Evacuation efforts in Ukraine continue, with a total of 6,266 people evacuated from cities on Friday, according to the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. Of that number, 771 originally came from the besieged southern port city of Mariupol.
Meanwhile, Russian troops said they attacked a major oil refinery in Ukraine on Saturday morning using high-precision weapons.
Here’s what you need to know:
Evacuations underway: Seven evacuation corridors along major 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-administered city of Zaporizhzhya in southeastern Ukraine, as well as routes from Berdiansk, Rubizhne, Nizhny, Severodonetsk, Popasna and Lysychansk.
Russia attacks Ukrainian oil refinery: An army spokesman said Russian troops attacked a major Ukrainian oil refinery on Saturday morning. The refinery, in the central city of Kremenchuk, was hit by “high-precision long-range air and naval weapons,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a briefing. He said the Russian army had destroyed storage facilities with gasoline and diesel fuel that was supplying Ukrainian troops in the eastern and central regions of the country. Russia has also attacked military airfields in Poltava and Dnipro, towns east of Kremenchuk, using high-precision air missiles, Konashenkov said.
Moscow’s warning for London: Russia would view British long-range artillery and anti-ship systems as “legitimate targets” if the UK were to supply weapons to the Ukrainian army, Russia’s ambassador to the UK said.
“All arms transfers are destabilizing,” Ambassador Andrei Kelin told Russian state news agency TASS. “They make the situation worse and make it bloodier.”
Russian officials have long complained about US and UK supplies of advanced military weapons to Ukraine. Some of that armament, notably anti-tank weapons, has enabled Ukrainian forces to slow down the Russian advance.
Cold calling Russia: In an effort to break Russian President Vladimir Putin’s digital iron curtain, some people are making unsolicited calls or messaging strangers in Russia to counter the Kremlin’s propaganda about the war in Ukraine. They hope that the truth will better inform Russian citizens and perhaps even help end the conflict.