanisms to make that occur.

“That’s a duty that I believe the worldwide neighborhood expects Russia to bear. That is one thing we’re discussing with our companions, however there are authorized constraints on what we will do with frozen Russian property,” she stated in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.

Finland has unveiled the primary part of its barbed-wired fence below development alongside its lengthy border with Russia, primarily meant to curb unlawful migration.

The Finnish Border Guard showcased the constructing of the preliminary 3km (1.8 mile) stretch of the fence on Friday lower than two weeks after the Nordic nation joined NATO because the thirty first member of the army alliance.

The border’s development was authorised final 12 months amid vast political help primarily to forestall unlawful immigration from Russia.

In 2015-2016, as a present of its energy Moscow organise massive numbers of asylum-seekers, principally from Afghanistan, Iraq, and different Center Jap nations, to northern Finnish crossing factors.

Russian President Putin has signed a invoice permitting authorities to difficulty digital notices to draftees and reservists amid the combating in Ukraine. The invoice signed into legislation by Putin was revealed Friday on the official register of presidency paperwork.

Russia’s army service guidelines beforehand required the in-person supply of notices to conscripts and reservists who’re known as up for responsibility. Underneath the brand new legislation, the notices issued by native army conscription places of work will proceed to be despatched by mail however they’d be thought-about legitimate from the second they’re placed on a state portal for digital providers.

Previously, many Russians averted the draft by staying away from their tackle of document. The brand new legislation closes that loophole in an obvious effort to create a software for shortly beefing up the army forward of a extensively anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive within the coming weeks.

Recipients who fail to point out up for service could be prohibited from leaving Russia, would have their drivers’ licenses suspended and could be barred from promoting their flats and different property.

After his China go to and assembly his counterpart in Beijing, Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated the US ought to cease “encouraging conflict” in Ukraine.

“The US must cease encouraging conflict and begin speaking about peace. The European Union wants to begin speaking about peace,” Mr Lula stated, in accordance with AFP.

With that, he stated, the worldwide neighborhood may “persuade” the Russian and Ukrainian presidents that “peace is within the curiosity of the entire world.”