Russian armed forces have resorted to drafting in retired troops to bolster their depleting ranks ahead of a fresh offensive in eastern Ukraine, British intelligence officials have warned.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that the Kremlin was recruiting personnel discharged from military service since 2012, “in response to mounting losses” during its invasion so far.
Russian forces have retreated from northern areas surrounding the capital Kyiv and are now regrouping in the east, with assaults focused on the Donbas region and Black Sea ports.
The MoD said Moscow’s attempts to shore up troop numbers include trying to recruit from the unrecognised post-Soviet Transnistria region of Moldova.
It comes as a grave with dozens of Ukrainians civilians has been found in Buzova village near Kyiv, with the number of dead in a ditch near a petrol station yet to be confirmed.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s use of force is “a catastrophe that will inevitably hit everyone… the whole European project is a target for Russia”.
Follow the latest updates below.
10:52 AM
War in Ukraine: latest pictures
10:45 AM
‘My son, my son’: Two bodies found in manhole outside Kyiv
A mother has broken down after recognising her son in a manhole west of Kyiv.
At least two bodies were found in the ditch next to a petrol station, on a highway near the village of Buzova, an AFP news agency reporter saw.
The distraught woman arrived at the manhole and peered inside, before breaking down and clawing the earth. “My son, my son,” she wailed, recognising the body from the distinctive footwear.
Police are awaiting demining teams before recovering the bodies and using a tanker to suck water out from the manhole.
The improvised grave is at the back of a destroyed motorway petrol station. Tank marks are visible on the road and there are two destroyed tanks near the station.
10:27 AM
Pope calls for Easter truce in Ukraine
Pope Francis on Sunday called for an Easter truce in Ukraine, leading to negotiations and peace.
“Put the weapons down!” he said at the end of a Palm Sunday service for tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square.
“Let An Easter truce start. But not to rearm and resume combat but a truce to reach peace through real negotiations,” he said.
10:13 AM
Exclusive: Full-scale Nato military force to defend borders
Nato is drawing up plans to deploy a permanent full-scale military force on its border in an effort to combat future Russian aggression following the invasion of Ukraine, the alliance’s secretary general has revealed.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Jens Stoltenberg said Nato was “in the midst of a very fundamental transformation” that will reflect “the long-term consequences” of Vladimir Putin’s actions.
As part of a major “reset”, the relatively small “tripwire” presence on the alliance’s eastern flank will be replaced with sufficient forces to repel an attempted invasion of member states such as Estonia and Latvia.
Options for the reset are being developed by Nato military commanders.
09:51 AM
Two killed in shelling of town in northeastern Ukriane
Two people were killed and several injured on Sunday in the Ukrainian town of Derhachy in the northeastern Kharkiv region, regional governor Oleh Synyehubov said.
Russian forces had carried out 66 artillery attacks across several regions the governor said in a Facebook post.
He added: “Two people were killed, there are casualties. As you can see, the Russian army continues to ‘fight’ with the civilian population, because it has no victories at the front.”
09:43 AM
PM’s Kyiv visit came on personal invitation of Zelensky
Boris Johnson’s visit to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on Saturday was “very timely and very important” and came on the invitation of President Volodymyr Zelensky, his chief diplomatic adviser has said.
“Any visit that is happening now to the Ukraine is done on the invitation of the president of the Ukraine. Prime Minister Johnson received this invitation and he agreed,” Igor Zhovkva told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme.
“It might be a surprise for you but it is not a surprise for us. We were preparing for a while. This visit was very timely and very important in terms of war.”
Mr Zhovkva said Mr Johnson was “very supportive” during previous discussions before the war began about “the potential danger which Russian aggression might have”.
He said many leaders are coming to Kyiv with their support, in a message to the Kremlin that it is now deemed safe enough following its failed attempt to capture it.
09:28 AM
In pictures: Boris Johnson’s secret visit to Kyiv
09:14 AM
Strike on Ukrainian civilian rail station ‘was a war crime’
A missile attack on a railway station in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk which killed more than 50 people was a Russian war crime, Ukraine’s prosecutor general has said.
Iryna Veneditktova told Sky News: “Absolutely, it’s a war crime. It was a Russian missile which killed more 50 people.
“These people just wanted to save their lives. They wanted to be evacuated with kids. It was women, it was children, and they just wanted to save their lives.”
08:54 AM
Sanctions for Russian troops and generals may be looming
Britain could impose sanctions on Russian troops and generals suspected of committing war crimes in Ukraine, policing minister Kit Malthouse has said.
Mr Malthouse said that it was important that evidence of atrocities was gathered as “assiduously as possible” during the conflict.
“While that is ongoing we can take action domestically around sanctions we are able to put on individuals, including combatants, leading generals and others involved in it, to signal our recognition of their part in this dreadful, dreadful assault upon a free democratic country,” he told Sky News.
He admitted that progress in bringing Ukrainian refugees to the UK had been disappointing but that it is “motoring” now.
08:37 AM
‘The level of suffering is immense’
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Ukraine has said he has not seen such suffering anywhere else.
Pascal Hundt told Sky News: “Today we were in Chernihiv, north of the country and we see basically the same image everywhere and this is truly appalling and heart-breaking.
“We are discussing with the people there, we find people in total despair with no food, no electricity, no water, no heating system, they have to go out in the streets to make some fire and cook – these people were living in in horrible conditions.
“The level of suffering that we are seeing is just immense and I don’t recall having seen that in recent history.”
08:18 AM
‘No excuse’ for weeks of delays in UK-Ukraine refugee scheme
Labour would only apply security checks on Ukrainian immigrants coming to the UK, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has said, in checks that would take “just hours”.
“So we described a kind of emergency visa, which is effectively just the security checks”, she told Sky News amid repeated delays in the Government’s refugee scheme.
“That’s what we need to do. You don’t need a lot of this additional fees or requirements, for example, to come on the homes for Ukraine scheme, Ukrainian families are supposed to prove their residence as to where they were living before the first of January.
“So people are uploading utility bills or other kinds of details that then has to be checked by caseworkers that then adds to delays.
“The point about security checks is ministers and officials have themselves admitted you can do them on the spot. You can do them within a matter of hours, so there’s absolutely no excuse for these weeks of delays.”
08:07 AM
Fresh shelling in eastern Ukraine
Russian forces fired shells into Ukraine’s Luhansk and Dnipro regions early on Sunday hitting several buildings, wounding one person and causing a fire, officials said.
A school and a high-rise apartment building were shelled in the city of Sievierodonetsk in the besieged region of Luhansk, the region’s governor said.
“Fortunately, no casualties,” Serhiy Gaidai wrote on Telegram.
In the central city of Dnipro, one person was wounded when a building was hit. The shelling sparked a fire that was eventually put out, regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said in a post.
A missile hit a building in the Pavlograd district of the Dnipro, Reznichenko said. Reuters could not immediately confirm the reports.
07:47 AM
Russia confirms prisoner exchange with Ukraine
Russia and Ukraine carried out a prisoner exchange on Saturday, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova said this morning.
Moskalkova said that among those exchanged to Russia, there were four employees of the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom and soldiers.
“Early this morning they landed on the Russian soil,” Moskalkova said in an online post.
07:42 AM
Dozens of Ukrainians found in grave near Kyiv
A grave with dozens of civilians has been found in Buzova village near Kyiv, a Ukrainian official said, the latest reported mass grave to be discovered after Russian forces withdrew from areas north of the capital to focus their assault on the east.
Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community that includes Buzova, said the bodies were found in a ditch near a petrol station. He said the number of dead had yet to be confirmed.
“Now we are returning to life but during the occupation we had our ‘hotspots’, many civilians died,” Didych told Ukrainian television late on Saturday. Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the report.
Mounting civilian casualties have triggered widespread international condemnation and new sanctions, in particular over hundreds of deaths in the town of Bucha, just outside Kyiv.
Russia has rejected allegations by Ukraine and Western countries of war crimes.
07:28 AM
Nine humanitarian corridors agreed from the east
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said this morning that Kyiv had agreed the use of nine humanitarian corridors to help people to escape heavy fighting in the east of the country, including in private cars from the besieged southern port city of Mariupol.
“All the routes for the humanitarian corridors in the Luhansk region will work as long as there is a ceasefire by the occupying Russian troops,” Vereshchuk said in a statement on her Telegram channel, referring to separatist-controlled Luhansk.
07:22 AM
Briton drives ambulances packed with supplies to Ukraine
A British executive has described the “incredible reception” he received as he and a friend drove two ambulances full of medical supplies into Ukraine.
Charles Blackmore, who founded commercial intelligence specialists Audere International in 2015, drove one of the two vehicles from the UK to Lutsk via Warsaw, arriving on Friday evening.
Speaking from Warsaw’s Chopin Airport on his way back to the UK, he told the PA news agency: “To be given this incredible reception by the Deputy Mayor of the Oblast, the region where we were going, where there were speeches, and patriotic songs, and the appreciation, made the journey worthwhile.
“When you drive through checkpoints, when you drive through cities in curfew, when 70 per cent of the city of Lutsk – which is 200,000 people – have left the city, you’re going into a ghost town.”
The company has delivered two tonnes of food and 300 litres of liquids, along with first aid, clothes and extensive medical supplies.
06:44 AM
Novoselivka’s residents determined to rebuild
What had once been a peaceful community where people spent their days tending to their gardens and resting in their homes, it is now nothing more than a wasteland of flattened buildings and craters – some as large as seven metres wide and three metres deep – in the ground.
Volodymyr Stoyhi, 61, was resting on his sofa when a bomb flew into the living room of his Novoselivka home in the middle of March. His head was struck by falling debris but by some miracle he survived.
“We have to rebuild because we need somewhere to live,” he said, deflated.
However, he asked where he would even begin a project like this when “there is no money and nothing to build on”.
He described how houses fell “one after one” and that the small village, which once had a couple of shops and almost every house kept either chickens, ducks, or even pigs, in their back gardens, was unrecognisable.
The destruction is all because of a man who “is crazy and that is all”, he said of Vladimir Putin.
“We were friends with Russia and now everything is ruined.”
Read the full story here.
06:14 AM
Russia wants to boost armed forces with discharged personnel
British military intelligence said on Sunday that the Russian armed forces were seeking to strengthen troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service since 2012, as losses mount from the invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian forces’ efforts to boost their fighting power also include trying to recruit from the unrecognised Transnistria region of Moldova, the Ministry of Defence said in a regular bulletin on Twitter:
05:31 AM
Zelensky committed to pressing for peace amid attacks
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is committed to pressing for peace despite Russian attacks on civilians that have stunned the world.
In an interview with Associated Press he said: “No one wants to negotiate with a person or people who tortured this nation. It’s all understandable. And as a man, as a father, I understand this very well.
“[But] we don’t want to lose opportunities, if we have them, for a diplomatic solution.”
Mr Zelensky looked visibly exhausted yet animated by a drive to persevere. He spoke inside the presidential office complex, where windows and hallways are protected by towers of sandbags and heavily armed soldiers.
“We have to fight, but fight for life. You can’t fight for dust when there is nothing and no people. That’s why it is important to stop this war,” Mr Zelensky said.
Russian troops that withdrew from northern Ukraine are now regrouping for what is expected to be an intensified push to retake the eastern Donbas region, including the besieged port city of Mariupol that Ukrainian fighters are striving to defend.
The president said those defenders were tying up “a big part of the enemy forces”, characterising the battle to hold Mariupol as “the heart of the war” right now.
“It’s beating. We’re fighting. We’re strong. And if it stops beating, we will be in a weaker position,” he said.
04:04 AM
Biden an ‘old man in his senility’, says North Korea
North Korea has come to the defence of Russia by describing Joe Biden as an “old man in his senility”.
The personal attack on the US president comes after he accused the Russian leader of war crimes in Ukraine.
Mr Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a war criminal” and called for him to be put on trial over alleged atrocities against civilians in Bucha.
“The latest story is the US chief executive who spoke ill of the Russian president with groundless data,” said a commentary carried by the official KCNA news agency.
“Such reckless remarks can be made only by the descendants of Yankees, master hand at aggression and plot-breeding.”
It described Mr Biden as a “president known for his repeated slip of tongue”, but stopped short of referring to him by name.
“The conclusion could be that there is a problem in his intellectual faculty and that his reckless remarks are just a show of imprudence of an old man in his senility,” said the commentary, which was issued on Saturday evening.
“Gloomy, it seems, is the future of the US with such a feeble man in power.”
Pyongyang has sided with Moscow in its war with Ukraine, accusing the US of being the “root cause” of the crisis.
