Russian forces seize Kreminna in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region – as it happened

Thank you for joining us for today’s coverage of the war in Ukraine.

We are moving this live blog to the page accessible in the link below where you can tune in for all the latest developments.

It is just past 7am in Ukraine. Here is a comprehensive rundown of what we know so far:

• Russia has given Mariupol a fresh ultimatum to surrender for 2pm today. In a statement issued early on Wednesday morning, the Russian defence ministry said its forces opened a humanitarian corridor from the Azovstal plant “for the withdrawal of Ukrainian servicemen” to “voluntarily lay down their arms” as well as to evacuate civilians.
• A commander for the Ukrainian marines fighting in Mariupol said his forces were “maybe facing our last days, if not hours” and appealed for extraction in video message published to his Facebook account early on Wednesday morning. We are probably facing our last days, if not hours. The enemy is outnumbering us 10 to one,” Serhiy Volyna from the 36th Separate Marine Brigade said.
• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the intensity of fire by Russian troops towards Kharkiv, the Donbas and in Dnipro has “increased significantly”, one day after the Kremlin launched its long-anticipated offensive in eastern Ukraine. Russian officials said a total of 1,260 military targets were hit by rockets and artillery along the 300-mile frontline in the Donbas and Kharkiv regions.
• Zelenskiy said the situation in the besieged city of Mariupol is “as severe as possible”. “The Russian army is blocking any efforts to organise humanitarian corridors and save our people,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly address. “The fate of at least tens of thousands of Mariupol residents who were previously relocated to Russian-controlled territory is unknown.”
• Russian forces have seized Kreminna in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the city, the regional governor said. Kreminna, a city of more than 18,000 people about 350 miles (560km) south-east of Kyiv, appears to be the first city captured in a Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine.
• Russia has increased its offensive in the Donbas but its progress has been hampered by “environmental, logistical and technical challenges”, the UK said. “Russia’s inability to stamp out resistance in Mariupol and their indiscriminate attacks, which have harmed the resident civilian populace, are indicative of their continued failure to achieve their aims as quickly as they would like,” the UK Ministry of Defence said late on Tuesday.
• Russia has deployed up to 20,000 mercenaries from Syria, Libya and elsewhere in Ukraine’s Donbas region, according to a European official. The official said mercenaries are being sent into battle with no heavy equipment or armoured vehicles.
• Dozens of young Ethiopian men gathered at the Russian embassy in the capital, Addis Ababa, on Monday following rumours of soldiers being recruited to fight in the war in Ukraine, multiple reports suggest. Photos circulating on social media purport to show the lone line of hopeful recruits.
• In his nightly address, Zelenskiy claimed if Ukraine had access to all the weapons it needs, “and which are comparable to the weapons used by the Russian Federation, we would have already ended this war. It is unfair that Ukraine is still forced to ask for what its partners have been storing somewhere for years.”
• US president, Joe Biden, will announce another military aid package for Ukraine roughly the same size as the $800m one the US president announced last week, which would bring to more than $3bn the total US aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. Biden told reporters he is unsure if he will go to Kyiv.
• The UK plans to equip Kyiv with anti-ship missiles and armoured missile launchers – including by mounting British Brimstone rockets to vehicles.
• Germany has also said it will work with private military equipment makers to help Ukraine meet its weapons requirements after exhausting the weapons it can provide itself. “We intend to pay for these deliveries,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told a news conference in Berlin on Tuesday.
• Russia is expelling 31 Dutch, Belgian and Austrian diplomats as Moscow faces increased international isolation. It comes after the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria announced the expulsion of some Russian diplomats.
• Canada said it will impose targeted sanctions on 14 individuals, including Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two adult daughters, according to a statement from the foreign ministry.
• China has criticised western actions in Ukraine, saying the provision of offensive weapons “will only prolong and escalate the conflict” and some sanctions are “tantamount to weaponising economic interdependence” in remarks made at the latest UN security council briefing.
• Western nations are preparing to stage coordinated walk-outs and other diplomatic snubs to protest at Wednesday’s meeting of G20 finance ministers in Washington, their officials said.
• Direct communications between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been restored, according to a statement issued late Tuesday from IAEA’s director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi.
• Russian businessman, Oleg Tinkov, spoke out against the “crazy” war in Ukraine and described supporters of Moscow’s military actions as “morons”. In an Instagram post, Tinkov, who has been sanctioned by the UK government, said “90% of Russians are against” the war.

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The Russian defence ministry has given Ukrainian fighters holed up in the besieged port city of Mariupol a fresh ultimatum.

In a statement issued early on Wednesday morning, the Russian defence ministry said its forces opened a humanitarian corridor from the Azovstal plant “for the withdrawal of Ukrainian servicemen and militants of nationalist formations” to “voluntarily lay down their arms” as well as to evacuate civilians.

“As of 22:00 (Moscow time) on April 19, 2022, no one used the specified corridor,” the ministry added.

Russia said it would “once again” offer Ukraine the option “to stop fighting and lay down their weapons” from 2pm ( Moscow time) on Wednesday, 20 April.

Here is a little more detail on reports hundreds of Ethiopian young men lined outside the gate of the Russian Embassy in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa on Monday in a bid to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, one of the alleged applicants, corporal Tarekegn Wassie, said: “I heard that registration was ongoing at the embassy. Some said it was employment for Russian private security companies, others said it was to join in support of the Russian army. Either way, I am here trying my luck.”

“I love Russia and if it brought me a better income let it be regardless of the risks involved,” he added.

The agency reported that the crowd of men were mostly in their mid-thirties and early forties.

A witness in the Kebena area, where the Russian embassy is located, told the Nation that about 200-300 young Ethiopians queued outside the main entrance on Monday.

Dozens of young Ethiopian men are gathering at the Russian embassy in the capital, Addis Ababa, following rumours of soldiers being recruited to fight in the war in Ukraine, multiple reports suggest.

The Addas Standard said “hundreds of Ethiopian men” were seen queuing in front of the Russian Embassy in the capital Addis Abeba in what it described as “an apparent attempt to enlist and aide the Russian Army in its invasion of Ukraine.”

Photos circulating on social media purport to show the lone line of hopeful recruits. The Guardian has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of these claims.

Embassy spokeswoman, Maria Chernukhina, said no recruitment is being carried out in Ethiopia.

“We have a lot of visitors to the embassy in order to express support for Russia,” she told the BBC.

“Some of them are telling us they are willing to help in any way they can. But we are not a recruitment agency,” Chernukhina added.

A statement released by the embassy last on Tuesday reads:

The embassy has been receiving by emails and in-person visits from citizens of Ethiopia expressions of their solidarity and support for the Russian Federation…

While reiterating our gratitude to the concerned citizens of Ethiopia, we would like to inform that the embassy does not accept any applications for recruitment in the armed forces of the Russian Federation.”

According to BBC reporter, Kalkidan Yibeltal, many of the Ethiopians at the embassy carried their personal documents as others told of hearing rumours of high wages in Russia.

A young man waiting at the entrance told Yibeltal he was looking for a good salary as a soldier or to be hired in any other job available. “I also like Russia,” he added.

A commander for the Ukrainian marines fighting in the last stronghold of Mariupol said his forces were “maybe facing our last days, if not hours” and appealed for extraction in video message published to his Facebook account early on Wednesday morning.

“The enemy is outnumbering us 10 to one,” Serhiy Volyna from the 36th Separate Marine Brigade said as he sheltered at the besieged Azovstal factory, a vast plant with underground tunnels where Ukrainian defenders are pinned down by Russian fighters.

We are probably facing our last days, if not hours. The enemy is outnumbering us 10 to one.

“We appeal and plead to all world leaders to help us,” Volyna said in the video. “We ask them to use the procedure of extraction and take us to the territory of a third-party state.”

Russian forces are believed to have gradually pushed their way into the city while Ukrainian defenders bunker down at the Azovstal plant.

Volyna said the Russians had the “advantage in the air, in artillery, in their forces on land, in equipment, and in tanks”.

“We are only defending one object – the Azovstal plant – where in addition to military personnel, there are also civilians who have fallen victim to this war,” he added.

Here is a little more information from our earlier report on Russian tycoon Oleg Tinkov who denounced Moscow’s “massacre” in Ukraine and urged the west to help end “this insane war”.

Offering some of the strongest criticism by a prominent Russian of the Kremlin’s military action, Tinkov claimed online that 90% of Russians were “against this war” and called Russia’s forces a “shit army”.

Tinkov is one of Russia’s best-known entrepreneurs and founded Tinkoff Bank in 2006. He has been based outside Russia in recent years.

“Waking up with a hangover, the generals realised that they have a shit army,” Tinkov, 54, wrote on Instagram.

“And how will the army be good, if everything else in the country is shit and mired in nepotism, sycophancy and servility?”

The businessman, who has been targeted by western sanctions, added: “I don’t see a SINGLE beneficiary of this insane war! Innocent people and soldiers are dying.”

Switching to English, Tinkov, who stepped down as chairman of Tinkoff Bank in 2020, wrote: “Dear ‘collective west’ please give Mr Putin a clear exit to save his face and stop this massacre. Please be more rational and humanitarian.”

China has criticised western actions in Ukraine, saying the provision of offensive weapons “will only prolong and escalate the conflict” and some sanctions are “tantamount to weaponising economic interdependence” in remarks made at the latest UN security council briefing.

Chinese ambassador Zhang Jun said the prospect of an extended and prolonged conflict is “worrying” and called for an early end to the conflict.

“We call on Russia and Ukraine to adhere to the general direction of dialogue and negotiation, continuously narrow differences, and accumulate conditions for a ceasefire,” Zhang Jun said in a statement.

However, the ambassador issued some stern words to western leaders regarding the provision of weapons to Ukraine and ongoing sanctions against Russia.

Continuing to send more offensive weapons will not bring peace. It will only prolong and escalate the conflict, and further aggravate humanitarian catastrophe.”

Regarding sanctions, he claimed developing countries are “bearing the brunt”

We must pay attention to and eliminate the negative impact of sanctions… All-dimensional and limitless sanctions have had serious spillover effects, with developing countries bearing the brunt. The vast number of developing countries, that are not parties to the conflict, have paid a heavy price for it. This is neither fair nor reasonable…

It should also be pointed out that arbitrary freeze of foreign exchange reserves of other countries also constitutes a violation of sovereignty, and is tantamount to weaponising economic interdependence.

Such practices undermine the foundation of world economic stability, and bring new uncertainties and risks to international relations. They should be abandoned as soon as possible.”

Some of the latest images to come out of Ukraine can be seen in the photo gallery below.

One resident walks along a street past burnt out buses in Mariupol. Another cycles with his child through the debris.

Another family carts their belongings in a shopping trolley along a destroyed city street.

Russia has been hitting the Azovstal steel plant, the main remaining Ukrainian stronghold in the city of Mariupol, with bunker-buster bombs, a Ukrainian presidential adviser has claimed.

“The world watches the murder of children online and remains silent,” Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter.

Mariupol’s city council said on Monday that over 1,000 civilians were sheltering in basement premises underneath the Azovstal plant.

Russia has denied targeting civilians.