Live Updates | Airstrikes hit Lviv region, governor says

LVIV, Ukraine – The governor of Lviv region in western Ukraine reported airstrikes in the region on Saturday morning.

Maksym Kozytskyy said on the Telegram messaging app that Russian Su-35 planes took off from Baranovichi airfield in Belarus and carried out missile strikes in Lviv.

Ukraine’s air defense system shot down four cruise missiles, Kozytskyy said.

He gave no details of any casualties or damage.

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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINE WAR:

— Police: more than 900 bodies of civilians found in the kyiv region

— “We pray for you”: Ukrainian Jews celebrate Passover, if they can

— The Ukrainian port of Mariupol resists against all odds

— War Crimes Watch: The Woman Who Would Make Putin Pay

– The pain of a Ukrainian mother watching her daughter’s funeral on the phone

— Go to https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine for more coverage

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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

KYIV, Ukraine – Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in an online post that Kyiv was struck early on Saturday in Darnytskyi district in the eastern part of the capital, saying there were “explosions “.

He said rescuers and paramedics were on the scene and details of the victims would be released later.

Klitschko urged residents to heed air raid sirens and warned those who fled the capital not to return just yet for their safety.

Thick smoke rising from the site on the east side of Kyiv could be seen from parts of the city center near the Dnipro River.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces hit an airfield in Oleksandriya, a town in Ukraine’s Kirovohrad region, on Friday evening with a missile strike, the town’s mayor, Serhiy Kuzmenko, said on Facebook on Saturday. He did not say whether the strike caused any casualties.

In the eastern region of Luhansk, night shelling killed one person and injured three others, according to the region’s governor, Serhiy Haidai. The shelling also damaged gas pipelines in the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

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WASHINGTON — Ukraine is sending top officials to Washington for next week’s spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where discussions will focus on the Russian invasion and its impact on the global economy.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and Central Bank Governor Kyrylo Shevchenko will attend the rally, according to a World Bank official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the visit had not not officially announced.

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KYIV, Ukraine – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that existing sanctions against Russia were “painful” but not yet enough to stop the Russian military.

Zelenskyy called on “the democratic world” to ban Russian oil. As US lawmakers and US President Joe Biden have enacted such a ban, Europe is becoming more dependent on Russian energy supplies and the US is working to prevent India from ramping up its use of Russian energy.

“In general, the democratic world has to accept that Russia’s money for energy resources is actually money for the destruction of democracy,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to his nation.

He also said: “The sooner the democratic world recognizes that the oil embargo against Russia and the complete blockade of its banking sector are necessary steps towards peace, the sooner the war will end.”

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TIJUANA, Mexico – A Russian man and a Ukrainian woman have married in the Mexican border town of Tijuana after being unable to travel to the United States together

Daria Sakhniuk was allowed to enter the United States as a Ukrainian refugee, but her partner, Semen Bobrovsky, was unable to travel there after Russia invaded Ukraine. They left Ukraine at the start of the war.

Bobrovski told El Sol de Tijuana that he thinks Thursday’s wedding will boost his chances of entering the United States with his new wife. The United States only allows Russian nationals with family members in the United States to enter the country.

“Without it, we cannot cross because, again for the official US government, we are strangers to each other,” he said.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he discussed the fate of the beleaguered port city of Mariupol during a meeting on Friday with the country’s military chiefs and heads of its intelligence agencies.

“Details cannot be made public now, but we are doing everything we can to save our people,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation.

Elsewhere in southern Ukraine, he said Russian troops occupying areas around Kherson and Zaporizhzhia were terrorizing civilians and searching for anyone who had served in the army or government.

“The occupiers believe this will make it easier for them to control this territory. But they are very wrong. They are wrong,” Zelenskyy said.

He added: “The problem with the occupiers is not that they are not accepted by certain activists, veterans or journalists. Russia’s problem is that it is not accepted – and never will be accepted – by all Ukrainian people. Russia has lost Ukraine forever.

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ATLANTA — CIA Director William Burns said no one “can take lightly” the threat that Russia might use low-yield or tactical nuclear weapons, but he saw no “practical evidence” suggesting that it is imminent.

Speaking to an audience Thursday at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Burns said the “potential desperation” of Russian leaders to portray a victory in Ukraine increases the risk of nuclear weapons being used.

“None of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons,” Burns said. “We don’t.”

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ROME – The war in Ukraine loomed over the traditional Good Friday procession at Rome’s Colosseum because the Vatican’s choice of a Russian woman as one of the cross-bearers angered Ukrainians.

On Friday evening, participants in the solemn torchlight procession in the old bullring took turns carrying a simple, tall and thin cross as part of the commemoration of the suffering and death of Jesus by crucifixion.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican and the archbishop of kyiv earlier this week denounced the Vatican’s plan to have a Ukrainian woman and a Russian woman carry the cross during the procession. They objected to projecting what they saw as the idea of ​​reconciliation as Ukraine is ravaged by war unleashed by Russia.

The Vatican did not respond to the protests. Pope Francis denounced the February 24 invasion and attacks on Ukraine as “sacrilege,” but refrained from naming Russia as the aggressor.

Other worshipers applauded the decision to pair the two women. They work together in a palliative care section of a hospital in Rome and are friends.