Moscow’s forces appear to be heavily shelling the Donbas region ahead of a planned ground offensive, Ukrainian officials say

Russian attacks have intensified in a range of locations in eastern Ukraine including Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk, according to Ukrainian military and regional officials.

Russian forces appear to be heavily shelling areas of all three regions ahead of a planned ground offensive.

Around Slobozhansky, which is an area south of Kharkiv, “the main focus of the Russian enemy is on the regrouping and strengthening of troops,” the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said.

Russian forces aim to block off the city of Kharkiv, which continues to see persistent shelling, and have concentrated up to 22 battalion tactical groups around Izyum, the General Staff added. A battalion tactical group normally comprises about 1,000 troops.

“The main efforts of the enemy are focused on maintaining the previously occupied positions,” it said, noting the deployment of additional Russian units.

In Donetsk region, Russian efforts were focused on taking the towns of Popasna and Rubizhne, while also establishing full control over the strategic port city of Mariupol, it added.

The General Staff also spoke of constant fire against Ukrainian positions around Popasna, saying that Russian forces are “trying to improve the tactical situation, to advance deep into the settlement of Popasna,” but were eventually foiled.

It reported intensified shelling around the city of Severodonetsk, “in order to inflict losses, deplete our troops and possibly prepare for offensive operations,” as well as shelling further south in Toretsk.

One person was killed in Kreminna, just to the north-west of Severodonetsk, a local official said.

Efforts are continuing to get residents of the towns of Rubizhne and Kreminna to safety amid heavy fighting in the area, Serhii Haidai, head of Luhansk regional administration said. He added that there is no water or gas in Severodonetsk.

In the last day, 10 Russian enemy attacks were held off in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the General Staff added.

“The main events that we will talk about in the coming days, or rather weeks, will be events related to the fighting in Ukrainian Donbas,” Vadym Denysenko, an adviser at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, said on Saturday.

Russian missile attacks have expanded to other areas beyond the Donbas region, Ukrainian officials say.

One person was killed in an attack on a village near the city of Poltava, Dmytro Lunin, the head of the Poltava military administration, said.

The country’s top general said he spoke with the top US military official on Friday.

Valery Zaluzhny said he discussed “heavy fighting on the Kharkiv-Izyum border, deterrence of the Russian offensive in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, the critical situation around Mariupol, and rocket fire throughout Ukraine,” with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley.

“I reiterated the urgent needs for the Armed Forces of Ukraine in armaments and ammunition to strengthen our defense capabilities,” Zaluzhny added. 

The news comes as Russian preparations continue in eastern Ukraine for an offensive operation.

Shelling overnight by Russian forces damaged gas pipelines in the Ukrainian towns of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, a local official said.

One person was killed and three were injured in the bombardment, which damaged pipelines in the two towns, and also struck the town of Kreminna, Serhii Haidai, the head of the Luhansk regional administration, said in a statement on Telegram.

“Late in the evening, firefighters found the body of a man without signs of life under the rubble of one of the vocational schools in Kreminna,” he said. “Three women were injured as a result of the shelling in Lysychansk. They were evacuated from the damaged house and received timely medical care.”

The central gas pipeline in Severodonetsk was damaged, and work was underway Saturday to restore water supply infrastructure that was damaged on Friday, Haidai added.

“There is no water and gas in the city,” he said. “An enemy shell also hit the gas pipeline in Lysychansk, but the consequences are less significant.”

On Friday, Haidai said that shelling in Severodonetsk had damaged the water supply system and destroyed two food warehouses.

The shelling came amid warnings of a major Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine in the coming days.

CNN’s Kostan Nechyporenko and Yulia Kesaieva contributed reporting to this post.

Two hundred children have been killed in Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to attack the country in late February, the office of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said in a statement on Saturday.

The office added that more than 360 children have been injured during the war so far.

Five children were injured and two of them died — including a 7-month-old baby — in a Russian strike on Kharkiv on Friday, the office said.

It added that a 15-year-old boy was injured on Thursday as a result of the detonation of a cluster munition on the outskirts of Novovorontsovka settlement in the Kherson region.

Earlier this week, UNICEF said that nearly two-thirds of Ukrainian children are now displaced due to the ongoing conflict.

UNICEF’s emergency programs director Manuel Fontaine told the UN Security Council on Monday that he had “rarely seen so much damage caused in so little time” after returning from a visit to Ukraine.

Fontaine said the UN had verified the deaths of 142 children with 229 injured as of Sunday, but that “the true figures are most certainly much higher given the scale of attacks.”

He also drew attention to the 3.2 million children estimated to still be in their homes.

“Nearly half may be at risk of not having enough food,” he said. “Attacks on water system infrastructure and power outages have left an estimated 1.4 million people without access to water in Ukraine. Another 4.6 million people have only limited access.

“The situation is even worse in cities like Mariupol and Kherson, where children and their families have now gone weeks without running water and sanitation services, a regular supply of food, and medical care. They are sheltering in their homes and underground, waiting for the bombs and violence to stop.”

He also said unaccompanied children in Ukraine face a “much higher risk of violence, abuse, exploitation, and trafficking,” and pointed to the impacts of school closures on 1.5 million students in higher education and 5.7 million school-age children.

CNN’s Richard Roth and Yulia Kesaieva contributed reporting to this post.

The head of the Lviv regional military administration in western Ukraine said Ukrainian anti-aircraft systems downed Russian cruise missiles that were fired on Saturday morning toward the Lviv region.

“In the morning of April 16, missiles were fired at the Lviv region from Su-35 aircraft of the Russian occupiers,” Regional military governor Maksym Kozytsky said. “Units of anti-aircraft missile forces Air Command West of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed four cruise missiles.” 

Kozytsky also claimed the Russian aircraft that fired the missiles had taken off from Baranovichi airfield in neighboring Belarus.

Some context: Belarus has been used as a springboard for many of Russia’s air operations in Ukraine, according to intelligence collected by NATO surveillance planes.

The Ukrainian military previously said it has shot down several missiles fired towards its territory from Belarus.

After Russia failed to gain the ground it wanted around Kyiv, forces retreated back into Belarus to regroup and redeploy. Belarus has also been recognized as a key ally for Russia on the world stage.

While NATO fears that the Kremlin may call on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to deploy his army to bolster Moscow’s forces on the battlefield, US President Joe Biden leveled twin sanctions against both countries on April 8.

One bill suspends normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus and punishes the countries by paving the way for higher tariffs on imports from them, while the other prohibits energy imports from Russia, including oil, coal and natural gas.

CNN’s Salma Abdelaziz, Sarah Dean, Li-Lian Ahlskog Hou and Nikki Carvajal contributed reporting to this post.

Civilians fleeing the besieged port city of Mariupol have been told to make their own way to the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, as wet weather has halted bus evacuations.

Buses are unable to travel through a washed-out section of road between the town of Vasylivka and Zaporizhzhia to its north, according to a social media post by Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

Instead, people leaving the cities of Mariupol, Berdiansk, Tokmak and Enerhodar have been told to travel to Zaporizhzhia themselves.

Five evacuation corridors have been set up in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine. All are directed toward Bakhmut, directly east of the town of Luhansk.

Vereshchuk called on Russia to respect the corridors. She added that the evacuation corridors in the Luhansk region “will operate subject to the cessation of shelling by the occupying forces.”

Some context: Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of stalling evacuation efforts across the country.

Vereshchuk announced nine evacuation routes on Thursday, adding that there were no corridors on Wednesday in the Zaporizhzhia region because “the occupiers blocked evacuation buses, and in Luhansk region, they are violating the ceasefire.”

Up to 180,000 people are waiting to be evacuated from in and around the strategic port city of Mariupol, Mayor Vadym Boychenko said on Wednesday during an online media briefing. Boychenko’s comments were interpreted in English via Ukraine’s government-supported Media Center.

At the end of March, Boychenko echoed the words of his compatriots and said that evacuation corridors had come largely under the control of Russian forces.

“Not everything is in our power,” Boychenko said, in a live television interview at the time. “Unfortunately, we are in the hands of the occupiers today.”

CNN’s Nathan Hodge and Amy Cassidy contributed reporting to this post.

Kyiv has once again come under fire on Saturday, with several explosions on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, according to the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko.

More than 900 bodies of Ukrainian civilians have been discovered in the Kyiv region since Russia’s withdrawal.

And a senior US defense official said Ukrainian missiles hit Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea earlier this week — supporting Ukraine’s account.

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Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a statement that the Ukrainian capital “came under fire” on Saturday morning. 

“The explosions were in Darnytsky district on the outskirts of the city,” he said. “Rescuers and medics are currently working on the scene. Information about casualties is being clarified.” 

Some residents have begun returning to Kyiv after the failure of a Russian offensive launched from the north of Ukraine. Klitschko urged Kyiv residents to reconsider returning for the time being, saying: “I ask you to refrain from this and stay in safer places.”

Maksym Kozytskyy, the military governor of the Lviv region in western Ukraine, said Saturday that “air defenses were working” during an air raid alarm that began at 5:46 a.m. local time and lasted until 7:02 a.m. 

When President Joe Biden labeled Russia’s actions in Ukraine “genocide” this week, the response by his team looked much different than when he declared, also unplanned, that Vladimir Putin shouldn’t be in power.

Both comments caught advisers off guard, appearing nowhere in his scripted remarks and going well beyond the official government position. His remark about genocide happened inside an ethanol processing plant in Iowa, standing atop a stage covered in straw.

Like his declaration at Warsaw’s royal castle that Putin “cannot remain in power,” Biden identifying genocide in Ukraine prompted questions about what, if anything, the new rhetoric meant for the grinding conflict. 

But unlike with the earlier remark, Biden had been discussing the prospect of genocide in Ukraine for the past week, according to a person familiar with the matter, making his comment less of a shock. And instead of a carefully written statement attributed to an unnamed official, which in Warsaw only led to more questions, Biden made a decision to do the explaining himself.

As Biden confronts a war officials believe could go on for months, he is navigating both the weight of the presidency and its confines. His words are closely parsed for official meaning, even when they are ad-libbed, leading to worries about escalating the crisis.

At the same time, his impulse to visit Ukraine and witness the situation firsthand has been hampered by the bubble that accompanies him everywhere. And domestic concerns are pulling him in other directions, his remit extending well beyond a foreign war — leading to sometimes-discordant scenarios like declaring genocide inside a biofuel plant, bits of corn dust floating from above.

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More than 900 bodies of Ukrainian civilians have been discovered in the Kyiv region since Russia’s withdrawal. Ukrainian officials reported strikes across multiple regions Friday, as an official warned the situation was getting more tense.

And a senior US defense official said Ukrainian missiles hit Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea earlier this week — supporting Ukraine’s account.

If you’re just joining us, here’s what you need to know: