Russia Ukraine war – live: Russian sabotage attack stopped as Putin using barges to protect Black Sea port

A blast ripped by a Central Asian-themed cafe within the Russian metropolis of Voronezh on Monday, shattering home windows, Russian information businesses reported, citing native police.

The shattered home windows of the “Japanese Tea Home” on Lenin Avenue had been proven in footage revealed by the Zvezda information service.

RIA state information company quoted police as saying they had been investigating after reviews about injury on the cafe.

It was not instantly clear if there have been casualties.

Ukraine’s air power shot down two out of three Russia-launched Shahed drones in a single day, Ukrainian navy stated on Monday. The Common Workers didn’t present further particulars on the assault in its report on Fb. It was unclear whether or not the drone that was not intercepted reached its goal.

Monday evening was comparatively quiet for Ukraine following sequence of assaults on the nation’s power infrastructure that Russia stepped up over per week in the past.

On March 22, Moscow’s troops carried out the most important strike on grid infrastructure within the two-year-old invasion, inflicting main injury and leading to large energy outages. It continued concentrating on Ukraine’s thermal and hydro-power crops final week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree setting out the routine spring conscription marketing campaign, calling up 150,000 residents for statutory navy service, a doc posted on the Kremlin’s web site confirmed on Sunday.

All males in Russia are required to do a year-long navy service, or equal coaching throughout increased schooling, from the age of 18.

In July Russia’s decrease home of parliament voted to lift the utmost age at which males may be conscripted to 30 from 27. The brand new laws got here into impact on 1 Jan, 2024.

Obligatory navy service has lengthy been a delicate situation in Russia, the place many males go to nice lengths to keep away from being handed conscription papers in the course of the twice-yearly call-up intervals.

Conscripts can’t legally be deployed to struggle exterior Russia and had been exempted from a restricted mobilisation in 2022 that gathered at the very least 300,000 males with earlier navy coaching to struggle in Ukraine – though some conscripts had been despatched to the entrance in error.

In September Putin signed an order calling up 130,000 individuals for the autumn marketing campaign and final spring Russia deliberate to conscript 147,000.

Ukraine’s Common Workers of the Armed Forces stated its troops stopped an try by a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group to infiltrate the Ukrainian territory yesterday. It added {that a} whole of 49 encounters passed off within the fight zone.

Russian forces launched 23 missile assaults and 61 airstrikes, in addition to 41 assaults from multiple-launch rocket methods on the positions of Ukrainian forces and populated areas, the highest workplace of the Ukrainian armed forces stated.

French defence minister Sabastien Lecornu stated France is to ship “a whole bunch” of armored autos by the start of subsequent yr to Ukraine as a part of a brand new package deal of navy support for the nation that simply entered its third yr because the Russian invasion.

In an interview with the French newspaper La Tribune’s Sunday version, Lecornu stated that “to carry such an in depth entrance line, the Ukrainian military wants, for instance, our armored personnel carriers. It’s completely key for troop mobility.”

The French navy is presently changing its previous VAB armored personnel carriers that began being utilized in 1979 by a brand new technology of armored autos. “This previous gear, nonetheless operational, goes on to Ukraine in massive portions. We’re speaking about a whole bunch (of autos) in 2024 and early 2025,” Lecornu stated.

Lecornu additionally stated France will present Ukraine with extra anti-aircraft missiles.

The transfer comes as France’s authorities is pushing its navy trade to spice up its manufacturing to satisfy Kyiv’s pressing wants for ammunition.

Lecornu on Tuesday stated France will quickly be capable to ship 78 Caesar howitzers to Ukraine and can enhance its provide of shells.

Acelebration of Easter at a Roman Catholic convent run by Polish nuns in western Ukraine, which has sheltered a whole bunch of Ukrainian refugees because the begin of the struggle, has change into an emblem of how the traditionally troubled relations between Poles and Ukrainians have been remodeled.

On Easter Sunday, the church inside the convent is crowded with parishioners – a few of them refugees who’re residing right here, and others from the encircling space – for the Roman Catholic mass, stated in Ukrainian by Polish and Ukrainian clergymen.

Among the many parishioners are Roman Catholics, Ukrainian Catholics, and members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – most of them refugees from jap Ukraine.

Sister Julia, essentially the most senior of the three nuns – two Polish, one Ukrainian – who run the convent, was born in Poland and has been in Yazlovets, the village that’s house to the convent, since shortly after Ukraine turned unbiased in 1991.

In a Ukrainian stronghold close to the entrance line, lower than 20 miles from the jap metropolis of Donetsk, a winged bomb is seen hurtling in direction of a multistorey constructing.

The 1,500-kilogram explosive hits the construction within the city of Krasnohorivka, erupting right into a fireball earlier than engulfing the entire constructing in a plume of gray and black smoke.

The digital camera, filming from a number of hundred metres away, shakes as the bottom beneath it rocks from the aftereffects of the explosion.

When the smoke subsides, the constructing has been fully destroyed.

French defence minister Sébastien Lecornu stated France is about to ship “a whole bunch” of armoured autos by the start of subsequent yr to Ukraine as a part of a brand new package deal of navy support for the war-hit nation.

Mr Lecornu stated that “to carry such an in depth entrance line, the Ukrainian military wants, for instance, our armoured personnel carriers”.

“It’s completely key for troop mobility,” he stated in an interview with the French newspaper La Tribune’s Sunday version.

He additionally stated that France will present Ukraine with extra anti-aircraft missiles. The transfer comes as France’s authorities is pushing its navy trade to spice up its manufacturing to satisfy Kyiv’s pressing wants for ammunition.

Final week, Mr Lecornu stated France will quickly be capable to ship 78 Caesar howitzers to Ukraine and can enhance its provide of shells.

The French navy is presently changing its previous VAB armoured personnel carriers that began being utilized in 1979 by a brand new technology of armoured autos.

“This previous gear, nonetheless operational, goes on to Ukraine in massive portions. We’re speaking about a whole bunch (of autos) in 2024 and early 2025,” the French defence minister stated.

“We have to work out how you can get the assist that we’d like with out moving into individuals’s pockets,” Ms Rudik tells The Impartial throughout a sit-down within the foyer of a west London lodge. “And now we have an answer.”

The politician is championing a plan to grab roughly $300bn (£238bn) in Russian property frozen in Europe, the US and Japan, and redirecting them to Ukraine for use in its struggle effort. It’s hers – and her nation’s – bid to make Ukraine at the very least partially self-reliant at a time after they have no idea when, or from the place, the following tranche of Western assist will come.

Learn Tom Watling’s unique report right here: