Safe passage for civilians to leave Mariupol under way - UN

Ukrainians have been honouring dead friends and relatives, as is traditional on the first Sunday after Orthodox Easter.

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And now back to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has said the upcoming anniversary of Russia's liberation at the end of World War II will not affect Russia's actions in Ukraine.

Last week, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace predicted that Vladimir Putin was "rolling the pitch" for a major announcement to mark the historic 9 May "Victory Day".

"Our soldiers won't base their actions on a specific date," Lavrov said when asked if the anniversary would be a turning point in the war.

"We'll commemorate our victory in a solemn manner but the timing and speed of what is happening in Ukraine will hinge on the need to minimise risks for civilians and Russian solders," he added, speaking on Italian TV.

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Earlier we reported that Reuters had seen more than 50 civilians from the area near Azovstal in Mariupol arriving in the village of Bezimenne in the Donetsk Region.

The news agency also said that UN staff were in the area.

Images taken by Reuters show emotional reunions between civilians and their loved ones.

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Russia's foreign minister says the country has not blocked efforts to prevent nuclear war.

"Western media misrepresent Russian threats," Sergei Lavrov said, speaking in Russian via an Italian interpreter on Italian TV.

"Russia has never interrupted efforts to reach agreements that guarantee that a nuclear war never develops."

Lavrov repeated Russia's claims that the country is motivated by guaranteeing security for pro-Russian Ukrainians in the east, and that it is fighting against Nazism in Ukraine.

You can find out more about Russia's false claims about Nazism in Ukraine here.

Denmark and Sweden have said a Russian spyplane has violated both countries' air space.

Both are summoning Russian ambassadors over the incident.

The Danish Defence Command told AFP the aircraft was a reconnaissance plane that was in Danish air space for "a very brief moment" and that Danish F-16 aircrafts "immediately intervened". It added that such incidents are rare.

Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said the breach was "totally unacceptable and particularly worrying in the current situation".

While Denmark is a member of Nato, Sweden is debating whether it should join the alliance.

However, the Swedish defence minister told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper there was no proof that the incident was linked to these discussions.

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The head of Kharkiv's Regional State Administration has warned people to remain vigilant, despite the fact that Russian troops have “reduced the intensity of shelling”.

Oleh Synyehubov shared images from the town of Dergachi, some 12km (seven miles) north west of Kharkiv, on Telegram.

He said the photos showed the “consequences of prolonged shelling” on the town.

Synyehubov also warned Kharkiv residents in the northern and eastern districts of the city to remain inside on Sunday due to shelling.

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A fire broke out at a Russian defence ministry site close to the Ukrainian border, according to the governor of the Belgorod region.

One person sustained minor injuries, Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.

The governor of another Russian region near the Ukrainian border, Kursk, said part of a freight railway bridge had collapsed, with no casualties.

"It was sabotage, a criminal case has been opened. The authorities in charge of the investigation will resolve the issue," said governor Roman Starovoyt on Telegram, without naming Ukrainian forces.

Russia has frequently accused Ukraine of attacks on its territory near to the border.

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Despite the news that 100 civilians are on their way from Mariupol's war-battered Azovstal steel plant to Ukrainian-held territory, one of the commanders there says many injured remain.

"There are still wounded at the plant as well. They have not been evacuated yet, but we hope that they are going to be taken away from here. Their condition is serious, they need proper medical treatment, proper nutrition to recover," Captain Svyatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, told the BBC.

Food and water issues remained, he said, but those remaining are "trying to stretch out what we have for as long as possible".

Aside from the hope for the remaining civilians to be evacuated, he said, "we are willing to fight back and do not intend to surrender".

He said he hoped Ukrainian officials and the leaders of other countries would "do everything possible to evacuate our garrison from Mariupol".

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The first accounts of life in the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the Avozstal steelworks are starting to emerge.

We reported earlier how Reuters news agency had spotted civilians stepping off the bus from Mariupol in the village of Bezimenne, in Russia-held parts of east Ukraine.

One of them was 37-year-old Natalia Usmanova, who told the news agency what it was like when powerful bombs hit while she hid underground

"I feared that the bunker would not withstand it - I had terrible fear," she said. "When the bunker started to shake, I was hysterical, my husband can vouch for that: I was so worried the bunker would cave in."

"We didn't see the sun for so long," she added.

"You just can't imagine what we have been through - the terror."

"I lived there, worked there all my life, but what we saw there was just terrible."

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Ukraine's fighter pilots are vastly outnumbered by the Russians, and have become legendary - thanks in part to the story of an alleged flying ace called "Ghost of Kyiv".

This hero is said to have downed as many as 40 enemy planes - an incredible feat in an arena where Russia controls the skies.

But now the Ukraine Air Force Command has warned on Facebook that the "Ghost of Kyiv is a superhero-legend whose character was created by Ukrainians!"

"We ask the Ukrainian community not to neglect the basic rules of information hygiene," the message said, urging people to "check the sources of information, before spreading it".

Earlier reports had named the ace as Major Stepan Tarabalka, 29. The authorities confirmed that he was killed in combat on 13 March and honoured with a Hero of Ukraine medal posthumously.

Now, the air force stresses that "Tarabalka is not 'Ghost of Kiev', and he did not hit 40 planes".

Read more here

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Ukraine’s state electricity operator Ukrenergo says it has restored reliable power to the Chernobyl exclusion zone, the site of the 1986 nuclear accident.

Ukrenergo says the last 330 kV power line has been reconnected there.

Earlier, it says, another 330kV line came back on stream, north of Kyiv, which “made it possible to improve the reliability of power supply to the capital”.

In a Facebook post, Ukrenergo CEO Volodymyr Kudrytskyi said the Russian military occupation of Chernobyl – which has now ended – had caused much disruption at Chernobyl.

“After the departure of the Russians, our repairmen immediately after the sappers investigated dozens of kilometres of lines, restored the resistance and other equipment,” he said.

An exclusion zone covering about 2,600 sq km (1,000 sq miles) was imposed around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the catastrophic explosion there in 1986.

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The evacuation of civilians from Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant is a major, long-awaited development. About 1,000 of them have been sheltering in the vast network of underground tunnels and shelters, and concerns were growing about their conditions amid dwindling food and water supplies.

A convoy departed to Mariupol on Friday but only now has official confirmation come in, first from the UN and the Red Cross, then from President Zelensky, a sign of how complex and delicate this operation is.

Meanwhile, relatives of the hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who are also trapped in the steel plant, surrounded by Russian troops, are anxiously waiting for any operation that allows them to be able to flee in safety too.

Here in Dnipro, I met the wife of an officer who is at the plant. She said she and other women were willing to go to Mariupol to secure a safe way out for their husbands.

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After a surprise visit to a Lviv coffee shop on Saturday, more details have been revealed about Angelina Jolie’s trip here.

The actress met with a number of displaced Ukrainians including children who were injured in the attack on Kramatorsk railway station. At least 52 people were killed and dozens injured after rockets hit the station as people waited to board evacuation trains.

Lviv's regional governor Maxim Kozytski confirmed Jolie's visit on Telegram, adding that "she was very moved by the children's stories".

Jolie also met people at the city’s train station, including volunteers who were helping evacuees.

Lviv, in the west of Ukraine, has become a hub for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing other parts of the country.

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As well as the fighters and civilians trapped in the Azovstal steelworks in the southern city of Mariupol, there are also an estimated 100,000 residents in other parts of the city.

They have been trying to survive without mains water, electricity or gas for weeks.

Earlier we reported that Mariupol City Council had invited these residents to gather at a mall at 1600 local time (1300 GMT) as an evacuation could be possible on Sunday.

But now the council has said in a post on Telegram that this evacuation has been postponed for security reasons until 0800 local time (0500 GMT) tomorrow.

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Evacuees from Mariupol who wanted to go to Ukrainian-controlled regions have been handed over to representatives of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Reuters news agency reports citing Russia's defence ministry.

The ministry says 80 civilians had been moved from the vast Azovstal plant after weeks under siege.

The massive industrial area is the last hold-out of Ukrainian troops in the strategically significant city.

Earlier Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said around 100 civilians have been evacuated from the besieged steel plant in southern Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted that the group is on its way to Zaporizhzhia, which Ukraine maintains control of.

The head of the military administration in Kharkiv has confirmed to the BBC that four settlements have been re-captured from the Russians.

Oleg Sinegubov said Ukrainian soldiers have regained full control over Kutuzovka, Verkhyna Rohanka, Slobidske and Prelensne.

“In Kutuzovka, about one hundred people, most of them elderly and children, lived in cold basements for two months without light, gas and food supplies,” Sinegubov said. “Today our defenders were greeted with tears”.

But while the situation has somewhat improved for people in those regions, the shelling has continued, he said.

Kharkiv, in Ukraine's north-east, was one of the places to come under early Russian assault.

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The Ukrainian president has tweeted that the evacuation of civilians from Azovstal steelworks in the southern city of Mariupol has begun, with a group of about 100 people the first to leave.

He said they're expected to arrive in the town of Zaporizhzhia tomorrow.

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Azovstal steelworks is the last pocket of refuge for Ukrainian soldiers and about 1,000 civilians in Mariupol, who are trapped in a vast network of underground shelters and tunnels with dwindling food, water and medical supplies.

The sprawling industrial complex has seen heavy Russian artillery and aerial bombardment in recent days, according to the Institute for War Studies.

These satellite photos taken on Friday give a sense of the size of the area and the scale of the damage.

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An operation is under way to move civilians from the Azovstal steelworks - the last part of the city of Mariupol controlled by Ukrainian forces.

But street after street, building after building, most of the city now lies in ruins. Mariupol has seen some of fiercest fighting in this war. Thousands have died although exactly how many is still unclear. Bodies are said to remain in the streets. Others have been buried in mass graves, unceremoniously and unidentified.

Russian forces moved in during the early days of the invasion, imposing what has been described as a medieval-like siege. Roads, electricity, communications and gas were cut off. Residents were forced underground amid constant bombardment and shelling.

From the city’s pre-war population of 450,000, an estimated 100,000 remain there. The mayor, Vadym Boychenko, told the BBC that the situation was “very difficult” and that there were almost no food and water supplies left.

Boychenko, who is no longer in the city, said about 20,000 people had been killed since the start of the invasion. With the phone network inoperative in most of the city, it is hard to independently verify information.

“The citizens who left the city say that hell exists and it’s in Mariupol,” the mayor said.

Mariupol is strategically significant for Russia. Capturing it would help Moscow create a land corridor between the pro-Russia separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine, and Crimea, which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014.

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