Live – War in Ukraine: Power outages after Russian strikes, situation update

At least two people were killed and another wounded in Russian bombings in the town of Krasnohorivka, located closest to the frontline, in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said Saturday, adding that they destroyed nine enemy drones overnight.

The city “was under enemy fire all night and morning,” regional governor Vadim Pilashkin said in a telegram. A 70-year-old woman and a 73-year-old man were killed and another wounded in the shootings, as he called on the last remaining civilians to leave the city.

Five thousand children have been evacuated from the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, after weeks of shelling by Kyiv, the region's governor announced this Saturday.

“Five thousand of our children are already outside the region. Yesterday, 1,300 children arrived in St. Petersburg, Bryansk and Makhachkala,” said Governor Vyacheslav Kladkov. Children living in municipalities near the border, including the regional capital Belgorod, will receive distance education next month, he said.

Regional officials announced last week that 9,000 miners would be relocated after cross-border bombings and drone strikes killed more than a dozen civilians.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned that Europe has now entered a “pre-war age”. “I don't want to scare anyone, but war is not a concept of the past. It's a reality and it started two years ago,” Donald Tusk declared in an interview Friday, along with the invasion of Ukraine. Lena alliance of eight European newspapers (leading European newspaper alliance). “The most worrying thing at the moment is that absolutely all scenarios are possible. We have not experienced a situation like this since 1945,” declared the former president of the European Council.

Russia will begin its spring conscription campaign on Monday, enlisting tens of thousands of young men aged 18 to 30. “The spring military conscription campaign will begin on April 1,” said senior general staff officer Vice Admiral Vladimir Simliansky. The new entrants will replace the existing compulsions in the rear and they will not need to be mobilized.

The Russian military assures that these new recruits will not be sent to Ukraine, but the campaign, organized twice a year, comes at a time when many Russians fear a new mobilization. “We can twist some people's arms to force them to sign up and go forward,” said Nicolas Richeaux, former commander of the 7th Armored Division at LCI.

• Three Ukrainian thermal power plants suffered significant damage after a Russian fire, Ukrainian energy supplier DTEK said on Friday, without providing the locations of the installations. “Aggressors attacked three DTEK thermal power plants. The equipment was severely damaged,” the company lamented in a press release. It said its engineers acted “quickly” to deal with the damage. In the evening, the Ministry of Energy indicated total power outage in seven regions.
• A Ukrainian drone struck an apartment building in the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine, killing one person and wounding two others, the regional governor said. “The drone crashed into an apartment building. As a result of the explosion, unfortunately one person was killed. Two others were injured,” Vyacheslav Klatkov said on Telegram.
• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned that Europe has now entered a “pre-war era”. “I don't want to scare anyone, but war is not a concept of the past. It's a reality and it started two years ago,” Donald Tusk declared in an interview Friday, along with the invasion of Ukraine. Alliance of eight European newspapers Lena (the leading European newspaper alliance) “The most worrying thing at the moment is that all situations are possible. We have not experienced such a situation since 1945,” declared the former president of the Council of Europe. .

Hello and welcome to this live broadcast dedicated to events in Ukraine.