Russia-Ukraine war: Russia has turned Donbas into ‘hell’, Zelenskiy says; US Senate approves $40bn in aid for Ukraine – live

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Once Russia has secured Mariupol it will likely redeploy forces there to the Donbas, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update, adding that due to the pressure Russian commanders are under however, they will probably do so “without adequate preparation”.

Staunch Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol since the start of the war means Russian forces in the area must be re-equipped and refurbished before they can be redeployed effectively. This can be a lengthy process when done thoroughly.

Russian commanders, however, are under pressure to demonstrably achieve operational objectives. This means that Russia will probably redistribute their forces swiftly without adequate preparation, which risks further force attrition.

The MoD said up to 1,700 Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant had surrendered in recent days, with an unknown number still inside.

In case you missed it, it is really worth checking out this extraordinary report from AP, based on the bodycam recordings of a Mariupol medic that were smuggled out in March by an AP team, the last international journalists in the city. A warning though, that the report contains graphic imagery and distressing scenes.

Yuliia Paievska is well known within Ukraine under the name Taira and was a member of the Ukraine Invictus Games for military veterans, where she was set to compete in archery and swimming. She had been given the camera in 2021 to film for a Netflix documentary series on inspirational figures being produced by Britain’s Prince Harry.

But when Russian forces invaded, she used it to shoot scenes of injured civilians and soldiers instead.

On 16 March, the day after she handed the camera’s data card to AP, Taira was captured by Russian forces, along with her driver, Serhiy. The last time she was seen was in a Russian news broadcast on 21 March, in which she reads a statement calling for an end to the fighting.

The US Senate has overwhelmingly approved a $40bn infusion of military and economic aid for Ukraine and its allies as both parties rallied behind America’s latest, and quite possibly not last, financial salvo against Russia’s invasion.

The 86-11 vote gave final congressional approval to the package, three weeks after Joe Biden requested a smaller $33bn version and after a lone Republican opponent delayed Senate passage for a week.

Every voting Democrat and all but 11 Republicans – including many of the chamber’s supporters of Donald Trump’s isolationist agenda – backed the measure.

“Help is on the way, really significant help. Help that could make sure that the Ukrainians are victorious,” said the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, underscoring a goal that seemed nearly unthinkable when Russia launched its assault in February.

More on the US package here:

Russia is engaged in a “deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in his latest nightly address, accusing Moscow of committing genocide.

He also said Russian forces had turned the Donas region, where they are currently focusing their efforts, into “hell” and said they had killed “many” people in the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine. There was no “military explanation” for the killing and destruction, he said.

In Donbas, the occupiers are trying to increase pressure. There’s hell, and that’s not an exaggeration.

The brutal and absolutely pointless bombing of Severodonetsk … 12 dead and dozens wounded in just one day. The bombing and shelling of other cities, the air and missile strikes of the Russian army – all this is not just hostilities during the war.

Russian strikes at the Chernihiv region, in particular the terrible strike at Desna, debris clearance continues, many dead; constant strikes at the Odesa region, at the cities of central Ukraine, Donbas is completely destroyed – all this doesn’t and cannot have any military explanation for Russia.

This is a deliberate and criminal attempt to kill as many Ukrainians as possible. Destroy as many houses, social facilities and enterprises as possible.

This is what will be qualified as the genocide of the Ukrainian people and for which the occupiers will definitely be brought to justice.

Hello, I’m Helen Livingstone, welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

A roundup of the most recent developments:

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the Donbas, where Russia is now concentrating its main effort, has been “completely destroyed”. “There’s hell, and that’s not an exaggeration,” he said in his nightly address. “The bombing and shelling of other cities, the air and missile strikes of the Russian army – all this is not just hostilities during the war.”
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has accused Russia of using “food as a weapon” by blockading Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. But Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now senior security official, says the west should not expect Russia to continue food supplies if it slaps Moscow with devastating sanctions over Ukraine. ” Things don’t work like that, we’re not idiots.”
The US Congress has approved $40bn in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, with both parties eagerly backing the effort. Final passage came as Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, said the US had authorised shipping Ukraine another $100m worth of weapons and equipment from Pentagon stocks.
Mykhailo Podolyak, Ukraine’s top presidential adviser and a member of the negotiating team, said a ceasefire with Russia was “impossible without total Russian troops withdrawal”. Podolyak said Kyiv was not interested in a new “Minsk”, referring to the 2015 Minsk agreement, brokered by France and Germany, which attempted to secure a ceasefire between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatists in the east of Ukraine.
Russia has said a further 771 Ukrainian troops have “surrendered” at Mariupol’s besieged Azovstal steelworks, bringing the total number to 1,730 this week, while the International Committee of the Red Cross said it had started registering the Ukrainian prisoners of war who left the plant. It is not clear how many remain at the plant.
Putin’s youngest daughter, Katerina Tikhonova, flew to Munich, Germany, “more than 50 times” between 2017 and 2019, travelling on chartered flights with full state support, according to an investigation by Germany’s Spiegel magazine and independent Russian media outlet iStories. Her enthusiasm for Europe appears to match that of the oligarch “scum and traitors” Putin has decried since the start of the war.
Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old tank commander, asked a Ukrainian widow to forgive him for the murder of her husband after pleading guilty on Wednesday to killing an unarmed 62-year-old civilian in the north-east Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka on 28 February.
Russia’s promise to use lasers to shoot down drones in Ukraine has prompted widespread scepticism that the novel and possibly nuclear-powered weaponry could be deployed on the battlefield or have any significant impact on the war. Zelenskiy described it as a “wunderwaffe” – a nonexistent “wonder weapon” that was originally a propaganda invention of the Nazis.
The US president, Joe Biden, said Finland and Sweden “meet every Nato requirement and then some” to join the alliance and have the “full, complete backing” of the US. Speaking at a joint press conference at the White House with Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, and Finland’s president, Sauli Niinist?, he also said he was confident Turkey’s concerns regarding their membership could be addressed.
The former German chancellor Gerhard Schr?der will lose some of his post-office privileges after failing to cut his links with Russian energy companies over the Ukraine war, the Bundestag’s budgetary committee has decided. Schr?der – chancellor from 1998 to 2005 – will be stripped of his office and staff, which cost about EUR419,000 ($443,000) in taxpayers’ money in 2021.
G7 financial leaders have agreed on $18.4bn aid to help Ukraine and said they were ready to stand by Kyiv and “do more as needed”, according to a draft communique seen by Reuters. Finance ministers and central bank governors of the US, Japan, Canada, Britain, Germany, France and Italy are holding talks as Ukraine is running out of cash.
McDonald’s has reached a deal to sell all its restaurants in Russia to one of its licensees in the country, the businessman Alexander Govor, who will operate them under a new name.
More than a million Ukrainian refugees have already returned home, according to the country’s ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko. He said the mayors of Kyiv and Kharkiv had had to tell people not to return to the cities as it was still unsafe.