FRIDAY 22 APRIL 2022, 5:30 AM

UKRAINE UPDATE – DAY 58

UKRAINE WORLD

• Zelensky estimates that there are 120,000 civilians still in Mariupol.
• Entry and exit from Crimea has been barred to secure the spring conscription.
• Video: Chechen unit “Kadyrovtsy” in Mariupol.  The speaker is saying: “an order to destroy and purge Mariupol is fulfilled.  The order of President Putin is fulfilled, the order of Kadyrov is fulfilled.”
• Post by Julia Davis showing clip from Russian State TV.  Missile launchings and explosions on one side of screen.  Commentators on the other.  The commentators are saying that the US doesn’t have this kind of missile and that they can go right over the North Pole and strike targets like New York City.  The commentators are smiling joyfully. 

EUROMAIDAN PRESS

• Russia declined proposals to establish a four-day Easter Ceasefire.
• Russian Defense Minister Shoigu reported to Putin that Mariupol was “captured.”  Zelensky says that there are some 400 Ukrainian wounded soldiers still in Azovstal.
• Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate, proposes holding Easter procession to Mariupol to evacuate civilians and wounded soldiers.
• Ukrainian soldiers are training in the UK.
• Japan for the first time issues a diplomatic guide that recognizes the South Kuril Islands as “illegally occupied by Russia.”
• French companies are the single biggest foreign employer in Russia, they pay billions in taxes.  Most of them have stayed.
• Oleksiy Danilov: “There was a total Russification of our country.  And if we don’t get rid of this Russification in all spheres of our lives now…we may have the same war with Russia” in the future.
• Russian military began to transport stolen grain by train from Kherson to occupied Crimea.
• There are reports of Russians selling vegetables transported from Kherson in Crimea.

MSNBC

• Mass graves in Mariupol, the Russians hide the dead.  It is estimated that as many as 9,000 are buried in those mass graves.