2) Russian strike on Kyiv kills 9 in biggest attack on Ukrainian capital since last summer

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Vasilisa Stepanenko And Samya Kullab, April 24

Russia attacked Kyiv with an hourslong barrage of missiles and drones, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 70 in its deadliest assault on the Ukrainian capital since last July and just as peace efforts are coming to a head.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after the attack he is cutting short his official trip to South Africa and returning home as the city reeled from the bombardment that kept residents on edge for about 11 hours. It appeared to be Russia’s biggest attack on Kyiv in nine months, and Zelenskyy called it one of Russia’s ”most outrageous.”

The attack drew a rare rebuke of Russian President Vladimir Putin from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said he was “not happy” with it.

“Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP!” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

Senior U.S. officials have warned that the Trump administration could soon give up its efforts to stop the war if the two sides don’t compromise.

Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko announced that Friday would be an official day of mourning in the capital.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 66 ballistic and cruise missiles, four plane-launched air-to-surface missiles, and 145 Shahed and decoy drones at Kyiv and four other regions of Ukraine. Rescue workers with flashlights scoured the charred rubble of partly collapsed homes as the blue lights of emergency vehicles lit up the dark city streets.

The attack came as weeks of peace negotiations appeared to be culminating without an agreement in sight and hours after Trump lashed out at Zelenskyy, accusing him of prolonging the “killing field” by refusing to surrender the Russia-occupied Crimea Peninsula as part of a possible deal.

Zelenskyy says future of negotiations depends on Moscow

Zelenskyy has repeated many times during the more than three-year war that recognizing occupied territory as Russian is a red line for his country. He noted Thursday that Ukraine had agreed to a U.S. ceasefire proposal 44 days ago, as a first step to a negotiated peace, but that Russia’s attacks had continued.

He said in South Africa that the latest attack meant the future of negotiations “depends on Russia’s intention because it is in Moscow where they have to make a decision.”

While talks have been going on in recent weeks, Russia has hit the city of Sumy, killing more than 30 civilians gathered to celebrate Palm Sunday, battered Odesa with drones and blasted Zaporizhzhia with powerful glide bombs.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the attack underscored that the main obstacle to ending the war is Russia. “While claiming to seek peace, Russia launched a deadly airstrike on Kyiv,” she wrote on social media. “This isn’t a pursuit of peace, it’s a mockery of it.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the attack showed that Putin is determined to press his bigger army’s advantage on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where it currently holds the momentum.

“Putin demonstrates through his actions, not words, that he does not respect any peace efforts and only wants to continue the war,” Sybiha said on X. “Weakness and concessions will not stop his terror and aggression. Only strength and pressure will.”

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal noted that since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of its neighbor, Russian attacks haves killed some 13,000 civilians, including 618 children.

Kyiv residents spent the night in shelters

At least 42 people were hospitalized following the attack on residential suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.

The dead included a brother and sister, age 21 and 19, according to Zelenskyy.

At a Kyiv residential building that was almost entirely destroyed, emergency workers removed rubble with their hands, rescuing a trapped woman who emerged from the wreckage covered in white dust and moaning in pain.

An elderly woman sat against a brick wall, face smeared with blood, her eyes fixed to the ground in shock as medics tended to her wounds.

Fires were reported in several residential buildings, said Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the city military administration.

The attack, which began around 1 a.m., hit at least five neighborhoods in Kyiv.

Oksana Bilozir, a student, suffered a head injury in the attack. With blood seeping from her bandaged head, she said that she heard a loud explosion after the air alarm blared and began to grab her things to flee to a shelter when another blast caused her home’s walls to crumble and the lights to go off.

“I honestly don’t even know how this will all end, it’s very scary,” said Bilozir, referring to the war against Russia’s invasion. “I only believe that if we can stop them on the battlefield, then that’s it. No diplomacy works here.”

The attack kept many people awake all night long as multiple loud explosions reverberated around the city and flashes of light punctuated the sky. Families gathered in public air raid shelters, some of them bringing their pet cat and dog.

Zelenskyy returning from South Africa

Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that he would fly back to Kyiv after meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The Ukrainian leader had hoped to recruit further South African support in efforts to end his country’s war with Russia, now in its fourth year.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the Kyiv attack was “yet another appalling violation of international humanitarian law.”

“Civilians must never be targets. This senseless use of force must stop,” it said in a statement.

Anastasiia Zhuravlova, 33, a mother of two, was sheltering in a basement after multiple blasts damaged her home. Her family was sleeping when the first explosion shattered their windows and sent kitchen appliances flying in the air. Shards of glass rained down on them as they rushed to take cover in the corridor.

“After that we came to the shelter because it was scary and dangerous at home,” she said.

In Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district, the attack flattened a two-story residential building and heavily damaged nearby multi-story buildings. Rescue work continued through the morning.

At a nearby school-turned-relief center, children helped parents cover blown-out windows with plastic while others queued for government compensation. Many stood in blood-stained clothes, still shaken.

——- Associated Press journalist Michelle Gumede in Pretoria, South Africa contributed to this report.

1) (Updated) Putin announces an Easter ceasefire as Russia and Ukraine swap hundreds of POWs

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Canadian Press, April 19, 2025

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary Easter ceasefire in Ukraine starting Saturday, citing humanitarian reasons, as Russia and Ukraine swapped hundreds of captured soldiers in the largest exchange since Moscow’s full-scale invasion started over three years ago.

According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time (1500 GMT) on Saturday to midnight (2100 GMT) following Easter Sunday.

“We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example. At the same time, our troops must be ready to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations from the enemy, any of its aggressive actions,” Putin said at a meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, in a video shared by the Kremlin’s Press Service.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the ceasefire “another attempt by Putin to play with human lives.” He wrote on X that “air raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine,” and “Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin’s true attitude toward Easter and toward human life.”

In response to the ceasefire announcement, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that Kyiv had in March “agreed unconditionally to the U.S. proposal of a full interim ceasefire for 30 days,” which Russia rejected.

“Putin has now made statements about his alleged readiness for a ceasefire. 30 hours instead of 30 days,” Sybiha continued, writing on X. “Unfortunately, we have had a long history of his statements not matching his actions.”

Largest POW exchange so far

The two sides meanwhile exchanged hundreds of POWs on Saturday. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that 246 Russian service members were returned from territory controlled by Kyiv, and that “as a gesture of goodwill” 31 wounded Ukrainian POWs were transferred in exchange for 15 wounded Russian soldiers in need of urgent medical care.

Zelenskyy said that 277 Ukrainian “warriors” have returned home from Russian captivity.

Both sides thanked the United Arab Emirates for their mediation.

Putin’s ceasefire announcement came after U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are “coming to a head” and insisted that neither side is “playing” him in his push to end the grinding three-year war.

Trump spoke shortly after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the U.S. may “move on” from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting.

In January 2023, Putin had ordered his forces in Ukraine to observe a unilateral, 36-hour cease-fire for Orthodox Christmas. Zelenskyy had dismissed it as playing for time to prepare additional attacks.

Russia says its forces have retaken nearly all of Kursk

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday its forces pushed Ukrainian troops from the village of Oleshnya, one of their last remaining footholds in Russia’s Kursk region where the Ukrainians staged a surprise incursion last year.

Gerasimov said Saturday in a report to Putin, quoted by Russian state media, that Russia had retaken nearly all of the territory from Ukrainian forces.

“The main part of the region’s territory, where the invasion took place, has now been liberated. This is 1,260 square kilometers, 99.5%,” Gerasimov said.

Zelenskyy wrote on X that Ukrainian forces “continued their activity on the territory of the Kursk region and are holding their positions.”

The Associated Press was unable to immediately verify the claim by Russia. Russian and North Korean soldiers have nearly deprived Kyiv of a key bargaining chip by retaking most of the region.

According to Russian state news agency Tass, Russia is still fighting to push Ukrainian forces out of the village of Gornal, some 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of Oleshnya.

“The Russian military has yet to push the Ukrainian armed forces out of Gornal … in order to completely liberate the Kursk region. Fierce fighting is underway in the settlement,” the agency reported, citing Russia security agencies.

In other developments, the Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired 87 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Saturday. It said 33 of them were intercepted and another 36 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

Russian attacks damaged farms in the Odesa region and sparked fires in the Sumy region overnight, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Saturday. Fires were contained, and no casualties were reported.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, said its air defense systems shot down two Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday.