April 30, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Mykhailo Puryshev spoke to CNN about how he organized convoys to help evacuate 200 people from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

He turned his night club into a bomb shelter and used his own van to move people outside of the city and bring food back inside.

Despite Puryshev's van being badly damaged by shelling and gunfire, it didn't stop him from continuing to conduct his rescue missions. He described witnessing people in desperation fighting to get the food and water they were passing out as the humanitarian aid was not enough for all those waiting.

"And they're all there just fighting. During one of those trips actually they nearly turned my van over, and it was just a survival. I would watch and understand this is just survival happening near our vans which came with all the humanitarian aid and it was an absolutely horrible picture," he told CNN's Erin Burnett via a translator.

"Frankly, a couple of times, I actually caught myself thinking that I do not want to come back. I do not want to see this again. And yet, I still kept coming back because I understood there wouldn't be anyone else to do this," he continued.

Puryshev said that as the bombs were coming and he was close to death, he feared not seeing his children again, but also kept thinking about the people that still needed his help and more trips that he needed to make.

"It is painful that this is the 21st century, that this is happening in our country. This is happening in my city. This is pain. This is pain of our country," he told CNN.

Watch the interview:

Rebecca Cabrera, the mother of an American citizen who was killed fighting alongside Ukrainians earlier this week, said her son had a “high moral value” and “wanted to do the right thing,” which is why he chose to join the Ukrainians in their fight against the Russian invasion.

Cabrera last spoke with her son, Willy Joseph Cancel, last Thursday before he was killed on Monday.

“We got to FaceTime a little bit on Thursday, and I got to talk to some of the people in his unit,” Cabrera said. “The correspondence obviously was not a lot because the towers were being blown up and things like that, so we never knew when we would be able to talk to him but he tried communicating to us as much as he could.”

Biden expressed dismay Friday at the news of the American's death, saying "it is very sad. He left a little baby behind."

More background: The 22-year-old was working with a private military contracting company when he was killed. The company sent him to Ukraine, and he was being paid while he was fighting there, Cancel's mother had 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 at the end of February. When the war broke out, the company was searching for contractors to fight in Ukraine and Cancel agreed to go, Cabrera said.

The White House press secretary today cautioned against Americans traveling to Ukraine to take up arms, saying the administration encourages Americans to find other ways to help.

CNN's Sam Fossum and Maegan Vazquez contributed reporting to this post. 

It had been weeks of relative quiet in Kyiv when a couple of bangs and a plume of black smoke quickly changed that, CNN correspondent Matt Rivers reported.

Ukraine and Russia both confirmed cruise missiles were fired into a central district of Kyiv on Thursday evening, miles away from where the UN secretary general had wrapped up a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Rescuers worked through the night, Rivers reported, and in the morning, a clearer picture emerged of what happened. An apartment complex was shredded by shrapnel, leaving those in the neighborhood shaken. 

The woman told CNN she didn't die because she wasn't sitting near the window. Her son Alexi injured his hand, telling Rivers that there was "a clap and a blast, then panic. That's it. I didn't see it until later, I saw my hand was covered blood."

Some of the residents in the neighborhood, however, did not survive. A 54-year-old Ukrainian journalist was killed in the strike.

Rivers reported that Russia's Ministry of Defense said they were aiming for a factory near the apartment complex which is one of Ukraine's top producers of air-to-air guided missiles as well as aircraft parts. 

"The factory was damaged in the strike, but so is that apartment complex just behind me.  Yet another example of Russia targeting places that have supposed military relevance, but killing ordinary civilians in the process," Rivers reported from the site in Kyiv.

Watch the full report:

US President Joe Biden and his advisers are still in conversations about how to approach November's Group of 20 summit, whose hosts received confirmation Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to attend.

Biden has said Russia should be ejected from the G20. Senior members of his administration have walked out of G20 events where Russian delegates are present. And there were discussions with Indonesia, which is hosting the summit, about stepping up its condemnation of Russia.

But no decision on boycotting the leaders' summit, still six months away, has been made. Officials said there wouldn't likely be a decision in the near-term as they weigh the downsides of skipping the event and ceding the table to Russia and China.

"The President has expressed publicly his opposition to President Putin attending the G20," press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.

She said it was too early to say how the summit would look.

"It is six months away. So we don't know how to predict, we can't predict at this point, what that will look like," she said, adding: "We've conveyed our view that we don't think they should be a part of it publicly and privately as well." 

The White House is realistic the G20 will not collectively remove Russia from its ranks, since the decision would likely require consensus and China has been clear it doesn't support such a move. That makes this a different scenario than when Russia was expelled from the G8 after its annexation of Crimea.

Psaki said the White House's understanding was that Indonesia invited Putin to attend prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Yet in a statement, the country's President stressed unity among the member countries.

"Indonesia wants to unite the G20. Don't let there be a split. Peace and stability are the keys to the recovery and development of the world economy," President Joko Widodo said in a statement from Indonesia's Cabinet on Friday, confirming Putin had accepted his invitation to attend.

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The leader of the Belarusian opposition called on the United States to enact sanctions on the government of Belarus that mirror those imposed on Moscow.

In meetings with the US State Department and members of Congress this week, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said she discussed both strengthening future sanctions and closing loopholes on existing ones.

She also said she presented the US government with evidence of Belarusian strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko’s involvement in the Russian war in Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters Friday, Tsikhanouskaya said sanctions “must be the same on strength” as those imposed on Russia “but different in structure,” and should target state banks and state enterprises.

The opposition leader said she spoke with officials in Washington, DC, about ways of “making sanctions more effective, closing remaining loopholes, freezing Lukashenka’s assets and blocking the money given to him by the (International Monetary Fund).”

Tsikhanouskaya said suggested the use of secondary sanctions to close such loopholes.

“We see how Russia uses Belarus to circumvent their own sanctions,” she said, citing the example of steel.

She said sanctions are hitting the Lukashenko regime, however, citing what she described as letters from the Minister of Foreign Affairs seeking rapprochement sent in recent weeks.

Tsikhanouskaya met with US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman – a meeting that was attended in part by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken – as well as Jim O’Brien, head of the Office of Sanctions Coordination at the US State Department.

Tsikhanouskaya told reporters she gave O’Brien “documents with the evidence of Lukashenka’s involvement in the war against Ukraine, as well as the list of companies and countries that helped to circumvent the sanctions.”

She said that includes “massive evidence of launching missiles from our territory, movement of Russian equipment in the territory of Belarus.”

“It's inside information about some internal orders about deployment of different Russian military equipment in our territory,” she continued. “So people have been collecting this information for the full period of the war. They are well documented and we passed this evidence to the government.”

Tsikhanouskaya said she does not believe that the Belarusian army participated in launching these missiles, and instead Lukashenko gave the land to Russian President Vladimir Putin to use as he wanted. 

“It's already World War. We are so afraid of World War the third but it's already going on,” she said. “It's war between democracy and autocracy.”

US President Joe Biden expressed dismay Friday at the news that an American, Willy Joseph Cancel, was killed while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces. 

"It is very sad. He left a little baby behind," Biden told reporters at the White House while he was hosting a meeting.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki earlier on Friday offered condolences to Cancel's family and said the US government had not officially confirmed his death, cautioning Americans against traveling to Ukraine for any reason.

Cancel was killed Monday fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, members of Cancel's family confirmed to CNN. The 22-year-old was working with a private military contracting company when he was killed on April 25. The company 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 at the end of February. When the war broke out, the company was searching for contractors to fight in Ukraine and Cancel agreed to go, Cabrera said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday offered condolences to the family of an American who was killed while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, saying the US government had not officially confirmed his death. She cautioned Americans against traveling to Ukraine for any reason.

Willy Joseph Cancel, a 22-year-old veteran, was killed on Monday fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in Ukraine, members of Cancel's family confirmed to CNN. Cancel working with a private military contracting company when he was killed. The company had sent him to Ukraine, and he was being paid while he was fighting there, Cancel's mother, Rebecca Cabrera, said.

“Well, first of all, our hearts go out to his family and loved ones. … We don't have official confirmation, even though we've seen the reports, but we have not had that official process through the government, so I can't speak to other specifics about him beyond that," Psaki said during the White House press briefing when asked by CNN’s MJ Lee about Cancel’s death.

She then cautioned against Americans traveling to Ukraine to take up arms.

“It's an active war zone. And we know Americans face significant risks, but certainly we know a family is mourning. A wife is mourning and our hearts are with them,” she continued. 

Psaki also reiterated that the administration’s advice “has been that Americans should not travel to Ukraine for any reason.”

The US State Department said Friday it was aware of reports of a US citizen killed while fighting in Ukraine but has no further information to add

Principal deputy spokesperson Jalina Porter said the State Department stands “ready to provide all consular assistance to the family,” but out of respect for the family at this difficult time had nothing further to announce.

She also reiterated that the State Department continues to urge US citizens not to travel to Ukraine. Porter said she does not have an estimate of how many Americans have gone there to fight with the Ukrainian forces – the State Department does not require US citizens to register their whereabouts when going abroad.

CNN's Christian Sierra and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting to this post.

Asked whether the Defense Department considers Russian President Vladimir Putin a “rational actor,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby got emotional speaking about Putin’s “depravity” in Ukraine.

Pressed on the characterization by CNN’s Barbara Starr, Kirby called Putin’s justifications for the invasion “BS,” at one point pounding on the podium for emphasis.

“It’s hard to square his ... BS that this is about Nazism in Ukraine, and it’s about protecting Russians in Ukraine, and it’s about defending Russian national interests, when none of them, none of them were threatened by Ukraine,” said Kirby.

Kirby listed some of what he called “unconscionable” actions by Russian forces, including civilians being “shot in the back of the head, hands tied behind their backs. Women, pregnant women being killed, hospitals being bombed.” 

Kirby subsequently apologized for what he said was injecting his “personal perspective,” and would not elaborate further on the US assessment of Putin’s mental state.

Here's the moment Pentagon press secretary John Kirby got emotional after a question about Putin's actions in Ukraine:

The White House conveyed privately to Indonesia that Russia should not be allowed to participate in this year’s G20 summit, though the country’s president announced Friday that President Vladimir Putin had accepted an invitation to attend.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki noted the summit was still six months away, and did not provide an update on whether President Biden would also participate. But she said his views were clear that Russia shouldn’t be there.

The White House’s understanding was that Indonesia invited Putin to attend prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she said.

Still, in a statement confirming Russia’s acceptance of the invite, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said, “Indonesia wants to unite the G20. Don’t let there be a split. Peace and stability are the keys to the recovery and development of the world economy.” 

Indonesia has also extended an invitation to Ukraine to participate as a guest, a step Psaki said the US welcomed, but she said it was too early to say how the summit would look.

“It is six months away. So we don't know how to predict, we can't predict at this point, what that will look like,” she said, adding, “We’ve conveyed our view that we don't think they should be a part of it publicly and privately as well.” 

Psaki said there were no indications Russia was willing to engage in serious diplomacy.

“There's a lot that could happen between now and then, but we certainly haven't seen an indication to date of Russia's plan to participate in diplomatic talks constructively,” she said. “Our hope certainly is that will change because obviously diplomatic talks and conversations is the way to bring an end to this conflict and President Putin could end this tomorrow, could end this right now.”