#Russia closing in on #Siversk in eastern #Ukraine's #Donbas region according to UK Intel.
However the daily update from London highlights more failings of Putin's war machine.
Reports from @business claim #Russia is creating its own reference grade of oil. They expect trading on their own oil will be launched in October.
I'm surprised, but maybe the expected lower price is the point - to highlight savings countries can make by trading with terrorists
Congratulations to @the_ins_ru and @bellingcat which are among four organisations declared as "undesirable activities on the territory of the Russian Federation"
The order came from the office of #Russia's Prosecutor General.
Most Russians still think they're free!
Two universities have been destroyed this morning in #Mykolaiv.
Regional head Viitaliy Kim reports at least 10 Russian missiles rained down on the city (#Nikolaev) - the impact was caught on CCTV.
Casualties unknown.
130 more Russian soldiers killed yesterday, according to #Ukraine's official update.
The total now liquidated in #PutinsWar hits 38,000.
In addition the President's office has already said over 12,000 Wagner (private military) contractors, meaning over 50k have needlessly died.
In #Melitopol' the Occupiers claim they've prevented a "terrorist attack" (i.e. #Ukraine's Resistance)
Russian officials say a local resident was detained, who kept a home-made bomb and 15 weapons at his home.
The British update earlier mentioned #Siversk in #Donetsk Oblast.
#Russia's Armed Forces this morning claim the town has "almost come under operational control." The invaders reckon ##Ukraine troops are undergoing a phased withdrawal. This may well be true, but no word from Kyiv
Oleksiy Arestovych from the President's office, confirms #Ukraine's successful hits in occupied areas in the last 24 hours.
The brave Resistance in #Kherson continues to work hard. A whole array of new patriotic posters appeared in the city, as shown by this Telegram channel in Kherson.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed #Russia's appeal against the decision of FIFA and UEFA to ban them from international football competitions.
While #Putin insists "everything is going to plan" in his special operation to destroy everyone in a peaceful neighbour, I saw something interesting
Authorities in #Novosibirsk are "asking" doctors to go for month-long working trips to #Donetsk + #Luhansk
All according to plan😉
The artist of these drawings was under house arrest for 6 months for "distributing porn"
Yulia Tsvetkova wanted to "normalise the female body" - prosecutors demanded 3 years jail.
Amazingly she won, a Russian court actually dismissed her case.
Overnight a mysterious fire broke out at a police station in the far-east city of #Vladivostok.
"All circumstances are being investigated" say authorities though the source of the blaze was quickly found and extinguished without casualties.
Officials there say more then 25 mortars landed, but there were no casualties.
When seeing reports like this we need to ask who benefits and what is gained by such attacks?
2/2
#Ukraine gains nothing by senselessly firing mortars into villages of zero strategic interest. It risks angering western partners. Same with strikes on civilians in #Donetsk. So, no reason for🇺🇦to do this
#Russia meanwhile gains hugely if western powers stop sending weapons
#Russia tells its people it spends so much time, effort, rubles, lives, fighting for freedom.
Yet at home every single person who preaches freedom is mercilessly dealt with. Ex-head of OpenRussia democracy group is jailed for 4 years.
#Sloviansk reportedly shelled this evening. Sadly we can expect a lot more of this here in the coming weeks as #Russia does its usual trying to destroy a city before "liberating" it.
Still not allowed to identify the exact sites where missiles have landed in #Ukraine this evening because of martial law, so media is limited right now.
This is in #Kramatorsk, just a few km from Sloviansk. Broken glass all around after rockets landed there.
So this is now known the very centre of #Kramatorsk has been hit. Ploshcha Myru (Myru Square).
Thankfully the rocket landed in an open space and casualties seem few despite this usually being busy at this time in the evening. Hopefully air raid sirens did their job
It's clear there has been a coordinated terrorist attack on #Ukraine this evening. Many feared dead in different towns and cities. Many fires now after the strikes.
#Ukraine govt official @arestovych, reacting to the killing of civilians said "It's necessary to kick #Russia out of the UN, assign it the status of 'state sponsor of terrorism'."
Better weapons help he says:
"Today M270s arrived - HIMARS have 6 rockets, these have 12."
President @ZelenskyyUa acknowledged the country's under attack as he spoke:
"The occupiers realise we become stronger, the goal of their terror is simple - to put pressure on our society, intimidate people, cause maximum damage to our cities while the 🇷🇺 terrorists still can"
Insane video - that's a car blazing in a crater from one of #Russia's missiles on the central #Ukraine city of #Dnipro
It's Friday! The weekend approaches.
It's also the 814th day of #Russia trying to destroy #Ukraine, its language, culture and people, and over 10 years since the first invasion.
For all the news on Day 814 keep clicking back here.
No coffees for 2 days - please help if you can.
Thursday was another busy one.
A day which saw Putin humiliated, #Ukraine attack #Crimea (again) and a load of other stories and videos.
Missed any of it? Just click here and scroll through the day's news:
#Ukraine, a democratic nation, desperate to keep it that way, remains under intense pressure from #Russia, an autocracy led by a despot and indicted war criminal.
All the news all day long in one handy thread. Read on..
#StandWithUkraine
Yesterday we only really had two stories, but they were big ones.
#Putin exiling & side-lining top names from the Kremlin.
And 25 years after the #Russia apartment bombings, 13 were killed in a new attack - but who did it?
Review the news here:
Hello and welcome to Day 807 of #Russia's war on #Ukraine.
Each day documenting the news and war crimes committed by indicted war criminal Putin and his Moscow horde as the neo-imperialists try to steal more land and wipe out another culture.
Here's another daily thread...
As always, the quick link back to the starts of yesterday's thread for those who missed some, or all, of Thursday's developments.
And right at the end of the day we saw another oil target inside #Russia being hit by drones!
So confirmation of another attack on an oil refinery in #Russia, the second in 2 months at this partuicular site.
Pershiy Zavod is the largest refinery in the region - the main complex for the processing of commercial oil and gas condensate, and the capacity is 1.2m tons/yr
Day 803 of #Russia's full invasion continues. The war criminals are super confident, tossing away lives of the plebs and useful idiots from Asia, Africa + the Americas.
But #Ukraine fights hard for its existence and supplies filter through to the frontlines.
This is the daily🧵
Today is a holiday in most of the UK, so I allowed myself a later start (no school run!)
Coming up news of #Ukraine hitting a Rusdian boat...
But first the link to yesterday's thread, which turned out to be quite busy.
Many across Europe celebrate a holiday today, the first day of May.
In normal times in #Ukraine it would be a big celebration, with Labour Day followed by Easter and Remembrance/Victory Day. But these are far from normal times. No respite from war. Welcome to the daily thread:
Tuesday saw #Russia's world bring more death to #Kharkiv and to #Odesa for the second time in two days - a video proving the sickening cluster bomb attack on the people the day before.
All yesterday's news can be found here if you missed anything: