April 1, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola traveled to Ukraine and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who called it a "heroic" visit.

Metsola, the first leader of an EU institution to visit Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, posted a picture of her shaking hands with Zelensky on Twitter Friday.

"Courage, strength, resolve. With Zelensky in Kyiv. Slava Ukraini!" Metsola captioned the photo. 

Her visit was welcomed by the Ukrainian leader who, in a speech posted to social media on Friday, called it an "important moment" for the country. 

"You demonstrate heroism because it's heroic to come to Ukraine at this time. Of course, we defend Ukraine because it's our country and our life but to come from abroad, it's a very important step of support of our people," Zelensky remarked.

Last month, the Prime Ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic also traveled to Ukraine and reaffirmed their support for the country amid the ongoing Russian invasion during a meeting with Zelensky and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in the capital of Kyiv. 

Speaking in an address to the Ukrainian parliament on Friday, Metsola said she had come "as a representative of the European Parliament" to tell Ukrainians one thing: "We are with you. In good times and in less good times — we are with you."

Metsola made three promises to Ukraine during her speech: To hold those "responsible accountable for what they have committed here," to take care of Ukrainian families forced to flee their homes and to support Ukraine's European Union aspirations. 

In his speech, Zelensky lamented the fact that he couldn't come and personally address the European Parliament due to "understandable circumstances," adding though that he thought that "voice of Ukraine is being heard today."

"I am glad that in our relationships there are no hierarchy, no pathetic emotions. You have come, and this is a very important signal, we are very grateful and will never forget," Zelensky concluded.

Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine's minister of reintegration of temporarily occupied territories, said 6,266 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities on Friday.

The update came via a statement, in which Vereshchuk noted that the figure includes 1,431 people who moved from the southern cities of Berdiansk and Melitopol — in their own vehicles — to the Ukrainian government-held city of Zaporizhzhia, via evacuation corridors.

Of that number, she said, 771 people originally came from the besieged city of Mariupol.

Meanwhile, said Vereshchuk, a separate convoy of 42 buses from the city of Berdiansk — carrying Mariupol residents — had passed a key Russian checkpoint and was en route to Zaporizhzhia. Including additional buses from Melitopol, those convoys were carrying more than 2,500 people.

Additionally, the official said 10 buses had arrived from Zaporizhzhia to Berdiansk delivering 80 tons of humanitarian aid.

"Tomorrow morning they will continue the evacuation of Mariupol residents," she added. 

After weeks of literally digging in at the Antonov Airport in Hostomel, just 18 miles (more 28 kilometers) northwest from the Ukrainian capital, Russian forces there have suddenly disappeared, new satellite images show.

On Thursday, an official with the US Department of Defense told CNN they believed that the Russian military had likely left the airport. The new satellite images, taken on Thursday from Maxar Technologies, confirm they have.

Previous satellite images showed that, around military vehicles and artillery positions, the Russians had constructed protective earthen berms. Now, just the berms remain. 

The capture of the Antonov airfield was the first major victory notched by the Russians on the first day of the war — Feb. 24. A number of transport and attack helicopters ambushed the base, and the Ukrainian soldiers at it; CNN even witnessed some of the intense firefight at the base.

Since then, Ukrainian forces held strong against the Russian advance; they never made it closer to western Kyiv. Intense firefights took place along the Irpin River and the towns of Irpin and Bucha, just south of the air base and the surrounding village of Hostomel. 

And for weeks, the Russian Ministry of Defense released a number of videos praising the ease at which they claimed to have taken the air base. Russian state media echoed those claims, even traveling with troops around the airport as evidence for how safe the area was.

Now, the abandonment is just another example of Russia’s waning military success around the Ukrainian capital.

At this time, it's unclear where the military and artillery vehicles went. Russia has previously claimed that it would decrease its military activity around Kyiv. All of the military forces and vehicles that were positioned west of Kyiv came from Belarus.

The Russians aren't saying if they returned to Belarus, and thick cloud cover is currently preventing any satellite imagery from tracking Russian troop movements in the area.

If you are catching up on the latest developments in the Ukraine-Russia war, here's what you need to know.

Missile strikes in Odesa: Three Iskander missiles launched from the Russian-annexed peninsula of Crimea had struck a settlement in the Odesa region, said Maksym Marchenko, the head of the region's military administration, adding that there were casualties.

Ukraine recaptured Bucha: Ukraine has recaptured the town of Bucha near the capital of Kyiv Thursday, according to Bucha's Mayor Anatolii Fedoruk.

Mariupol evacuations: Buses carrying civilians evacuated from the besieged city of Mariupol left the coastal city of Berdyansk and arrived in the Ukrainian government-held city of Zaporizhzhia late Friday night local time. Around 2,000 civilians were on the buses, according to the Mariupol city council. Ukrainian authorities say more than 100,000 civilians still remain trapped in Mariupol.

Blaze at a fuel depot: A huge fire broke out at a fuel depot in Belgorod, a Russian city near the Ukrainian border, and Russia says an air strike from Ukrainian helicopters is to blame. CNN is so far unable to verify this claim and the Ukrainian defense ministry told CNN it has no information about the incident. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday that the purported strike could have a potential negative impact on negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.

Heavy shelling continues: Ukrainian officials have continued to report heavy shelling in eastern Ukraine on Friday, particularly in the Luhansk region of the Donbas amid an apparent shift by Russia to redirect military efforts to the region. NATO's chief has warned Russian forces are repositioning rather than withdrawing, while Ukrainian and US officials say say Russians may be regrouping in Belarus.

Here's the state of the conflict:

After authorities encountered several issues in evacuating civilians from Mariupol, they were finally put on buses in the city of Berdyansk and headed to the Ukrainian government-held city of Zaporizhzhia on Friday, according to the Mariupol city council. And moments ago, the buses started arriving at the destination.

CNN's Ivan Watson, who is on the ground, said officials are vetting people and their documents before letting them off the buses.

"Then there's an entire system of volunteers, city government officials, aid workers who will greet people. Almost everybody I've spoken to says their home has been destroyed in Mariupol," Watson said.

Some men said they were asked to remove their shirts at Russian military checkpoints, and they were checked for tattoos that the Russian forces could believe would help identify if they were part of Ukrainian military, Watson said.

A passenger on the bus said "an 18-year-old boy was seen with tattoos and was immediately hooded by the Russian troops and thrown into an armored personnel carrier and taken away," Watson reported.

All of the vehicles arriving have been branded with the Red Cross logo to try to ensure they cannot be attacked on the road, Watson reported.

The organization had been at work, trying to assist with safe passage.

More than 100,000 residents remain trapped in the southern port city, according to officials.

Watch CNN's reporting on the ground:

Roughly 4 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion in late February, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi said Wednesday.

The refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine include at least 203,000 third-country nationals, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Tuesday.

More than 2.3 million of the Ukrainian refugees have fled to Poland, while hundreds of thousands have fled to neighboring countries including Romania, Moldova and Hungary, according to data from the UN.

Grandi has previously called the exodus of refugees from Ukraine "the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II."

The graphic below details the travel patterns of Ukrainian refugees to nearby countries:

Note: CNN cannot determine final destinations of refugees at this time, these are estimates of travel through neighboring countries.

CNN's Sana Noor Haq, Sharon Braithwaite, Nadine Schmidt contributed reporting to this post.

They left the safety of their homes in places like Clearwater, Florida; Brighton, England; and Quebec, Canada, to join the fight to defend Ukraine against Russia. 

These foreign volunteers — mostly men, often military veterans — walk the lonely road over the border into Ukraine, sometimes passing hundreds of mothers and children fleeing their bombed-out country.

They are signing up for a fight but their own countries' armies will not be there to back them up.  

Foreign fighters have began streaming into Ukraine days after the war began but little is known about the impact they may be making.

One military analyst said it all depends on who is showing up to fight.

Davis says he has learned there are fighters who arrived on the ground that “literally think it's like a video game."

"They don't understand the danger they're getting into … and they also don't have equipment they need. They don't have weapons, there's like one weapon for 20 guys,” he said, adding that he agrees with the official guidance from the United States that recommends Americans do not go to Ukraine at this time. 

At least 53 historic and religious sites in Ukraine have been damaged since the Russian invasion began, according to UNESCO. 

UNESCO alongside its sister agency UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research) has set up "a system to monitor the state of conservation of the main Ukrainian sites and monuments via satellite imagery," according to a UNESCO spokesperson. 

The northeastern city of Kharkiv has suffered the most damage with 18 damaged sites including the Kharkiv National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, the Kharkiv Art Museum and the Drobytskyi Yar Holocaust Memorial. 

Also on the list are the Drama Theater in the besieged port city of Mariupol which was devastated by Russian bombing on March. In the northern city of Chernihiv, St. Catherine's Church, an elaborate gold domed church is also among the damaged sites. 

So far key landmarks in the capital Kyiv have escaped largely unscathed, with one notable exception being the church, Voznesens'ka Tserkva, Church of Ascension. 

None of the seven UNESCO World Heritage sites located in Ukraine have been damaged by hostilities, according to the UNESCO list. The agency is "working with the Ukrainian authorities to list the priority sites and define the terms of this deployment," the spokesperson added. 

As an additional safeguard, UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay sent a formal letter to the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov "reminding him of the obligations of the Russian Federation and providing him with the location data of Ukrainian World Heritage sites so that they can be protected from any bombing," the spokesperson said. 

Talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul earlier this week led to a prisoner swap between the two sides of Friday, said David Arakhamia, a member of the Ukrainian delegation. 

"Thanks to the agreements reached in Turkey, today, we've accomplished a successful exchange of prisoners of war," Arakhamia said on Telegram. "We've managed to bring back 86 of our servicemen, 15 of them — women. The state will fight to the end for each of our citizens!"