Ukraine war day 39: Kyiv retaken amid fears of traps - 10 updates

Ukraine war: Zelensky has said his forces are strengthening defenses in eastern Ukraine and Donbas where Moscow has set its eyes next.

The Ukraine war is set to enter its sixth week and one of the most horrific accounts that has emerged in the latest updates are the visuals of bodies scattered along streets as the Russian troops retreat. The conflict-hit country, in late night updates, said it has retaken the Kyiv region even as it continued to slam Moscow over leaving behind mines - a situation described as "catastrophic" by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ukranian soldiers patrol a street in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, on April 2, 2022, where town's mayor said 280 people had been buried in a mass grave and that the town is littered with corpses..  (AFP)

Here are ten latest updates on the Ukraine war:

1. In Kyiv's Bucha region, Ukraine presidential advisor Mykhaylo Podolyak, in a tweet, said, "the bodies of people with tied hands, who were shot dead by the Russian soldiers lie in the streets." ."These people were not in the military. They had no weapons. They posed no threat. How many more such cases are happening right now in the occupied territories?" he added, hitting new charges at the Kremlin.

2. In late-night developments, deputy defence minister Ganna Maliar was quoted as saying by news agency AFP that Ukraine has regained control of "the whole Kyiv region".

3. Zelensky has said his forces are strengthening defenses in eastern Ukraine and Donbas where Moscow has set its eyes next. “We are strengthening defense in the east and in Donna. We are aware that the enemy has reserves to increase pressure in the east” and that Russia wants “to capture Donbas and the south of Ukraine,” the president said in a late-night address.

4. With the Russian troops retreating, the war-torn nation is now counting its dead and assessing the damage. Nearly 300 people have been buried in a mass grave in Bucha, a commuter town outside Kyiv, its mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said, AFP reported.

5. The Kremlin seems to be prioritising a different tactic: "falling back on the east and south," Podolyak said.

6. Russia’s "inability to find and destroy air defence systems has seriously hampered their efforts to gain broad control of the air, which in turn has significantly affected their ability to support the advance of their ground forces on a number of fronts," the UK's ministry of defence has underlined, citing intelligence inputs.

7. The two nations seem to be reaching a consensus if Ukraine's top negotiator is to be believed as peace talks continue. "The Russian Federation has given an official answer to all positions, which is that they accept the (Ukrainian) position, except for the issue of Crimea (annexed by Russia in 2014)," David Arakhamia was quoted as saying in reports.

8. Sunday will see a top UN official - Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs - flying to Russia and then to Kyiv.

9. Carla Del Ponte, former war prosecutor, has urged for an arrest warrant for Russia's Vladimir Putin. “Putin is a war criminal. It is the only instrument that exists to arrest the perpetrator of a war crime," she was quoted as saying in reports. She is known for investigating war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

10. In the five weeks of war, Russia has lost 17,800 troops, according to Kyiv while 4 million people have been forced out of their homes in the war-hit country.

(With inputs from AFP, Reuters, AP)