Author: Blazingcatfur

KYIV, April 15 (Reuters) – Ukraine said on Friday it was trying to break Russian forces’ siege of Mariupol, with fighting raging around the city’s Illich steel works and port, as the capital Kyiv was rocked by some of the most powerful explosions in two weeks.

Russia said it had struck overnight what it said was a factory in Kyiv that made and repaired anti-ship missiles, in apparent retaliation for the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of Moscow’s Black Sea fleet, on Thursday.

#Ukraine: Footage filmed via a Russian Orlan-10 drone of a strike against a Ukrainian vehicle, leading to its destruction- type or location unknown at present. pic.twitter.com/68Ki0pjFB6

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 15, 2022

Captain Vasyl Kravchuk has a surprisingly ready smile for a man who has endured 50 days of war. We spoke to him via video link from his base at an undisclosed location.

He knows the coming weeks will offer no respite. Russia may have received a bloody nose in its aborted attempts to take Kyiv, but with the Eastern region of the Donbas now firmly in Moscow’s sights, the men and women of Dnipro’s Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade will continue to play a key role in the next phase of the war.

Ukrainian officials have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches on dead or captured Russian soldiers in the 50 days since Moscow’s invasion began, using the scans to identify bodies and contact hundreds of their families in what may be one of the most gruesome applications of the technology to date.

Russia sent a formal warning to the US not to send more arms to Ukraine or it could face “unpredictable consequences”, it has been reported.

According to the Washington Post, Moscow sent a diplomatic note, a démarche, warning that US and Nato deliveries of the “most sensitive” weapons systems to Ukraine were “adding fuel” to the conflict there and could bring “unpredictable consequences”.

A spokesperson said the state department ddid not confirm any diplomatic correspondence as a matter of course, and made clear that the US would continue to send arms to Ukraine.

German chancellor ‘stalling on heavy weaponry to Ukraine’

… The centre-left leader had surprised even close partners in his three-party coalition when on 27 February he announced an “epochal change” in Germany’s foreign policy to boost defence spending and relax its restrictive stance on exporting weapons to conflict zones.

Six weeks on, prominent politicians from allied parties urged the Social Democrat to follow up words with actions after Germany was accused of stalling on delivering heavy weaponry to Ukraine and blocking a wholesale ban on Russian oil and gas.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — More than 900 civilian bodies have been discovered in the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital following the withdrawal of Russian forces — most of them fatally shot, police said Friday, an indication that many people were “simply executed.”

The number of dead is double that announced by Ukrainian authorities almost two weeks ago.

Andriy Nebytov, the head of Kyiv’s regional police force, said the bodies were abandoned in the streets or given temporary burials. He cited police data indicating that 95% died from gunshot wounds.

“Consequently, we understand that under the (Russian) occupation, people were simply executed in the streets,” Nebytov said.

Expert interview: What Russia did in Syria, may predict what happens next in Ukraine

First Syria and Chechnya, and now Ukraine — experts have already drawn many parallels between the Russian approach to conflicts in those areas.

Hanna Notte, a senior research associate with the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, focuses on security issues and arms control with a particular emphasis on where those intersect when it comes to Russia and the Middle East.

DW spoke to Notte about parallels she has observed in conflicts in Syria and now in Ukraine, and how that may help predict what happens next in Ukraine.