Associated Press

Ukraine fights to hold off Russian advances in south, east

AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti
Employees at a liquor store clean the glass broken during an explosion in Kyiv, Ukraine on Friday, April 29, 2022. Russia struck the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv shortly after a meeting between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday evening.

By DAVID KEYTON and INNA VARENYTSIA Associated Press

13:46 JST, April 30, 2022

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces fought to hold off Russian attempts to advance in the south and east, where the Kremlin is seeking to capture the country’s industrial Donbas region, and a senior U.S. defense official said Moscow’s offensive is going much slower than planned.

While artillery fire, sirens and explosions were heard Friday in some cities, the United Nations sought to broker an evacuation of civilians from the increasingly hellish ruins of Mariupol, where the mayor said the situation inside the steel plant that has become the southern port city’s last stronghold is dire.

Citizens are “begging to get saved,” Mayor Vadym Boichenko said. “There, it’s not a matter of days. It’s a matter of hours.”