Russia Ukraine battle – dwell: Russian sabotage assault stopped as Putin utilizing barges to guard Black Sea port | EUROtoday

Ukraine’s air force shot down two out of three Russia-launched Shahed drones overnight, Ukrainian military said on Monday. The General Staff did not provide additional details on the attack in its report on Facebook. It was unclear whether the drone that was not intercepted reached its target.

Monday night was relatively quiet for Ukraine following series of attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure that Russia stepped up over a week ago.

On March 22, Moscow’s troops carried out the largest strike on grid infrastructure in the two-year-old invasion, causing major damage and resulting in massive power outages. It continued targeting Ukraine’s thermal and hydro-power plants last week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree setting out the routine spring conscription campaign, calling up 150,000 citizens for statutory military service, a document posted on the Kremlin’s website showed on Sunday.

All men in Russia are required to do a year-long military service, or equivalent training during higher education, from the age of 18.

In July Russia’s lower house of parliament voted to raise the maximum age at which men can be conscripted to 30 from 27. The new legislation came into effect on 1 Jan, 2024.

Compulsory military service has long been a sensitive issue in Russia, where many men go to great lengths to avoid being handed conscription papers during the twice-yearly call-up periods.

Conscripts cannot legally be deployed to fight outside Russia and were exempted from a limited mobilisation in 2022 that gathered at least 300,000 men with previous military training to fight in Ukraine – although some conscripts were sent to the front in error.

In September Putin signed an order calling up 130,000 people for the autumn campaign and last spring Russia planned to conscript 147,000.

Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces said its troops stopped an attempt by a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group to infiltrate the Ukrainian territory yesterday. It added that a total of 49 encounters took place in the combat zone.

Russian forces launched 23 missile attacks and 61 airstrikes, as well as 41 attacks from multiple-launch rocket systems on the positions of Ukrainian forces and populated areas, the top office of the Ukrainian armed forces said.

French defence minister Sabastien Lecornu said France is to deliver “hundreds” of armored automobiles by the start of subsequent 12 months to Ukraine as a part of a brand new bundle of army support for the nation that simply entered its third 12 months for the reason that Russian invasion.

In an interview with the French newspaper La Tribune’s Sunday version, Lecornu mentioned that “to hold such an extensive front line, the Ukrainian army needs, for example, our armored personnel carriers. It’s absolutely key for troop mobility.”

The French army is at the moment changing its outdated VAB armored personnel carriers that began being utilized in 1979 by a brand new era of armored automobiles. “This old equipment, still operational, is going directly to Ukraine in large quantities. We’re talking about hundreds (of vehicles) in 2024 and early 2025,” Lecornu mentioned.

Lecornu additionally mentioned France will present Ukraine with extra anti-aircraft missiles.

The transfer comes as France’s authorities is pushing its army business to spice up its manufacturing to satisfy Kyiv’s pressing wants for ammunition.

Lecornu on Tuesday mentioned France will quickly be capable to ship 78 Caesar howitzers to Ukraine and can enhance its provide of shells.

Acelebration of Easter at a Roman Catholic convent run by Polish nuns in western Ukraine, which has sheltered tons of of Ukrainian refugees for the reason that begin of the battle, has turn into a logo of how the traditionally troubled relations between Poles and Ukrainians have been reworked.

On Easter Sunday, the church throughout the convent is crowded with parishioners – a few of them refugees who’re dwelling right here, and others from the encircling space – for the Roman Catholic mass, mentioned in Ukrainian by Polish and Ukrainian clergymen.

Among the parishioners are Roman Catholics, Ukrainian Catholics, and members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – most of them refugees from jap Ukraine.

Sister Julia, essentially the most senior of the three nuns – two Polish, one Ukrainian – who run the convent, was born in Poland and has been in Yazlovets, the village that’s dwelling to the convent, since shortly after Ukraine grew to become impartial in 1991.

In a Ukrainian stronghold close to the entrance line, lower than 20 miles from the jap metropolis of Donetsk, a winged bomb is seen hurtling in the direction of a multistorey constructing.

The 1,500-kilogram explosive hits the construction within the city of Krasnohorivka, erupting right into a fireball earlier than engulfing the entire constructing in a plume of gray and black smoke.

The digicam, filming from a number of hundred metres away, shakes as the bottom beneath it rocks from the aftereffects of the explosion.

When the smoke subsides, the constructing has been utterly destroyed.

French defence minister Sébastien Lecornu mentioned France is ready to ship “hundreds” of armoured automobiles by the start of subsequent 12 months to Ukraine as a part of a brand new bundle of army support for the war-hit nation.

Mr Lecornu mentioned that “to hold such an extensive front line, the Ukrainian army needs, for example, our armoured personnel carriers”.

“It’s absolutely key for troop mobility,” he mentioned in an interview with the French newspaper The Tribune’s Sunday version.

He additionally mentioned that France will present Ukraine with extra anti-aircraft missiles. The transfer comes as France’s authorities is pushing its army business to spice up its manufacturing to satisfy Kyiv’s pressing wants for ammunition.

Last week, Mr Lecornu mentioned France will quickly be capable to ship 78 Caesar howitzers to Ukraine and can enhance its provide of shells.

The French army is at the moment changing its outdated VAB armoured personnel carriers that began being utilized in 1979 by a brand new era of armoured automobiles.

“This old equipment, still operational, is going directly to Ukraine in large quantities. We’re talking about hundreds (of vehicles) in 2024 and early 2025,” the French defence minister mentioned.

“We need to figure out how to get the support that we need without getting into people’s pockets,” Ms Rudik tells The Independent throughout a sit-down within the foyer of a west London lodge. “And we have a solution.”

The politician is championing a plan to grab roughly $300bn (£238bn) in Russian property frozen in Europe, the US and Japan, and redirecting them to Ukraine for use in its battle effort. It is hers – and her nation’s – bid to make Ukraine no less than partially self-reliant at a time after they have no idea when, or from the place, the following tranche of Western assist will come.

Read Tom Watling’s unique report right here:

Russia is utilizing barges in a bid to boost the defence of certainly one of its ports within the Black Sea, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has mentioned.

It comes following plenty of profitable Ukrainian strikes on navy ships within the area.

“Recent imagery analysis has identified four barges positioned at the entrance to the Black Sea fleet facility of Novorossiysk Sea Port,” the MoD mentioned in its newest intelligence replace.

“This is an effort to enhance the defence of the port against attacks from Ukrainian Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs).

Read the statement in full here:

Russia is asking Kyiv to hand over the head of Ukraine’s SBU Security Service among a list of people it claims are connected with terrorist acts committed in Russia, its foreign ministry said. It has threatened to arrest the top Ukrainian official.

Officials in Ukraine called the demand “cynical” and “pointless”, suggesting the Kremlin appeared to have forgotten in regards to the arrest warrant towards Russian president Vladimir Putin issued by the International Criminal Court in reference to the switch of Ukrainian kids to Russia and mentioned “the tribunal in The Hague is waiting for him.”

Ukraine’s SBU head Vasyl Maliuk has beforehand acknowledged his service was behind assaults on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland for the reason that Kremlin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russia illegally seized management of Crimea in 2014; the bridge was constructed after the area was annexed.

The overseas ministry in Moscow listed violent incidents which have occurred in Russia for the reason that Kremlin’s forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, together with bombings that killed the daughter of a outstanding nationalist and a battle blogger, and an incident wherein a author was significantly damage.

At the identical time Russia has not acknowledged the tons of of lethal missile strikes it has carried out towards civilian targets in Ukraine, equivalent to hospitals, faculties, shelter houses, railway stations and museums, which have killed hundreds of individuals in the midst of its invasion.

“The Russian side demands that the Kyiv regime immediately cease all support for terrorist activity, extradite guilty parties and compensate the victims for damages,” the ministry assertion mentioned.

“Ukraine’s violation of its obligations under anti-terrorist conventions will result in it being held to account in international legal terms.”

The Russia overseas ministry mentioned investigation of those incidents confirmed that “the traces of these crimes lead to Ukraine.”

“Russia has turned over to Ukrainian authorities its demands… for the immediate arrest and extradition of all those connected to the terrorist acts in question,” the assertion mentioned.