Ukraine: Russian forces are making a “rapid retreat” from areas around the capital Kyiv and the city of Chernigiv in northern Ukraine, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said on Saturday. “With the rapid retreat of the Russians from the Kyiv and Chernigiv regions, it is completely clear that Russia is prioritising a different tactic: falling back on the east and south,” he said. Ukraine’s military has claimed that Russia is deploying more forces to a Moldovan region, close to the Black Sea city of Odesa.
According to reports, Ukrainian journalist and photographer Maks Levin was found dead in Kyiv Oblast on Saturday. Levin went missing on March 13th when he went to Kyiv Oblast’s Vyshgorod district to document hostilities there. A Red Cross convoy will try again to evacuate civilians from the besieged port of Mariupol on Saturday as Russian forces looked to be regrouping for new attacks in southeast Ukraine. Tens of thousands there are feared trapped without access to food and water. Meanwhile, 7 humanitarian corridors to evacuate people from Ukraine’s besieged regions are planned for Saturday.
Ukraine’s economy shrank 16 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year and could contract 40 per cent in 2022 as a result of Russia’s invasion, the economy ministry said in a statement on Saturday, citing preliminary estimates. “Areas in which remote work is impossible to have suffered the most,” it said. Russia’s space director said that the restoration of normal ties between partners at the International Space Station (ISS) and other joint space projects would be possible only once Western sanctions against Moscow are lifted.