Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day
A Ukranian serviceman looks into a crater and a destroyed home in the village of Yatskivka, eastern Ukraine on April 16.
Photographer: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
The fight for Donbas begins. World Bank cuts forecast for global economic growth. China urges citizens to support its Covid-Zero fight. Here’s what you need to know today.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces had begun the campaign to conquer the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east. Moscow has sent reinforcements for renewed offensive operations in the region, according to a senior U.S. defense official. Russia has added about 11 battalion tactical groups, bringing its total in the country to about 76. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that the “economic Blitzkrieg” of international sanctions on Russia had failed, citing the recovery in the ruble to pre-war levels. And Putin has given a special elite designation to an army unit that Ukraine has accused of committing war crimes in the northern town of Bucha.