Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 04-30-2024

An exclusive video from one of the thermal power plants recently hit by Russian missiles.

Of the seven billion brought forward, six will go to military aid, primarily air defense and ammunition – which are desperately needed by Ukraine as it faces a Russian offensive in the east.

Norway's Prime Minister said Tuesday his country would accelerate its military and civilian aid for Ukraine for this year by seven billion kroner to a total of 22 billion kroner ($1.98 billion).

The additional funds will be brought forward from a 75 billion kroner ($6.78 billion) package the Scandinavian country has pledged to Ukraine covering 2023 to 2027 for military and civilian aid, which remains unchanged.

The monument will be transferred to a Kyiv museum.

Kyiv authorities on Tuesday began taking down a Soviet-era monument celebrating friendship with Russia – more than two years into an invasion by Moscow that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

“City municipal services have begun dismantling” the monument, the mayor's office said on social media.

Ukrainians that register with the military commission won't automatically be sent to the front line, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration said.

Kyiv is not taking steps to force Ukrainian men of conscription age living abroad to return, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna in an interview with DW.

Stefanishyna’s comments follow the cancelation of consular services abroad for Ukrainian men between the ages of 18-16, who haven’t registered with the military commission (TCC).

Decline in bonds likely to resume.

Bonds: Decline in bond yields likely to resume

Last week, the NBU cut its key policy rate and interest rates for CDs by 100bp, so we expect the yield on government bonds to again follow suit.The downward drift of yields on UAH government bonds in the primary market was effectively paused for two weeks. Last week, the MoF reduced the cut-off rate by just 10bp for 12-month paper only, preferring to accept non-competitive demand (i.e. satisfied at the weighted average rate) instead of competitive bids with higher rates. Interest rates in bids for two-year and three-year instruments remained broadly unchanged for three weeks, leaving the Ministry little room to lower the cut-off rate (see auction comment for details).The YTMs for UAH bonds were also little changed in the secondary market. Trading volume almost halved to UAH8.1bn, and was mainly concentrated in longer instruments. The leader of last week's trading was notes due in July 2027.

News platforms said it was the long-range version of the US weapon but there was no early Kyiv confirmation. It may have been Ukraine’s most ambitious ballistic missile strike of the war so far.

A wave of Ukrainian long-range weapons widely reported to be around a dozen US-made ATACMS ballistic missiles pounded air bases and air defense installations across Crimea peninsula early Tuesday morning, in one of the beefiest Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) long-range attacks yet against the Kremlin-occupied territory.

Flights of unidentified weapons first started slamming into military installations across Crimea around 2 a.m., with explosions and air raid warnings widely reported near the cities of Simferopol and Sevastopol, and the towns of Gvardeyska, Evpatoria and Dzhankoi, news reports said.

A years-long Czech investigation has revealed that two Russian spies who settled in the Czech Republic collected information for Russian intelligence that led to bombings and poisoning.

The recently released findings of a years-long Czech investigation revealed that a Russian couple spying undercover helped the Kremlin with sabotage activities in the European Union.

Former military officer Nikolay Shaposhnikov and his wife Elena helped the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence, organize sabotage activities dating as far back as 2014 in the EU, including explosions at ammunition depots in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, and the poisoning of Bulgarian arms factory owner Emilian Gebrev, The Insider reported on Monday, April 29, adding additional investigative findings to the Czech report.

Satellite images supposedly reveal that on April 22, six Tu-22M3 strategic bombers were stationed at the Russian Mozdok airbase, accounting for at least a fifth of Russia’s fleet of these aircraft.

While analysing satellite images, Evergreen Intel, an OSINT researcher, discovered that Russians have allegedly created silhouettes of fake Tu-22M3 and Su-24M/MR aircraft at the Russian Mozdok airbase in North Ossetia-Alania.

As observed from Airbus Pleiades 0.5m resolution imagery at 08:13 UTC on April 22nd, 2024, four Su-24M/MR strike aircraft, six Tu-22M3 strategic bombers and 20 military helicopters were also visible.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

A deadly Russian missile attack Monday on the Black Sea port of Odesa killed at least five people and injured at least 28, among them two children and a pregnant woman. Four of the wounded are in serious condition receiving urgent care, regional Governor Oleh Kiper said. In a post on the Telegram messaging app, Kiper said one of the injured children is a 12-year-old boy and that the strike damaged houses and set fire to a large building that he described as an academy. He posted evidence showing smoke rising from the building close to the seafront. In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated his call for urgent delivery of weapons from allies. -

Ukraine is just beginning to understand the lasting effects of the traumas its prisoners of war experienced in Russian captivity, but it has been failing to treat them properly and returning them to duty too early, say former prisoners, officials and psychologists familiar with individual cases. Nearly 3,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been released from Russia in prisoner exchanges since the 2022 invasion began. More than 10,000 more remain in Russian custody, some of whom have endured two years of conditions that a United Nations expert described as horrific. The Ukrainian government’s rehabilitation program, which has usually involved two months in a sanitarium and a month at home, is inadequate, critics say, and the traumas suffered by Ukrainian prisoners are growing with the length and severity of the abuse they are being subjected to as the war drags on. - NYC

The debris of one missile the Russian forces used to target Kharkiv civilian infrastructure and ordinary Ukrainians in January was from a weapon produced by the DPRK, says the UN.

Debris from a missile that Moscow used to strike Ukrainian civilian targets in Kharkiv on Jan. 2, 2024 was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile, sanctions monitoring officials told a committee of the UN Security Council in their report, which is available to Reuters.

In a 32-page report obtained by Reuters on Monday, UN sanctions monitors concluded that “debris recovered from a missile that [struck] Kharkiv, Ukraine, on 2 January 2024 [is] from a DPRK Hwasong-11 series missile.” Thus, the observers confirmed that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, known colloquially as North Korea) violated the UN embargo on the supply of weapons to Russia.

The Prosecutor General of Ukraine reported that metal fragments and rocket debris were recovered within a 1.5 km radius from the site of the shelling.

Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin released a video on Telegram showcasing the moment of the Russian attack on Odesa with an Iskander ballistic missile carrying a cluster warhead.

The situation has been worsening under Russian bombardment in Kharkiv, which lies near the Russian border and is Ukraine's second largest city.

Russian strikes on Kharkiv killed two people and wounded six on Tuesday in the latest deadly attack on the city in northeast Ukraine, the regional governor said.

The situation has been worsening under Russian bombardment in Kharkiv, which lies near the Russian border and is Ukraine's second largest city.

He stated that his intention was "to give the Russian armed forces an advantage against the background of the current political situation."

Thomas H., a Bundeswehr officer accused of spying for Russia, told the court that he attempted to contact the Russian consulate three times out of fear of a potential "nuclear escalation" in Ukraine, according to Der Spiegel.

The 54-year-old German officer, who worked in the Bundeswehr office for equipment, information technology, and technical support in Koblenz, stated that he sought information to ensure the safety of his family.

Amid rumors of Ramzan Kadyrov’s fatal illness, a senior pro-Ukrainian Chechen rebel officer says work is in progress to create an insurgent army to liberate Chechnya from Kremlin rule.

The political situation in Chechnya is unlikely to change while it remains part of the Russian Federation, Colonel Abdul Khakim, the head of the Military Intelligence Department of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’s Armed Forces, told Kyiv Post.  

There has been much speculation recently about the potential outcomes in Chechnya given Ramzan Kadyrov’s rumored fatal illness, Khakim said in exclusive comments

A major supplier affected by the order was Aubert et Duval, which produces specialist steel for items including submarines and the barrels for Caesar truck-mounted cannons supplied to Ukraine.

France has ordered firms involved in production of Aster air defence missiles to prioritise those contracts, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Monday.

It was "the first time" he had used special powers to compel queue-jumping for defence orders, meaning "civilian orders must from now on have lower priority," Lecornu said in Calvi, Corsica, where he was meeting his Italian counterpart Guido Crosetto.

A 57-year-old Russian suspect was arrested after the two Ukrainian men were found with stab wounds in a shopping centre in the Bavarian town of Murnau on Saturday evening.

The suspected murder of two Ukrainians by a Russian in southern Germany is being investigated for a possible political motive, prosecutors said Monday.

The public prosecutor's office in Munich, responsible for investigating politically motivated crimes, has taken over the case because such a motive "cannot be ruled out", a spokesman told AFP.

Sophie met with survivors of sexual violence and torture during her visit, as well as women displaced by the war and children who were deported to Russia before recently being returned to Ukraine.

Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, on Monday became the first British royal to visit Ukraine since Russia invaded the country more than two years ago, London announced.

The British foreign ministry said Sophie met with survivors of sexual violence and torture during her visit, as well as women displaced by the war and children who were deported to Russia before recently being returned to Ukraine.

In scenes reminiscent of air battles of old, a Ukrainian propeller plane could be seen chasing down a Russian Orlan-10 reconnaissance drone in a dogfight over the Odesa region.

A Ukrainian Yak-52 trainer aircraft – driven by propellers – could be seen chasing down a Russian Orlan-10 reconnaissance drone over the skies of the Odesa region on Saturday, April 27.

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) estimated that each Orlan-10 aircraft costs between $87,000 and $120,000.

A number of chatbots important for Ukrainian intelligence communication were blocked by Telegram due to a “false positive,” but they have since been reinstated.

Official Ukrainian chatbots on Telegram, one of which was used by the Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR), have been reinstated, Reuters reports, citing a comment by a Telegram representative. The bots had been blocked accidentally.

According to the representative, the chatbots of the Ukrainian special services were “temporarily disabled due to a false positive but have since been reinstated.” He did not provide any additional details.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Russian forces secured additional marginal tactical gains northwest and southwest of Avdiivka as of April 29, but have not made significant advances in the Avdiivka direction over the last 24 hours.
• Russian forces have the opportunity to choose among multiple tactical directions for future offensive drives near Avdiivka, but it remains unclear where they will focus their efforts in the near future.
• Investigations by both Ukrainian news agencies and Russian opposition outlets suggest that Russia is denying the legal guardians of forcibly deported and adopted Ukrainian children the ability to repatriate these children, further undermining the Kremlin’s claims that the deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children is a necessary humanitarian endeavor.
• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated during an unexpected visit to Kyiv on April 29 that Ukraine’s Western allies must provide long-term, predictable military assistance to Ukraine and signal to the Kremlin that Russia cannot “wait out” Western support for Ukraine.
• The Kremlin is pursuing a hybrid campaign directly targeting NATO states, including using GPS jamming and sabotaging military logistics in NATO members’ territory.
• Telegram recently temporarily blocked chatbots meant to facilitate civilian reports on Russian military activity to official Ukrainian channels, including some channels run by Ukrainian security services.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka and Donetsk City.
• Ukrainian officials continue to report that Russian authorities are coercing Ukrainians in occupied Ukraine to join the Russian military.

At least 5 people were killed and 32 injured when Russia launched an Iskander missile with cluster munitions at one of Odesa’s most recognizable seaside buildings.

A Russian missile with a cluster munition struck a landmark building in Odesa, killing five people yesterday at around 6:30 p.m.. Another man died of a heart attack, shortly thereafter. A dog was also killed by shrapnel.

The building on the seaside of Arcadia district was well known by Odesites as the “Harry Potter Castle.” It was the reception house of the International Humanitarian University, a private institution owned by Sergey Kivalov, former lawmaker in the Verkhovna Rada and supporter of former President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia after the Revolution of Dignity.