[Korrespondent] 22:03 In Khmelnitsky, during the meeting, they voted for the transition to the OCU of the Holy Intercession Cathedral of the UOC-MP, in which the incident with the military took place. The first prayer in Ukrainian has already taken place in the church.
20:56 Nuclear weapons in Belarus will be moved to the western borders of the "union state," Russian Ambassador Boris Gryzlov said: "They will be moved to the western borders of our Union State and will increase our security capabilities. This will be done despite the noise in Europe and USA". Gryzlov recalled that a storage facility for placing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would be built before July 1.
20:13 Zelensky announced a "particularly weighty" week: "Next week will be especially weighty for our defense, for our movement towards victory. We are already preparing for the planned events and decisions."
19:48 Zelensky said in an evening video message that as a result of today's Russian strike on Konstantinovka, six people were killed and 11 injured. In addition, in the morning the Russians attacked the Konotop district of the Sumy region, two people were killed.
"These are just a few examples of dozens of strikes in a day. There is only one way to stop Russian terror and restore security to all our cities and communities. And this way is a military victory for Ukraine. There is no other way, and there will not be," the president stressed.
19:20 In St. Petersburg, an explosion occurred in a cafe where Russian military blogger Maxim Fomin (pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky) was holding a meeting. According to Russian media, Fomin himself died and 16 others were wounded. According to journalists, a girl carried the bomb to a meeting with the military correspondent - she hid it in a statuette and presented it to Fomin. Some publics also write that the cafe itself may belong to Prigogine.
19:11 The settlements of Bakhmut, Avdeevka and Marinka remain at the epicenter of hostilities, over the current day, units of the Defense Forces have repelled more than 50 enemy attacks, the General Staff said in an evening summary.
In the military units of the RF Armed Forces, which are deployed in the Crimea, explanatory activities are actively carried out among conscripts. Young people are told about the need to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry and participate in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine.
18:40 The situation in Bakhmut remains very tense, Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar said. According to her, the enemy is making attempts to involve not only the Wagnerites, but also professional paratrooper units. "Excessively high losses of the enemy's personnel do not stop. Decisions are made emotionally. Our defenders have to stop the advance of the enemy in difficult conditions," Malyar said.
At the same time, she assured that every military decision and every step of the Defense Forces is weighed, "the response to the current situation is carried out competently, taking into account all the circumstances, tasks and the principle of military expediency."
17:51 The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Blinken called Lavrov, discussing the detention of the American journalist Gershkovich and "some topical issues of a bilateral nature."
17:38 The mayor of Khmelnytsky Alexander Simchishin said that the city council will stop the use of all land plots on the territory of the community by the UOC-MP. The same decisions are initiated for the regional and district councils. This statement was made after the incident with the beating of a Ukrainian soldier in one of the temples. He came in and asked how many more people would have to die before the believers would stop going to the Moscow Patriarchate. In response, he was beaten, and the police drew up a military report. Simchishin said that all those who beat the military should be prosecuted, and the patrol officers who drew up the protocol should be fired.
16:19 In the UK, another group of Ukrainian artillerymen completed their training, who were trained to work with the 155-mm AS90 self-propelled artillery mount, the country's Ministry of Defense reported.
14:55 Residents of Avdiivka are hiding children from forced evacuation, Vitaliy Barabash, head of the military-civilian administration, said: “The day before yesterday there were six children in the city, one was taken out - it became five. Then three more were found. Now the real number of children is eight ... They hide children. Some kind of espionage passion. We'll see, we'll pick up and take out."
13:04 As a result of the Russian strike on Konstantinovka, six people were killed and eight injured , the President's Office reported. The enemy delivered two hits with S-300 missiles and fired four volleys from the Uragan MLRS. 16 apartment buildings, eight private houses, a preschool institution, the building of the Konstantinovskaya State Tax Inspectorate, and gas pipes were damaged.
12:29 Russians fired at Konstantinovka of Donetsk region from MLRS, and also with use of cluster ammunition. Apartment buildings were damaged, three people were killed and six were injured, the President's Office said.
12:13 Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov unveiled 12 steps for the de-occupation of Crimea , which are being developed by the Office of the National Security Council of Ukraine with the involvement of a wide range of specialists and experts. A detailed and legally verified program will be reflected in the new version of the Strategy for the De-occupation of Crimea.
11:32 The Ukrainian Defense Forces pushed the Russian occupiers out of a number of positions in the Donetsk direction, spokesman for the Defense Forces of the Tauride direction Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky said: "In the Donetsk direction, the enemy retreated from some positions. Now we are equipping these positions for defensive military operations" . According to him, in the Avdiivka area, the Russians carried out about 30 attacks in a day - mostly by infantry, with the support of only two tanks.
10:54 British intelligence reports that the loss of the Russian Federation since the beginning of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is up to 200 thousand people, some of which are caused by non-combat reasons - primarily drunkenness. Other causes of non-combat casualties include weapons mishandling, traffic accidents, and hypothermia.
Russian commanders likely see widespread alcohol abuse as particularly detrimental to combat effectiveness, analysts say. At the same time, intelligence added that since drunkenness is common in most of Russian society, it has long been viewed as a tacitly accepted part of military life, even during hostilities.
10:20 Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov reported explosions near the locomotive depot. This is the third time this week something explodes there. "Residents record black smoke. We collect data on liquidated equipment," Fedorov wrote.
10:09 Putin's statements about the deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus are simple blackmail - China will not allow Russia to do this, Danilov is convinced. According to him, in this way Putin wants to achieve negotiations in order to stop the war on his own terms. According to Danilov, neither Moscow nor Beijing needs the deployment of such weapons on the territory of Belarus. "There will not be and cannot be any deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus until China gives permission. Will China give permission? I am more than sure that no," the NSDC secretary notes.
Danilov added that the Russians do not want an escalation of the war, but a speedy end to it: "There is no need to invent anything here, there is no conspiracy here. This is such a stupid game of Moscow, which is always in order to force the Americans, the Anglo-Saxons to negotiate with the Russians."
09:47 The Russians fired mortars at the Sumy region in the morning. In the Novoslobodskaya community, a milk truck was hit, two people were killed. There was also mortar shelling from the territory of the Russian Federation in the Krasnopol community, there is no information about the victims, the OVA reported.
09:42 In the Donetsk region over the past day, as a result of Russian shelling, five people were injured. In the Kharkiv region, one dead, one wounded. In the Kherson region, one person died and two were injured, according to the IVA.
09:34 Vice-speaker of the Armenian Parliament Hakob Arshakyan said that his country does not intend to extradite Putin to the court in The Hague after the ratification of the Rome Statute in the event of a visit by the Russian president.
09:03 The General Staff announced the approximate losses of the Russian Federation as of the morning of April 2.
- personnel - about 174,550 (+560) people liquidated,
- tanks - 3618 (+2),
- armored combat vehicles - 6986 (+5),
- artillery systems - 2687 (+4),
- MLRS - 527 (+0),
- air defense systems - 279 (+0),
- aircraft - 306 (+0),
- helicopters - 291 (+0),
- UAV operational-tactical level - 2249 (+1),
- cruise missiles - 911 (+0),
- ships/boats - 18 (+0),
- automotive equipment and tankers - 5537 (+9),
- special equipment - 296 (+0).
08:41 The Russian army is concentrating its main efforts on conducting offensive operations in the Limansky, Bakhmutsky, Avdeevsky and Maryinsky directions. Over the past day, more than 70 enemy attacks were repulsed in the indicated directions. The most fierce battles remain for the areas of the settlements of Bakhmut, Avdeevka and Marinka, the General Staff said in the morning report .
06:27 The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) predicts another reshuffle in the high military command of the Russian Federation due to the failure of the winter offensive. So, on April 1, Russian military bloggers announced the recall from vacation of the commander of the Airborne Forces, Colonel-General Mikhail Teplinsky. This happened after on January 13 the Russian Defense Ministry replaced him in his position with Lieutenant General Oleg Makarevich and sent him on vacation. Now Teplinskiy allegedly took command of the Airborne Forces and is already planning future operations.
...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile...
Iran's Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani says terrorism is a serious threat to humanity and fighting it requires the cooperation of all countries.
President Vladimir Putin will become Russia's prime minister a day after his successor's inauguration. Dmitry Medvedev, who is to be sworn in as president on May 7, has said he would give Mr Putin the job.
MOSCOW: Russia's Communist Party mounted a campaign Tuesday to oust the government in a direct challenge to President Vladimir Putin following weeks of nationwide protests sparked by drastic cuts in social welfare benefits. The State Duma lower house of parliament's left wing said it would collect the 90 signatures required in the 450-seat chamber to hold a confidence vote on the year-old government of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. The challenge is unlikely to succeed because the chamber is dominated by the pro-Putin United Russia party that voted for the drastic cut in Soviet-era social benefits which sparked the largest protests of Putin's five-year rule. "I see no reason for the government to resign," said Duma speaker and United Russia chief