Russian bombing completely destroyed Dnipro airport, while the Ukrainian authorities said they were preparing for the “big battle” in the east, while the evacuation of civilians from the besieged areas continued, and prisoners exchanged between Ukrainian and Russian forces.
airport destruction
Dnipro airport, the largest city in eastern Ukraine, was subjected to a new Russian bombardment on Sunday, which led to its “complete destruction”. “New attack on Dnipro airport,” Valentin Reznichenko, governor of the Dnipro region, wrote on Telegram. Nothing was left of it. The airport itself and the nearby infrastructure were destroyed. And the missiles are still falling.”
Previously, Russian bombing had targeted Dnipro Airport on March 15, destroying the runway and damaging the airport building. Dnipro is an industrial city with a population of one million, through which the Dnieper River, which separates eastern Ukraine from the rest of the country, passes.
Thwart the evacuation of leaders
Moscow said that Russian forces fired on a Ukrainian ship that was trying to evacuate leaders of the Azov battalion from the besieged city of Mariupol. “The Kyiv regime does not abandon attempts to evacuate the commanders of the Azov nationalist battalion and foreign mercenaries from Mariupol,” the Russian Defense Ministry announced in a statement. As a result of the strike, the Apache ship, which is flying the flag of Malta, caught fire, and said that it would acquiesce in Russian demands.
Kyiv dead
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova announced on Sunday that 1,222 bodies have so far been found in the Kyiv region alone, part of which was occupied by Russian forces for several weeks. She did not specify whether the bodies were exclusively civilians.
Besides, a Ukrainian official said that a grave containing dozens of civilians had been found in the village of Buzova near Kyiv, in the latest mass grave to be discovered following Russian forces withdrew from areas north of the capital. Taras Dedic, head of the Dmitrievka region, which includes Buzova, added that the bodies were found in a crater near a gas station.
Archyde.com was not yet able to verify the report.
The Great Battle
Ukraine confirmed that it is ready to fight a “big battle” in the east of the country, a target that is a priority for Moscow, while the evacuation of civilians continues for fear of an imminent attack in this region. “Ukraine is ready for big battles,” Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted Mikhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the Ukrainian president, as saying. Ukraine must win it, including in Donbass.”
Meanwhile, bombing and air strikes continued in Ukraine. And on Sunday morning, the bombing of Tal Kharkiv and its suburbs killed at least two people, according to what the region’s governor, Oleg Senegubov, announced on Facebook.
After withdrawing its forces from the Kyiv region and northern Ukraine, Russia made it a priority to take full control of the Donbass region, part of which has been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
evacuating civilians
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said 4,532 civilians had been evacuated. She added that most of them left the Zaporizhia region, noting that regarding two hundred people managed to leave the besieged southern coastal city of Mariupol, and more than a thousand people fled from Melitopol, Lysechansk, Severodonetsk, Robizhny, Krymina and Popasna in the Lugansk region.
For his part, the governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kirilenko, announced on the Telegram application that bombing operations resulted in five deaths and five injuries in the area.
prisoner exchange
Russia’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Tatiana Moskalkova, confirmed on Sunday the implementation of a prisoner exchange process between Russia and Ukraine on Saturday. She added that among those who returned to Russia were four employees of the State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom), in addition to soldiers and civilians, including truck drivers. Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said 12 Ukrainian soldiers and 14 civilians had returned following a prisoner exchange with Russia, the third such operation since the conflict began.
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