Evacuations efforts continue in Ukraine, with a total 6,266 people evacuated from cities on Friday, according to the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. Of that number, 771 people originally came from the besieged southern port city of Mariupol.
Meanwhile, Russian forces said they struck a major oil refinery in Ukraine on Saturday morning using high-precision weaponry.
Here’s what you need to know:
Evacuations ongoing: Seven evacuation corridors along key routes are expected to open in Ukraine on Saturday, Vereshchuk announced in a Facebook post on Saturday. She said the list includes the route from the besieged southern city of Mariupol to the government-held city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, as well as routes from Berdiansk, Rubizhne, Nizhny, Severodonetsk, Popasna and Lysychansk.
Russia attacks Ukrainian oil refinery: Russian forces targeted a major Ukrainian oil refinery in a series of strikes Saturday morning, according to a spokesman for the country’s military. The refinery, in the central city of Kremenchuk, was hit by “high-precision long-range air and sea-based weapons,” Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a briefing. He said Russia’s military had destroyed storage facilities holding gasoline and diesel fuels that were supplying Ukrainian troops in the country’s eastern and central regions. Russia also struck military airfields in Poltava and Dnipro, cities to the east of Kremenchuk, using high-precision air-based missiles, Konashenkov said.
Moscow’s warning for London: Russia would consider British long-range artillery and anti-ship systems “legitimate targets” if they United Kingdom were to deliver those weapons to the Ukrainian military, Russia’s ambassador to the UK said.
“Any weapon deliveries are destabilizing,” Ambassador Andrei Kelin told Russian state news agency TASS. “They exacerbate the situation and make it bloodier.”
Russian officials have long complained about deliveries of advanced military weaponry to Ukraine by the US and the UK. Some of those armaments, particularly anti-tank weapons, have enabled Ukrainian troops to blunt Russian advances.
Cold-calling Russia: In an attempt to pierce Russian President Vladimir Putin’s digital iron curtain, some people are cold calling or messaging strangers in Russia to counter the Kremlin’s propaganda about the war in Ukraine. They hope the truth will better inform Russian citizens and perhaps even help put an end to the conflict.
