Live: Russia hits Ukraine's Kyiv, Lviv after sinking of Black Sea flagship

Live: Russia retaliates against UK sanctions on its top officials with entry bans on Prime Minister Boris Johnson and much of his cabinet.

Live news updates: Russian air raids and missile strikes hit Ukraine's capital Kyiv and other major cities on Saturday as Moscow launched more long-range attacks following the sinking of its Black Sea Fleet's flagship.

In the besieged port of Mariupol, scene of the war's heaviest fighting and worst humanitarian catastrophe, Russian troops pressed their advances, hoping to make up for their failure to capture Kyiv by seizing their first big prize of the war.

"The situation is very difficult" in Mariupol, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Ukrainska Pravda news portal. "Our soldiers are blocked, the wounded are blocked. There is a humanitarian crisis...Nevertheless, the guys are defending themselves," he said, according to Reuters.

10:31 PM

Head of Russian navy meets crew of sunken missile cruiser: Report

The head of the Russian navy, Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, has met with crew members from the sunken missile cruiser Moskva and said they would continue to serve in the navy, Tass news agency said on Saturday. Russia said on Thursday the Moskva had sunk after an ammunition explosion. Ukraine said it hit the vessel, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, with a missile.

 

10:16 PM

Ukrainian military says Russian jets attacked Lviv region

The Ukrainian military said on Saturday Russian warplanes that took off from Belarus had fired missiles at the Lviv region near the Polish border and four cruise missiles were shot down by Ukrainian air defences.

9:24 PM

Amit Shah speaks to Delhi Police officers about violence

Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday asked the two top officers of the Delhi Police to ensure peace in the city's Jahangirpuri where a procession for Hanuman Jayanti was allegedly attacked with stones. PTI reports the Delhi Police increased security in the place. Shah spoke to the Commissioner of Police and Special Commissioner (law and order).

8:36 PM

Delhi’s Covid-19 positivity rate, cases rise

Delhi’s Covid-19 positivity rate was 5.33 per cent on Saturday, up 26 per cent up from yesterday. The city recorded 461 new cases of Covid and 2 deaths from the disease in 24 hours.

7:19 PM

Ukraine will service foreign debt: Minister

More than 80 per cent of the debt Ukraine has to repay this year is domestic, “which we can easily cover” or refinance, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said in a television interview. He said the repayment schedule for foreign debt is “quite moderate and simple,” with a peak in September when Kyiv is due to pay interest on $500 million in Eurobonds, Bloomberg.

 

6:26 PM

PM Modi silent on communal violence: Opposition parties

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s "silence" on communal violence "is an eloquent testimony to the fact that such private armed mobs enjoy the luxury of official patronage," say 13 Opposition parties in joint statement.

5:40 PM

PM Modi on 3-day Gujarat visit from Monday

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on April 18 go on a three-day visit to his home state Gujarat. His office said Modi will visit the command and control centre for schools in Gandhinagar on April 18 and, the next day, he will dedicate to the nation and lay the foundation stone of multiple development projects at Banas Dairy Sankul in Diyodar in Banaskantha.

5:17 PM

More Chinese cities tighten curbs as Shanghai Covid cases rise

Shanghai reported a record number of symptomatic Covid-19 cases on Saturday and other areas across China tightened controls as the country kept up its "dynamic clearance" approach that aims to stamp out the highly transmissible Omicron variant, Reuters reported. The Zhengzhou Airport Economic Zone, a central Chinese manufacturing area that includes Apple Inc supplier Foxconn, announced a 14-day lockdown on Friday "to be adjusted according to the epidemic situation".

4:36 PM

Russia has captured over 1,000 civilians: Ukraine official

Over half the civilians taken by Moscow’s forces are women, said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, who demanded in a televised briefing that they be released immediately. “We won’t swap military people for civilians. It would violate the Geneva Conventions,” she said. 

 

4:28 PM

Babul Supriyo wins Ballygunge assembly by-poll for TMC

Trinamool Congress leader Babul Supriyo won the Ballygunge assembly by-poll on Saturday, defeating Saira Shah Halim of the CPI(M) by 20,228 votes. Supriyo won 51,199 votes against Halim's 30,971 votes, PTI reported.

3:52 PM

Ukraine's GDP predicted to shrink

Ukraine's GDP may fall between 30% and 50% this year, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said in televised comments, Reuters reported. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and top finance officials will attend next week's IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington and meet G7 and other officials, sources said on Friday, the first such in-person opportunity of the war.

3:48 PM

Russia retaliates against UK sanctions with entry ban on top leaders

Russia said it was retaliating against UK sanctions on its top officials with entry bans on Prime Minister Boris Johnson and many of his cabinet, Bloomberg reported.

The move--largely symbolic as Western officials have all but stopped traveling to Russia since the war broke out--covers a dozen others, including Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Defense Minister Ben Wallace and former Prime Minister Theresa May, the Foreign Ministry said.

2:56 PM

Russians missiles hit airfield in Ukraine's Oleksandriia

A Russian missile has struck an airfield in Oleksandriia of Kirovohrad region in Ukraine, according to Serhii Kuzmenko, mayor of Oleksandriia.

Shedding light on the incident that happened on Friday, Kuzmenko said: "There was a missile strike on airfield infrastructure in the city of Oleksandriia at 10.26 p.m. (Ukraine local time) on April 15. Rescue operations are ongoing."

Like many other regions in the war-torn country, the air-raid alerts in the Kirovohrad region lasted from 10.30 to 11.32 p.m. as per the local time and were heard again at night and in the morning, reported Ukrayinska Pravda.

2:47 PM

Bihar bypoll: RJD wrests Bochahan assembly seat from ruling NDA

The opposition RJD in Bihar on Saturday wrested the Bochahan assembly seat from the ruling NDA, with its candidate defeating the BJP nominee by a large margin of over 35,000 votes.

RJD candidate Amar Paswan, whose father Musafir Paswan's death had necessitated the by-election, polled 82,116 votes while his nearest BJP rival Baby Kumari got only 45,353.

Expelled state minister Mukesh Sahani's Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), on the ticket of which Musafir Paswan had won the seat in 2020, finished a distant third with 29,671 votes.

2:20 PM

TMC eyes clean sweep in both assembly and LS by-poll, Shatrughan leads by over 2 lakh votes,

The Trinamool Congress is on way to a clean sweep as it demolished rivals in the Asansol Lok Sabha seat where movie actor-turned politician Shatrughan Sinha is leading by an unassalable margin of nearly 2.3 lakh votes, while bettering CPI(M)'s vote count in the prestigious Ballygunge constituency.

In Asansol former Union minister and popular veteran Bollywood star Shatrughan Sinha is leading by garnering a massive 5,45,818 votes against BJP's Agnimitra Paul's 3,15,283 votes as at 2 pm. BJP had won the seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

In Ballygunge, TMC candidate singer-turned politician Babul Supriyo is ahead of CPI (M) 's Saira Shah Halim, gathering some 40,623 votes against Halim's 28,515 votes. Interestingly CPI(M) has overtaken BJP's Keya Ghosh who has till now managed to get just 8,094 votes, thus lending some credence to the Communist party's claim that they are on a revival path.