In the early hours of Sunday morning in Ukraine, here are the latest developments in the war:
Ukraine claims citizens of Mariupol were forcibly deported to the Far East region of Russia: Ukrainian officials claimed on Saturday that Russia had forcibly deported citizens from Mariupol to Primorsky Krai in Russia’s Far East region.
“Russia sent forcibly deported Ukrainian citizens from Mariupol to Primorsky Krai – 8,000 kilometers from the homeland,” Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukrainian parliament commissioner for human rights, said in a Telegram message.
According to Denisova, volunteers told her that a train arrived in the town of Nakhodka on April 21 with 308 Ukrainians from Mariupol, including mothers with young children, people with disabilities and students.
8 dead in Russian missile strikes in southern Ukraine, Odessa mayor says: Odessa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov said in a statement on Telegram that a total of eight people had been killed in the port city after Russian missile strikes.
“Behind my back is what the Russians call a military target,” he said. “A residential building which they for some reason call a military object. Eight people are dead. A three-month-old child is among them. She had not yet seen life. You [Russians] are monsters, burn in hell.”
In a separate statement, local authorities said salvage work was still underway at a damaged residential building. A total of 86 people were evacuated and the rubble was still being dismantled.
Leaders considering visiting Ukraine “should not come empty-handed”, says Zelensky: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that leaders planning to visit Ukraine “should not come here empty-handed”.
Zelensky made the comments when asked what he expected from the visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Kyiv on Sunday.
“Why is it important for leaders to come to us? I’ll give you a pragmatic answer; because they shouldn’t come here empty-handed. We don’t just expect gifts or cakes; we expect specific things and specific weapons,” Zelensky told a news conference in Kyiv.
Ukrainian intelligence services claim that Russia plans to recruit Ukrainian civilians from occupied areas: Ukrainian intelligence has accused Russia of planning the conscription of Ukrainian civilians from occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, according to a British military intelligence update on Saturday.
“This would follow similar prior conscription practices in Russian-occupied Donbass and Crimea,” the statement said.