WAR IN UKRAINE: April 20, 2022 — Michael Bociurkiw

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 55

Ukraine has reached a preliminary agreement with Russia on establishing a humanitarian corridor to evacuate women, children and the elderly from the besieged city of Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday. “Given the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Mariupol, this is where we will focus our efforts today," Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said. Ninety buses are to be dispatched to evacuate about 6,000 people, the city's mayor said on national television.
Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai has urged Ukraine to be weary of being stepped over or played by the great powers the way Afghanistan had. In an interview with the BBC’s Yalda Hakim, he said: “I hope Ukraine would learn from our experiences and not fall into a policy of hurting themselves in a power game and getting stepped over….use and abandonment comes easy. So the Ukrainians should be wiser, the leadership should be wiser. They should engage with the countries of the world and in their own region.” Karzai served as president of Afghanistan for almost 13 years.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says that 2,072 civilians, including 169 children, have died since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These numbers are widely expected to be in the low said as officials find more bodies concealed in centers that were held by Russian forces. There are also reports that retreating forces burned bodies to hide evidence of war crimes.
Half a million Ukrainians have been forcibly deported to Russia. Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the UN Sergiy Kyslytsya said at the UN Security Council meeting on April 19, that more than 500,000 Ukrainians were “forcibly transferred” to Russia, including 121,000 children. According to Kyslytsya, citizens of Ukraine are sent to Russia’s “economically depressed regions,” in particular, the northern regions and the island of Sakhalin. He said they receive documents banning them from leaving Russia for two years.
Ukrainian television reported Tuesday evening that Russian forces in the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol are said to have started Russian-language classes for students in several grades. Earlier, an advisor to the mayor said the Russians were trying to create “a picture of restoration of normal life.”
Up to 20,000 mercenaries from the Russian private military company the Wagner Group as well as from Syria and Libya are fighting alongside Moscow’s forces in Ukraine, a European official said Tuesday. “Regarding their capabilities, it’s infantry. They don’t have any heavy vehicles and weapons. It’s much more infantry,” the official told reporters in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity. “These guys are mainly used as a mass against Ukrainian resistance,” the official said. He added that of the estimated 10,000 to 20,000 mercenaries taking part in the invasion, it is difficult to say how many are from the Wagner Group, which is said to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and how many are from Syria and Libya. The official said there has been some “transfer” of fighters from Libya and Syria to the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.
The first of a series of container villages for IDPs (pictured below) has opened in Lviv. Each settlement can accommodate over 300 people. The containers were donated by Poland.

Listen to the latest episode of the Global Impact Show. Featuring a conversation with the Ukrainian author and scholar, Olesya Khromeychuk. She is author of A Loss. The Story of a Dead Soldier Told by His Sister. Co-host Melissa Ricci and myself spoke to her about the war in Ukraine, the prominent role of women in Ukrainian society, Russia’s assault on Ukrainian culture - and much, much more. Listen here