War in Ukraine, day 42: Children’s hospital in Mykolaiv bombed. 400 locals reported missing in Hostomel

In the 42nd day of the war, the situation in Ukraine is escalating, with Russian troops launching a new offensive in the Donbas region, NATO says, despite having left the Kyiv region and northern Ukraine.

A children’s hospital in Nikolaev has been bombed by Russian troops. A projectile crashed into an ambulance and destroyed it. Another bombshell hit the playground in the hospital’s courtyard. The attack was caught on surveillance cameras, with footage being released by the Mykolaiv governor, Vitali Kim.

The Prosecutor General of Ukraine said that bomb shells were used, which are prohibited by international norms. The hospital was not the only target. In all, 12 people were killed in Mykolaiv and 41 were injured in one day’s bombing.

Hundreds of Hostomel residents are reported missing

After the massacres in Bucha and other localities, aout 400 residents of the Hostomel suburb of the capital, Kyiv, are reported missing after 35 days of Russian occupation, the head of the local military administration said on Wednesday, the DPA reported.

Taras Dumenko said authorities are currently inspecting basements in the area. The husband and son of a local doctor who were abducted 12 days ago have been reported missing, and the bodies of people known to have been killed cannot be found, he said.

Hostomel is located northwest of the capital Kyiv, near an airfield. The suburb has been hotly contested since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24. Most of its 16,000 inhabitants fled.

A few days ago, Ukrainian troops regained control of the Hostomel, Bucha and Irpin suburbs.

About 5,000 Russian war crimes are currently being investigated in Ukraine, Attorney General Iryna Venediktova said. “Prosecutors are conducting an investigation into a case of torture, murder and attempted arson of 6 civilians in Bucha. The criminal case is being started under Article 438 of the Criminal Code (Violations of the laws and customs of war) “, she wrote on Twitter.

??Around 5,000 Russian war crimes under investigation in Ukraine, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said at a briefing in Bucha on April 5.

"Even in such a cruel situation, war crimes are first on the spectrum, followed by crimes against humanity and genocide,” she said.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 6, 2022

At the same time, a Ukrainian top official said that 25 women and girls had said they had been raped by the Russian soldiers in Bucha. Liudmila Denisova, Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights in Kyiv said that at least 25 complaints have been registered on the helpline about the rape of women and girls between the ages of 14 and 24 by soldiers. Russians.

Mariupol mayor on the other hand said that a mobile crematorium brought by Russian troops began to be used in Mariupol on Wednesday to erase the traces of the war crimes.

Mobile crematoria in #Mariupol

Mayor of Mariupol Vadim Boychenko said today that #Russian mobile crematoria have started operating in the city.

According to him, tens of thousands of people could have died in Mariupol and the cremation, "covering up the traces of crimes". pic.twitter.com/mVj6dC3xK4

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) April 6, 2022

The high number of casualties is the reason why Russia does not agree with a humanitarian evacuation plan, given that Turkey has offered to recover the captives by sea.

However, over 500 people were evacuated from Mariupol to Zaporojie on Wednesday within a Red Cross humanitarian mission.

Russians focused to take full control of Donetsk and Lugansk

The Russian army has focused its main efforts on an “aggressive” operation aimed at taking full control of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said in its daily update, according to the BBC.

According to the quoted source, there have been continuous attacks in the eastern areas of the country, but without success. Russian forces are also continuing their attacks on the port city of Mariupol, one of the most heavily bombed and damaged cities in Ukraine. Ukrainian troops have repulsed attacks on the city in more than 40 days of war. The Ukrainian military also states that Russia continues to actively use ammunition prohibited by international law.

According to British intelligence, the humanitarian situation is getting worse every day in Mariupol. “Most of the city’s 160,000 residents do not have electricity, communication lines, medicine, heat or drinking water. Russian troops have blocked humanitarian aid, and are likely to put pressure on Ukrainians to surrender, “the latest British update said.

The Ukrainian military has announced that eight Russian cruise missiles have been destroyed in a single day.

The Russian bombings destroyed the oil depot and set fire to a factory in the Dnipro region, according to the Kyiv Independent. The governor of the region Valentin Reznichenko stated on the Telegram platform that the intervention teams are trying to extinguish the fire from the factory. The number of victims has not yet been confirmed.

??Ukraine’s Air Force: Eight Russian cruise missiles destroyed in one day.

Ukraine’s Air Force said on April 5 that in an attempt to avoid Ukraine’s aerial defense zones, Russian forces have instead been launching missiles from Belarus.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 6, 2022

$100 Million in Additional U.S. Security Assistance for Ukraine

Pentagon announced the immediate drawdown of security assistance valued at up to $100 million to meet Ukraine’s urgent need for additional anti-armor systems.  “This authorization is the sixth drawdown of arms, equipment, and supplies from Department of Defense inventories for Ukraine since August 2021.  Combined with $300 million in assistance announced by the Department of Defense on April 1 under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, this additional drawdown brings the total U.S. security assistance commitment to Ukraine to more than $2.4 billion since the beginning of this Administration, and more than $1.7 billion since the beginning of Russia’s brutal assault against Ukraine began on February 24,” says a press release by the Pentagon.

Secretary of State, Antony Blinken also said that more than 30 countries have joined the U.S. to deliver security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began. “Together, we are delivering security assistance every day, and we are expediting shipments of even more of the arms and defense equipment Ukraine is using to defend itself. As we strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield and at the negotiating table, we will also work with our Allies and partners to gather information to document reported abuses and make it available to the appropriate bodies to hold those responsible to account.”

Further new sanctions

The United States are also expected on Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Russia in coordination with the European Union and the G7 on Wednesday, in particular to ban “any new investment” in the country, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The new sanctions “will impose significant costs on Russia and push it further down the path of economic, financial and technological isolation,” an official of the Biden administration stated, according to CNN. The new sanctions package will ban all new investment in Russia, increase sanctions on Russian financial institutions and state-owned enterprises, and sanction new Russian government officials and their families.

NATO foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss support for Ukraine

The summit will take place over two days, with new measures to support Ukraine in the next phase of the conflict, Reuters writes. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he expected Moscow to try to capture the entire Donbas region in order to create a corridor between Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

The chairman of the Joint Committee of Chiefs of Staff of the United States Army, General Mark Milley, said on Tuesday that the United States should send more troops to Eastern Europe to deter Russian aggression.

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the basing could be funded by other countries such as Poland and the Baltics that want more U.S. troops. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said any effort to expand security in Eastern Europe is a “work in progress” that probably will be discussed at the NATO summit in June.

Milley was asked about the need to reallocate forces to Europe’s eastern flank, where NATO allies are worried that they may be Russia’s next target.

“My advice would be to create permanent bases but don’t permanently station (forces), so you get the effect of permanence by rotational forces cycling through permanent bases,” he said. “I believe that a lot of our European allies, especially those such as the Baltics or Poland and Romania, and elsewhere — they’re very, very willing to establish permanent bases. They’ll build them, they’ll pay for them.”

Boris Johnson address Russian citizens directly

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday addressed Russian citizens directly, telling them in a video that he deserves to know the truth about the atrocities committed in Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

Boris Johnson has warned Russian citizens not to be fooled by Vladimir Putin’s propaganda and to avoid state-imposed censorship by using VPNs to search the internet for war crimes committed by the Russian military in Ukraine. Johnson addressed the Russians in Russian, in a message posted on social media, urging them to “seek to see what crimes are being committed on their behalf.”

The British Prime Minister spoke of the horrific scenes of the Bucha Massacre – corpses left on the street or women raped in front of their children, images that terrified the world. Speaking in Russian, Johnson said that “the Russian people deserve to know the truth, they need to know the facts” – shocking, so outrageous that it is no wonder that your government is trying to hide them from you,” the British Prime Minister continued in English.

Putin’s adult daughters to be sanctioned?

As it announced new sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, the European Union has also proposed the sanctioning of two daughters of President Vladimir Putin, according to diplomats familiar with the measure, writes the Wall Street Journal.

Vladimir Putin does not speak publicly about his family. He has two daughters with his ex-wife, Lyudmila Putina, a former flight attendant at Aeroflot. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post.

Putin – who has two adult daughters, Maria, 36, and Katerina, 35, from his first marriage to former flight attendant Liudmila Shkrebneva – has worked hard to keep his children out of the media and public eye. He rarely talks about children, keeping the confusion about their number.

Budapest summons Ukrainian ambassador, asking Ukraine “to stop offending Hungary”

The Foreign Ministry in Budapest has summoned the Ukrainian ambassador for what he described as offensive statements against Hungary, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto announced on Wednesday, MTI and Reuters reported.