Russia

Russia has shelled Ukraine's southern Kherson Oblast 70 times over the past 24 hours, the region's Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram on Monday morning (10 April). Firing a total of 360 shells in 78 attacks, 17 shells hit residential areas of the city of Kherson. There were no casualties reported, however, and 90 people were evacuated from areas of the oblast under Ukrainian government control. Ever since areas of Kherson region were liberated by Ukrainian forces in November 2022, the right bank of the Dnipro river has frequently been shelled by Russia firing across the river, causes regular civilians injuries and deaths. Meanwhile, documents recently leaked from US intelligence to The New York Times have revealed that Russia is supposedly offering an extra bonus to troops who that successfully damage or destroy NATO-supplied tanks in Ukraine.

An explosion yesterday afternoon (2 April) in a café in central St Petersburg has killed Vladlen Tatarsky, a high-profile Russian military blogger and vocal supporter of Russia's war in Ukraine. The explosion, which happened at 18.13 local time, killed Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, as well as injuring twenty-four others, six of whom are in a critical condition, according to the Russian health ministry. It is not yet clear who is responsible for the attack, which Russian authorities have said is being investigated as "high-profile murder". Tatarsky had been a guest speaker at an event at the Street Food Bar No 1 café in central St Petersburg when he was targeted. While there are conflicting reports about the nature of the explosive device that killed him, soon after the explosion videos on social media emerged of him being handed a box with a statue inside as a gift, which had a bomb hidden inside, according to Russian sources. Later on Sunday evening, Russian media published a video of a woman being taken out of an apartment belonging to Darya Trepova, a St Petersburg local understood to have been born in 1997 and had previously been arrested at anti-war rallies. Sources suggest they have reason to believe she was responsible for Tatarsky's murder.

Writing on Telegram on Thursday (30 March), the Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar has said that Russian and Ukrainian losses in the east of Ukraine are as high as 10 to 1 on some days. This comes a few hours after the UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said on Sky News that the total Russian number of dead and injured since 24 February 2022 could be as high as 220,000. "The Russian forces have some really significant and deep systemic problems at the moment in their efforts," Wallace said, adding the Russian military was making "almost no progress whatsoever." Meanwhile, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces claimed on 29 March that Russia had lost approximately 172,340 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, including 610 casualties just over the past day. Although these numbers are all but impossible to verify, reports do suggest very high casualty numbers, especially on the Russian side. In other news, Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov has said that Ukraine's counteroffensive involving recent deliveries of Western tanks may begin in April or May, but cautioned that a lot depends on weather conditions.

Russian Kalibr cruise missiles have been destroyed in an explosion in the Crimean city of Dzhankoi late on Monday (20 March). According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, they were being transported by rail at the time of the explosion. As has become standard, Ukrainian authorities confirmed the explosions in Dzhankoi, located in the north of the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, but they did not claim an attack. "The [explosions] continue the process of Russia's demilitarisation and prepares the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea for de-occupation," the Ukrainian Defence Ministry said in a statement. Sergei Aksenov, the head of Moscow-installed proxies in Crimea, said that Russian air defense had been working in Dzhankoi, saying that the wreckage injured one person and damaged a household and a shop. Meanwhile Igor Ivin, the head of the occupying administration in Dzhankoi, reported a drone attack. The Kalibr missiles which have reportedly been destroyed in the explosion are designed to be launched from surface ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.