These are important events on the 1,148th day of the Russian Ukrainian War.
This is where things stand on Thursday, April 17th:
Fineting
The Russian drone attack on the city of Odesa’s Black Sea Port has injured three people overnight, causing fires and destroying homes and private infrastructure, said Ole Kiper, the local governor. The Russian Ministry of Defense said the unit had destroyed 26 Ukrainian drones in one night. Nine of the drones were shot down in the South Bolognez area, while eight were defeated by the Belgorod border area. The remaining drones were overthrown on the Kursk, Lipetsk, Moscow region and the Crimean Peninsula annexed by Russia, the ministry said. The Ministry of Defense also said Russia controls Karinov village in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine. Moscow’s troops also reported that they had repelled seven Ukrainian drones in the Ivanovo region of Russia. This is one of two Russian missile units that Kiyif accused of carrying out a fatal attack on Smie city that caused dozens of casualties last weekend. Kyiv’s air force said Russia fired almost 100 drones in an overnight attack on Ukraine, of which 57 were fired down, and another 34 were unable to reach the target due to electronic warfare. Russian glide bombs and artillery struck the city of Herson in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring nine people in what Ukrainian officials described as a timed “double tap strike.” Regional head Oleksandr Prokdin said it was a “deliberate Russian tactic” to prevent the rescue of the victims and prevent the injury to medical care, rescuers and police officers who rushed to the scene of the first attack. A massive Russian drone attack killed two people and injured 16 people in the city of Dnipro in southeastern Ukraine, region governor Serhiy Raisak said. Five of the injured were hospitalized. The Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) said it had detained nine people, including five teenagers, on suspicion of preparing a sabotage attack on behalf of Russia.
Attacks on energy facilities
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that despite Ukraine’s mutual agreement with a 30-day moratorium on energy strikes, it has launched six attacks on the Kremlin energy infrastructure. Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a news briefing that Russia had committed more than 30 attacks on energy infrastructure as Russia agreed to suspend strikes on such targets in March. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he would announce when the US-brokered moratorium on energy strikes will end.
Politics and diplomacy
President Donald Trump’s administration has cut estimates of the cost of US assistance provided to Kyiv since the Russian invasion was breached from $300 million to about $100 billion, Bloomberg news quotes people familiar with the issue. The US and Ukraine have made “significant progress” in discussions on mineral trade, and soon signed a memorandum, allowing Washington to access Ukrainian rare earth deposits, said Kiev’s first deputy prime minister, Yulia Swillidenko. Kiev’s parliament voted to extend Ukraine’s martial law until August 6th. The decision was supported by an overwhelming 357 representatives, while a politician voted against the bill. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Qatar Emil Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani will discuss Ukraine among other issues when Emil visited Moscow on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said. Alexei Smirnov, former governor of Russia’s Kursk region, was detained on suspicion of fraud on Wednesday, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
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