April 29, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Heavy shelling by Russian forces is continuing along "the entire line of contact" in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to the Ukrainian military.

Russians troops are also trying to inflict air strikes in certain areas, said the General Staff of the Armed Forces on Friday.

The Izium area of eastern Ukraine, located in the Kharkiv region, has become a staging ground for Russian forces as they try to advance through neighboring Donetsk and Luhansk. No offensive operations in that area have been conducted in recent hours, said the Ukrainian military.

"The main effort was focused on reconnaissance, identification of defensive positions of the units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine and hitting them with artillery fire," said the General Staff.

The General Staff also claimed that Ukrainian troops "repelled nine enemy attacks, destroyed six tanks, one artillery system, twenty armored vehicles" in Donetsk and Luhansk on Thursday.

Cutting off Russian pathways: An important bridge in southern Ukraine, which connects Russian-occupied Crimea with the Ukrainian city of Melitopol, has been destroyed, CNN reported on Thursday. Melitopol has been held by Russian forces since early March.

Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov confirmed on Ukrainian television that Ukrainian special forces were responsible for cutting off the crucial bridge.

Fedorov also accused Russian occupiers of carrying out "mass abduction," saying they were "kidnapping" men of conscription age. This allegation can't be independently confirmed.

A fuel depot in part of the eastern Donetsk region controlled by Russian-backed forces was attacked by the Ukrainian military and set on fire during the night, a local official said. 

Several social media videos showed the blaze in the depot in the Kirovsky district.

Alexei Kulemzin, the head of the separatist Donetsk administration, said that "as a result of shelling of Kirovsky district by Ukrainian shells, a tank at the oil depot...was damaged." 

He said four transformer sub-stations had been damaged.

Some background: Ukrainian authorities have not commented on the incident, but the fire is one of several that have taken place recently at Russian-controlled fuel and ammunition depots.

​Novovorontsovka, Ukraine: The changing shape of Russia’s campaign in Ukraine can be seen here along the banks of the Dnipro River. 

The eastern side has been controlled for weeks by Russian forces – but now they are pushing to seize the western side. The prize: To control the strategically significant river that winds from Russia through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea.

After the failure of Russia’s fierce first assault, Moscow has shifted to a grinding and more methodical strategy to expand control of the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk while carving out a territory along Ukraine’s southern coast.

The impact is visible in the small town of Novovorontsovka. A handful of Russian tanks are about a kilometer away across the river, pushing and probing – but so far kept at bay by Ukrainian forces.

But the signs of destruction and death are everywhere. A small motorboat sits damaged on the river bank. On April 7, four civilians were killed by Russian fire after more than a dozen got on board to flee the Russian occupation.

And more civilians are fleeing. On Thursday morning, a group of women gathered outside Novovorontsovka, having escaped Russian-controlled territory.

The Russians took whatever they needed, including cars, she said. They drew Zs on everything, Luda said, a reference to the pro-war symbol that has been emblazoned on Russian military equipment.

Nearby, despite the threat of rocket fire, Ludmilla was raking the soil to plant onions. Her children have left, she said, but she’s staying behind with her 80-year-old mother.

Even though the windows of her home have been blown out, Ludmilla said she won’t leave.

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Ukrainian officials have condemned Russia’s missile attack on Kyiv Thursday night, saying it occurred as the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was finishing a visit to the Ukrainian capital. 

Here are the latest updates on the war in Ukraine:

An American citizen, Willy Joseph Cancel, was killed this week while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, members of his family told CNN. 

The 22-year-old was working with a private military contracting company when he was killed on Monday. The company had sent him to Ukraine, and he was being paid while he was fighting there, Cancel's mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN.

Cancel, a former US Marine, according to his mother, signed up to work for the private military contracting company on top of his full-time job as a corrections officer in Tennessee shortly before the war in Ukraine broke out, Cabrera said. When the war began, the company, according to Cabrera, was searching for contractors to fight in Ukraine and Cancel agreed to go, Cabrera said.

"He wanted to go over because he believed in what Ukraine was fighting for, and he wanted to be a part of it to contain it there so it didn't come here, and that maybe our American soldiers wouldn't have to be involved in it," Cabrera said. 

Read more here

The Ukrainian military is strengthening security at its border with Transnistria, a Russian-backed region in Moldova, a Ukrainian military spokesperson said Thursday.

More background: Earlier this week a series of unexplained explosions occurred in parts of Transnistria which Ukraine described as a planned provocation by Russian security services. On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova dismissed “sensational” claims about Russia preparing an offensive using its troops stationed in the region, as well as conscripts from Transnistria.

Russian forces have made some progress in Moscow's renewed assault on eastern Ukraine, according to US and NATO officials, as their military tries to fix the myriad problems that plagued the early weeks of the invasion. 

The US has seen "some evidence" of improvement in Russia's ability to combine air and ground operations, as well as its capacity for resupplying forces in the field, officials say.

The progress is "slow and uneven," a senior US defense official said, allowing Russian forces to advance only "several kilometers or so" each day.  

But the US assesses that Russia is trying to learn from the mistakes it made early on, where columns of tanks and armor ran out of food and fuel, leaving them easy prey to Ukrainian hit-and-run tactics. 

Russia has placed command and control elements near its border with eastern Ukraine, according to a senior NATO official, a sign they are attempting to fix the communications and coordination failures observed in the attack on Kyiv. 

Before the invasion began on Feb. 24th, Russia amassed 125 to 130 battalion tactical groups, known as BTGs, around Ukraine and near Kyiv in particular, but when the fighting began, Russia's military leaders showed little ability to have them fight as one.  

There are 92 BTGS in country now, with another 20 just across border in Russia, according to the senior defense official.

Still, western officials familiar with the latest intelligence say even if Russia has learned key lessons from its systemic failures in the first stage of the conflict, it's not clear that Moscow will be able to implement the necessary changes to dominate in the Donbas region.

Its military has suffered heavy losses in both manpower and equipment and officials believe that other equipment relocated from different parts of Ukraine likely isn't fully repaired yet. Many of the fighting units have cobbled together soldiers who have never fought or trained together.  

"I don't know how many lessons they can actually operationalize. It's not a simple thing," said the senior NATO official. "You don't just move tanks and personnel and say, 'Now go back into the fight!'" 

You can read more here.

Alex Marquardt and Natasha Bertrand contributed reporting to this post.

Ukrainian officials have condemned Russia’s missile attack on Kyiv Thursday night, which occurred as the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was finishing a visit to the Ukrainian capital. 

President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his daily video message, said that "Today, immediately after the end of our talks [with Guterres] in Kyiv, Russian missiles flew into the city. 5 missiles. This says a lot about Russia's true attitude to global institutions, about the Russian leadership's efforts to humiliate the UN and everything that the organization represents. And therefore requires an appropriate, powerful response."

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said in a tweet: “During the meeting with @antonioguterres in Kyiv, we heard explosions. Russia launched a missile strike on the capital. I am sure that such defiant behavior of the occupier will be assessed properly by the UN Secretary-General. War in #Ukraine is an attack on world security!” 

A statement from the State Emergency Service in Kyiv stated: