Live updates: Kyiv mayor warns more strikes likely

KYIV, Ukraine — Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that one person died and several more were wounded in the Saturday morning airstrikes on the Darnytski district of the capital, as Russian forces resumed scattered attacks on the capital in western Ukraine.

"Our air defence forces are doing everything they can to protect us, but the enemy is insidious and ruthless," Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app.

The attacks, which the Russian Defence Ministry said targeted an armored vehicle plant in the Ukrainian capital, was an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western supporters that the whole country remains under threat despite Russian forces pivot to the east, where a new offensive is feared.

Klitschko urged Ukrainians not to return to Kyiv just yet in televised remarks Saturday, warning that strikes on the capital are likely continue and its suburbs are rigged with explosives. "We’re not ruling out further strikes on the capital," Klitschko said. "We can’t prohibit, we can only recommend. If you have the opportunity to stay a little bit longer in the cities where it’s safer, do it."

The mayor of Kyiv added that because of the mines, Kyiv residents are barred from visiting parks and forests in the northeastern areas that border with liberated territories formerly occupied by Russians.

——–

MOSCOW — Russia has barred the U.K. prime minister and a dozen other top British officials from entering the country in response to British sanctions imposed on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced the move that targets Boris Johnson, a number of British ministers and former prime minister Theresa May, on Saturday.

The ministry’s statement cited "unprecedented hostile actions of the British government, expressed, in particular, in the imposition of sanctions against top officials" in Russia.

"The Russophobic course of action of the British authorities, whose main goal is to stir up negative attitude toward our country, curtailing of bilateral ties in almost all areas are detrimental to the well-being and interests of the residents of Britain. Any sanctions attack will inevitably backfire on their initiators and receive a decisive rebuff," the statement said.

On Friday evening, the ministry announced the expulsion of 18 European Union diplomats from Moscow, in retaliation for the bloc’s declaring 19 diplomats from the Russian mission to the EU and to the European Atomic Energy Community persona non-grata.

The European Union said the expulsions were groundless, and that EU diplomats targeted were working in the framework of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations.

——

LVIV, Ukraine — The governor of the Lviv region in western Ukraine reported airstrikes in the region on Saturday morning.

Maksym Kozytskyy said on the Telegram messaging app that Russian Su-35 aircraft took off from the Baranovichi airfield in Belarus and carried out missile strikes in Lviv.

Ukraine’s air defence system shot down four cruise missiles, Kozytskyy said.

He didn’t offer any details about possible casualties or damage.

——

KYIV, Ukraine — Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in an online posting that Kyiv was struck early Saturday in the Darnytskyi district in the eastern part of the capital, saying there were "explosions."

He said rescuers and paramedics were on the scene and that victims’ details would be released later.

Klitschko urged residents to heed air raid sirens and warned those who have fled the capital not to return for now for their safety.

Thick smoke rising from the site on the eastern side of Kyiv could be seen from parts of downtown near the Dnipro River.

——

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces late Friday evening hit an airfield in Oleksandriya, a city in Ukraine’s Kirovohrad region, with a missile strike, the mayor of the city, Serhiy Kuzmenko, said on Facebook on Saturday. He didn’t say whether the strike resulted in any casualties.

In the eastern Luhansk region, overnight shelling killed one person and wounded three more, according to the region’s Governor Serhiy Haidai. The shelling also damaged gas pipelines in the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

——

WASHINGTON — Ukraine is sending top officials to Washington for next week’s spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where discussion will focus on the Russian invasion and its impact on the global economy.

Coming to the gathering are Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and central bank governor Kyrylo Shevchenko, according to a World Bank official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the visit had not been officially announced.

——

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that existing sanctions on Russia are "painful" but not yet enough to stop the Russian military.

Zelenskyy called for "the democratic world" to ban Russian oil. While U.S. lawmakers and U.S. President Joe Biden have enacted such a ban, Europe relies more heavily on Russian energy supplies, and the U.S. has been working to keep India from stepping up its use of Russian energy.

"In general, the democratic world must accept that Russia’s money for energy resources is in fact money for the destruction of democracy," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to his nation.

He also said: "The sooner the democratic world recognizes that the oil embargo against Russia and the complete blockade of its banking sector are necessary steps towards peace, the sooner the war will end."

——

TIJUANA, Mexico — A Russian man and Ukrainian woman were married in the Mexican border city of Tijuana after they were unable to travel together to the U.S.

Daria Sakhniuk was allowed to enter the U.S. as a Ukrainian refugee but her partner, Semen Bobrovski, was unable to travel there following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They left Ukraine as the war began.

Bobrovski told El Sol de Tijuana that he believed the marriage Thursday would bolster his chances of entering the U.S. with his new wife. The U.S. allows only Russian nationals with family members in the U.S. to enter the country.

"Without it, we won’t be able to cross because, still to the official American government, we are strangers to each other," he said.

——

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he discussed the fate of the besieged port city of Mariupol in a meeting Friday with the country’s military leaders and the heads of its intelligence agencies.

"The details cannot be made public now, but we are doing everything we can to save our people," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation.

Elsewhere in southern Ukraine, he said Russian troops who occupy areas around Kherson and Zaporizhzhia were terrorizing civilians and looking for anyone who had served in the army or the government.

"The occupiers think this will make it easier for them to control this territory. But they are very wrong. They are fooling themselves," Zelenskyy said.

He added: "The occupiers’ problem is not that they are not accepted by some activists, veterans or journalists. Russia’s problem is that it is not accepted — and never will be accepted — by the entire Ukrainian people. Russia has lost Ukraine forever."

——

ATLANTA — CIA Director William Burns says no one "can take lightly" the threat that Russia could use tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons but he has seen no "practical evidence" suggesting it is imminent.

Speaking to an audience Thursday at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Burns said that "potential desperation" from Russian leaders to portray a victory in Ukraine increases the risk to the use of nuclear weapons.

"None of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low yield nuclear weapons," Burns said. "We don’t."

RELATED IMAGESview larger image