President Zelenskyy on Odesa shelling: Eight dead, at least 18 wounded – all of them regular civilians

“Today, Russia launched another missile attack on Ukraine – on Odesa. As of now – eight are dead, at least 18 wounded—ordinary peaceful people. Among the dead is a three-month-old baby, a girl,” he said.

Also, the father of a three-month-old baby told that the Russian missile killed three generations of his family at once – his mother-in-law, wife, and daughter. He survived by chance; before the rocket hit an apartment building, he went out of his apartment to a store.

02.00

Ukrainian Orthodox priest from Kherson told about the tortures he suffered in the Russian captivity.

According to Chudynovych [priest], the Russians deprived him of water, didn’t let him use the bathroom, beat his legs, strangled him, and tied his hands with scotch tape behind his back. During the interrogation, they gave him vodka instead of water. The captors threatened his family, too.

Then, said the priest, they took off his jeans and underpants and threatened to rape him with a truncheon. Chudynovych admitted that he panicked, and when they demanded to cooperate, he agreed.

03.00

Three people were killed by shelling near the city of Zaporizhzhya

This was reported in a telegram messenger by the Zaporizhzhya regional military administration.

“Around 14:00 in the village of Kamyanske, Russian artillery shelling killed three civilians, who were working in the vegetable garden,” the message reads.

07.00

The territory of Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol was showered with shells all day yesterday – Interior Minister Advisor Denysenko.

 “If we talk about the war fronts, then, of course, the critical attention is drawn entirely to the Donbas. All the most important things are happening there. The Russians are trying to push towards Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. That’s why they are attacking the settlements of Rubizhne, Popasna, and Mariupol, “ said Denysenko in a TV interview.

According to him, after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that there would be no storming of Azovstal steelworks, the plant was “actually showered with shells all day long” on April 23.

08.00

Russian invaders killed 213 children and wounded more than 389 in Ukraine during the war – Office of the Prosecutor General.

09.00

The Dnipropetrovsk region suffered three airstrikes overnight

Russian missiles hit the Pavlograd district in the Dnipropetrovsk region last night. A 48-year-old man was killed; railroad infrastructure, cars, residential buildings, and an industrial building were damaged.

11.00

The bodies of two women were found under the rubble of an apartment building hit by a Russian shell in Popasna, Luhansk region.

This was reported in a Telegram messenger by the press service of the Luhansk Regional Administration. The administration also noted that on April 23, the Russians shelled civilian houses in the Luhansk region 12 times.

12.00

Russians killed two children from the Ocheretyne municipality this Easter morning – said the head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko.

“The house on Myru Street [Peace Street -ed.], where the family lived, was destroyed, the girls 14 and 5 years old were killed,” he said.

12:10

Reuters showed what Chernihiv looked like after the Russian shelling. The footage was captured by a drone, demonstrating the scale of devastation.

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15:00

Russia holds Ukrainian POWs in minimum-security prisons. Ombudswoman Lyudmila Denisova reports that prisons have not even been converted into POW camps. Denisova stressed that Ukrainian prisoners should be evacuated as soon as possible to camps located at a sufficient distance from the danger zone.

16:00

In the Kherson region, Russian tanks under Ukrainian flags are shelling the settlements. The occupiers are trying to simulate the presence of Ukrainian Armed Forces units in the occupied territories and discredit the Ukrainian military. In addition, the Russian army continues to urge the locals to create pseudo-republics in the occupied territories of the Kherson and Mykolaiv areas.

18:00

Journalists discovered that the Russian Orthodox Church and security forces were forcibly relocating Ukrainians to Russia. Journalists obtained intercepted correspondence and found out that since the first day of the war, the Russian Emergencies Ministry had been sending detailed information to the clergy every day about the war’s progress, the number of Ukrainians forcibly deported to Russia, and the routes used for deportation. Priests resettle Ukrainians in churches and monasteries, hold spiritual talks with them and spy on them with surveillance cameras. Based on the investigation, journalists have created a map of Russian churches where deported Ukrainians may now be held.

19:00

France and Germany have supplied Russia with arms worth €273 million since 2014, circumventing sanctions. Particularly, they provided Russia with bombs, missiles, and cannons. Germany insists that munitions were sent after the Kremlin gave its guarantees that it would use the weapons for civilian, not military, purposes. German authorities did not explain how the bombs could be used for civilian purposes.

20:00

A politician from the ruling party of Germany questions the scale of the destruction of Mariupol and believes that the 410 civilians killed in Bucha is not high enough to call it genocide.

Advisor to the head of the Ukrainian President’s Office Mykhailo Podoliak urged the German politician to come to Ukraine if he has any doubts and talk to Ukrainians who have lost relatives or a home.

20:10

“Residents of the house, including children, were placed near the wall. The occupiers themselves sat down to eat at the table. When the occupiers finished, the family was forced to kneel and leave the house on their knees”, a resident of Bucha told of life under the occupation of Russian troops.