On Friday morning, Russia attacked Ukraine, targeting several cities. The blasts came a day after the Kremlin said it welcomed anything that could bring an end to the conflict in Ukraine, when asked what it thought of a phone call the day before between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyi. But according to him, he still needs to achieve the goals of his “special forces operation” in Ukraine.

Main information about the war in Ukraine, day 429, TEXT:

07:33Early on Friday morning, Russia attacked several cities in Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv and central and southern regions, and at least two people were killed, media and officials said, according to Reuters.

06:12An Italian journalist, wounded during an alleged Russian attack in Kherson, “ignored the warning of the Ukrainian army,” reports the Southern Operational Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, citing CNN.

01:50 Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a message sent on Thursday evening: “The deportation of Ukrainian children is one of the fully planned elements of Russia’s attempt to erase the identity of our people”

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, says that a resolution was adopted in Strasbourg on Thursday, which recognizes the deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia as proof of genocide. “We will continue to work for the return of all deported Ukrainian children and to punish Russia,” Zelensky emphasized.

01:25Russian soldier admitted to cutting the throats of prisoners of war in “intercepted conversation” – Ukraine

The Security Service of Ukraine claims to have intercepted a telephone conversation in which a Russian soldier confessed to killing prisoners of war.

In the conversation reported by the SBU in Telegram, the soldier told how he cut the throats of prisoners of war after extracting the information he needed.

“You have to kill a person. But this is not the first time for me. People who are prisoners of war… there is no point in keeping them. Because we get all the information from them. There is no point in keeping them. Here… we have to get rid of them,” – Sky News reports.

00:50A social center designed to accommodate residents of the city of Mariupol, who fled after the city was destroyed and occupied by the Russian army, was inaugurated on Thursday in Dnipro, according to the correspondent of Agerpres.

Both the mayor of Dnipro, Boris Filatov, and the mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, took part in the ceremonial opening of the building, where 127 people are staying, more than three quarters of whom are women and children.

“I want us all to understand who these people are. There are people who went through all the hardships of the war. We have a refugee woman who escaped from Mariupol with three children. We also have refugees who moved from Donetsk to Mariupol, and then we called them new Mariupol residents, and today many of them have already found refuge in other regions. There are many refugees scattered in all regions. Therefore, we were forced to offer our refugees in Mariupol what they need, that is, a roof over their heads. (…) In total, 35 families or 127 people were accommodated here today, but 333 families or approximately 1,000 people remained in the queue for accommodation,” said Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko.

Before the war, Mariupol had almost 500,000 inhabitants.

00:16 The Russian drone industry could soon exceed 11 billion euros

Vladimir Putin has said a plan to increase drone production could mean Russia’s industry will soon be worth more than €11 billion.

Until now, Russia has relied on Iranian-made Shahed drones in its attacks on Ukraine, but last year President Putin announced an eight-year development plan, Sky News reported.

A brief summary of recent events:

• A Russian soldier admitted to slitting the throats of prisoners of war in an “overheard conversation.” The Security Service of Ukraine claims to have intercepted a telephone conversation in which a Russian soldier confessed to killing prisoners of war. “You have to kill a person. But this is not the first time for me. People who are prisoners of war… there is no point in keeping them. Because we get all the information from them. There is no point in keeping them. Here… we have to get rid of them.”
• Putin orders to create museums dedicated to the conflict in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin instructed the Russian government to begin work on the creation of museums dedicated to Moscow’s ongoing offensive against Ukraine, AFP reports.
• General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who is considered the most formidable Ukrainian commander after the successes during the war, directly contradicted the assessments of many Western military analysts, who claim that the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine will not have significant military significance.
• Since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, 14,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in Britain and then deployed to the front line, said Andrew Morrison, the British parliamentary under-secretary for defence.
• How one of the most sanctioned Russians did business in Great Britain / Awarded by Putin. The British company was registered through intermediaries in the name of Russian official Volodymyr Saldo five months after his name was added to the sanctions list, The Guardian reports. Saldo worked on behalf of Russia in the occupied Kherson region, where he became the head of the regional occupation administration
• Council of Europe: transfers of Ukrainian children are “genocide”. The forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia is “genocide,” according to a Council of Europe resolution adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of 46 countries on Thursday, AFP reports.
• According to the official, Russian-controlled Donetsk in eastern Ukraine is facing a water crisis. According to the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denys Pushylin, water reserves in the Russian-occupied part of the Donetsk region of Ukraine are dangerously low.
• Ahead of Turkey’s elections, Putin is declaring his support for Erdogan, a leader with “ambitious goals.” Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed strong support for his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday as he faces tough presidential and parliamentary elections next month, hailing a leader with “ambitious goals”.

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Thursday’s military events were broadcast LIVE here on HotNews.ro