April 17, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

While Russian forces are still in complete control of the Borivs'kyi district in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Moscow's troops are "gradually withdrawing" from the area in the direction of Donetsk region, the Borova village council said in a statement on Telegram on Sunday.   

“There is no mobile connection and no Internet, which are impossible to restore as the territory is occupied by the Russians,” it said, adding that “some places are left without electricity and gas.”  

According to the statement, Russian troops are housed in the buildings of the village council, the Palace of Culture, hospitals, in the homes of some civilians. "Occupying authorities" in the area have been appointed from among local collaborators, who are now going to coordinate administrative activities in the community. 

The council said some parts of the community suffered significant damage and that it hasn’t been able to get in touch with the psychoneurological boarding school in the area, which housed about 200 patients. 

Due to the lack of communication, the council has not been able to identify the people who were taken to the hospital from the bus that came under attack by Russian forces on Friday. 

The issue of delivery of medicines to a hospital in Borova village, including anesthesia, and humanitarian aid to the population in the form of food, hygiene products and basic necessities is acute, the council said.  

Appeals have been sent to the Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, who is also Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine, and the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, Oleh Synegubov, to organize humanitarian corridors for evacuation and delivery of aid in the area, according to the statement.  

Serhii Haidai, the head of the Luhansk region military administration, said Russian shelling hit a church in the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk. 

"The orcs [derogatory Ukrainian term for Russian troops] shelled the church in Severodonetsk on Palm Sunday," Haidai said. 

Many Ukrainians observed Palm Sunday on April 17 in accordance with the Julian calendar.  

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Sunday that the "situation" in Mariupol “may be a red line” in negotiations with Russia.  

“The situation in Mariupol is both dire -- militarily -- and heartbreaking,” Kuleba said on CBS' “Face the Nation."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously said any further Russian war crimes would make negotiations with Russia impossible. 

The foreign minister said he is anticipating the intensification of heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine in the coming weeks.

He also said he expects “desperate attempts of the Russia forces to finish with Mariupol at any cost,” adding that he anticipates missile attacks on Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine to continue. 

Responding to a question about how important it is to him for a high-level US official to visit Ukraine, Kuleba said he would be happy to see US President Joe Biden travel to the country.  

“It would be an important message of support to us and of course, a personal meeting between two presidents could also pave the way for new supplies of weapons, of American weapons to Ukraine, and also for discussions on the possible political settlement of this conflict,” he said.  

Kuleba echoed a line Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN's Jake Tapper in an interview that aired earlier Sunday.

Austria's chancellor said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes he's winning the war.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he couldn’t fully explain Putin’s rationale, but did say Putin had his “own war logic," adding the Russian leader “sent me clear messages about his concerns," and that he seemed to have a full grasp of what was unfolding on the ground.

Nehammer said that Putin switched to German in their face-to-face meeting to warn that it would be better for the war to end sooner rather than later.

Ukrainian officials have reported more civilian casualties Sunday amid rocket and artillery attacks in the Kharkiv and Luhansk regions.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine said five people had died and 13 were wounded during renewed rocket attacks against Kharkiv. 

In the neighboring Luhansk region, Serhii Haidai, head of the military administration, said a handful of people had been evacuated from the cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. "It was impossible to agree with the occupiers on a ceasefire along the evacuation routes today," he said. 

Haidai said that in the same area, the town of Zolote came under fire. Two people were killed.   

Lyudmila Denisova, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, said bread vans had been targeted in Lysychansk. And the town of Novodruzhsk in the same area had also been hit by shelling. One house was destroyed, she said 

Denisova said that altogether in the 24 hours to Sunday midday, 16 residential buildings in Luhansk region had been destroyed.

Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer spoke more about his tough face-to-face meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin last week, in an interview with NBC’s "Meet the Press" that aired Sunday. 

Nehammer was the first Western leader to sit down with Russia’s president since he launched his invasion in February.

Nehammer went to Moscow to confront Putin last week after viewing evidence of “war crimes” in Bucha, Ukraine, he said. 

Nehammer said to NBC’s Chuck Todd of his visit to Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv: “We saw the war crimes there. And Orthodox priests told us Russian soldiers shot civilians. And after the trip to Ukraine, I did a trip to Moscow to confront President Putin with what I saw.”

Nehammer described that conversation as “not friendly," but “frank and tough.”

I told him what I saw. I saw the war crimes. I saw the massive loss of the Russian Army. And I told him that there is a need for humanitarian corridors for civilians like in Mariupol or Kharkiv for example. Civilians need water and they have to take care of the wounded there," he said.

Nehammer also said that Putin said he would cooperate with an international investigation on the one hand, but that the Russian leader also said he doesn’t trust the Western world.

Concern for more loss of life in Donbas region: Nehammer added that he came away from his meeting with Putin very concerned about the impending battle for the Donbas which would see “many losses of human lives”.

“You know we can all see that there is the preparation of [a] massive battle in the Donbas region. The Ukrainian side is prepared for that. The Russian is prepared for that. And we will see many losses of human lives there, on the one hand.”

But Nehammer also held out a sliver of hope because neither Ukraine nor Russia’s leaders fully dismissed the ‘peace talks’ or negotiations, he said.  

The Ukrainian forces in the southeastern port city of Mariupol are still fighting and have not surrendered, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Sunday.  

“The city (Mariupol) still has not fallen. There are still our military forces, our soldiers so they will fight until the end and as for now they are still in Mariupol,” Shmyhal said on ABC News' "This Week" after a Russian-set deadline for Kyiv's forces in the city to surrender passed on Sunday.

He said that more than 900 Ukrainian cities, towns and villages had been freed from the Russian occupation since Moscow took control after the invasion began in late February.     

“We still are fighting and we have battle in Donbas region right now but we do not have intention to surrender," Shmyhal said.

In response to a question on the current state of diplomacy, he said “Ukraine will prepare to stop this war” if a “diplomatic way is possible.”  

However, if Russia was not willing to hold negotiations, he said “we will not surrender, we will not leave our country, our families, our land, we will fight absolutely till the end, till the win in this war.”  

Shmyhal also thanked the United States and other partners for their support in providing ammunition, humanitarian and financial aid.  

“We have a deficit of the budget about $5 billion per month during every month of the war. So, we appreciate and we are so gratitude (grateful) for any financial support from the United States and all of our international partners," he said.  

Ukraine will seek financial support from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US Treasury at meetings this week in Washington, according to the prime minister.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he has difficulty believing in the reliability of "some countries or some leaders" after the escalation of the war in his country.

CNN's Jake Tapper asked Zelensky during an exclusive interview about whether he finds statements when world leaders use the term "never again," a slogan that is associated with Holocaust and often uttered after crimes against humanity, "hollow" now.

"You lost ancestors in the Holocaust. Every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, politicians put out statements that say, never again, never again. Those statements must seem really hollow right now to you. When the world says never again, do they ever mean it?" Tapper asked.

The Ukrainian president went on to say that he doesn't even believe in documented security assurances and international law as the war in Ukraine rages, and with Russia accused of alleged war crimes.

"Even I don't believe documents, because we also have a Budapest Memorandum — I think you know all of the details of this. For me, that is just a piece of paper and costs nothing," Zelensky said

Zelensky told CNN that his faith and his belief lies with practical, tangible efforts and the Ukrainian people.

"We just believe contracted, pragmatic things. If you are our friends or partners, give us weapons, give us hand, give us support us, give us money and stop Russia, kick Russia. You can do it if you're a friend. If you think about this democracy and everything just of this moment because we have the same thoughts, if we are speaking about freedom, not because we want to have dialogue about freedom," he said.

Zelensky continued, "The only belief there is belief in ourselves, in our people, belief in our Armed Forces, and the belief that countries are going to support us not just with their words but with their actions. And that’s it. Never again … Really, everybody is talking about this and yet, as you can see, not everyone has got the guts."

Ukrainian rescuers on Saturday found a body of a civilian in Borodianka, Kyiv, region, while dismantling the rubble of two high-rise apartment buildings destroyed by Russian shelling, raising the number of civilian casualties from the strikes to 41 dead, the country’s State Emergency Service reported on its verified Telegram page on Sunday. 

On Saturday, rescuers finished dismantling the debris of two additional buildings destroyed by strikes, completing the search in five out of seven destroyed residential towers in the city since the efforts began on April 6.