Ukrainian troops on the frontline in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, April 11, 2024 (Alex Babenko/AP)

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1059 GMT:

At least five civilians were killed and 11 injured in Russian attacks across Ukraine in the past 24 hours.

The Russians attacked fourteen regions, with casualties reported in five.

There were three fatalities in the Donetsk region in the east, one in the neighboring Kharkiv region, and one in the Kherson region in the south.

UPDATE 1052 GMT:

Posting a video of the destruction in civilian areas from Russian strikes, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Moscow has used more than 600 guided aerial bombs in the past week.

Russian combat aviation must be destroyed wherever it is, using any effective means. It is also quite fair to strike Russian airfields. We need this joint decision with our partners….

This is the only way to ensure protection for our people.

UPDATE 1044 GMT:

A Ukrainian intelligence official says a drone attack has struck a fuel depot in the Rostov region in southwest Russia.

Fifteen attack UAVs were involved in the operation. Russian social media accounts say several fuel tanks were set ablaze.

The targeted depot provides fuel to Russian military units in the occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military also said it struck the Morozovsk air base in the Rostov region, targeting ammunition warehouses where guided aerial bombs are stored.

UPDATE 0641 GMT:

Ukraine’s air defenses intercepted 24 of 29 Iran-type attack drones launched by Russia overnight.

The UAVs were intercepted over the Kherson, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, and Zhytomyr regions.

Critical infrastructure was damaged in the Vinnytsia region in central Ukraine.

Russia also fired two S-300 missiles and two Kh-31P anti-radar missiles.

UPDATE 0549 GMT:

Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin says he did not consent to being part of Thursday’s 24-person prisoner exchange.

Yashin, one of eight Russian dissidents in the swap, was serving an 8 1/2-year sentence over his criticism of Vladimir Putin and his remarks about Russia’s mass killing of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha in April 2022. An ally of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, he was convicted of spreading “false information” about the Russian military.

Yashin told a press conference in Bonn, Germany that the exchange would encourage Vladimir Putin to take more political prisoners.

I don’t view what happened to me as an exchange. I see it as an illegal expulsion from Russia against my will. I’ll be honest: more than anything right now, I want to return. My first wish was to go immediately to the airport, buy a ticket, and return to Russia. But it was made clear to me that return would make it impossible for there to be any other swaps in the future.

Journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, condemned to a 25-year sentence and in poor health, praised “the return of positive traditions” such as “leadership and support in freeing prisoners of conscience”.

He said he, Yashin, and others who were freed had “categorically refused to write pardon requests addressed to citizen Putin”.

Kara-Murza questioned the current system of international sanctions over Putin’s 29-month invasion of Ukraine, saying they “are no longer directed against the Putin regime and not against specific criminals in the highest ranks, but against the entire country, against all Russian citizens”.

He argued that this is “extremely unfair and counterproductive” because it enables the Kremlin to portray Russians as “surrounded by enemies.

“Don’t touch the country – punish the scoundrels,” the dual Russia-UK national said.

UPDATE 0542 GMT:

The bodies of 250 Ukrainian soldiers have been repatriated from occupied territory and from Russia.

Ukraine handed over the remains of 38 Russian soldiers in a deal mediated by the Red Cross.

Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said bodies will be sent for forensic analysis and identification before being handed over to families for burial.

“We managed to bring back the bodies of fallen defenders from the Luhansk, Bakhmut, Marinka, Avdiivka, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia sectors, as well as from Mariupol, Horlivka, and [Russian] territory, to their homeland,” the headquarters said in a statement.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has spoken of the “most severe battles” in the Pokrovsk area in the Donetsk region in the east, as Russia pursues a 10-month offensive.

Zelenskiy spoke on Friday of a meeting with the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, “on the frontline situation”.

Every brigade and unit in the Pokrovsk sector — all our soldiers who remain steadfast there and defend our positions despite Russian assaults — are in many ways the basis of defence in the entire east of our country. At the same time, we do not reduce our attention to all other areas on the frontline – in Donetsk, as well as in Kharkiv and our southern regions.

Pokrovsk, with a pre-invasion population of around 62,000, is an important logistics hub with its railway and road network. It lies about 25 km (15 miles) northwest of Donetsk city, the center of Russia’s occupation in eastern Ukraine.

A spokesperson for Ukraine’s National Guard, Ruslan Muzychuk, spoke on TV about Russian forces using warplanes and artillery fire to support waves of infantry assaults: “It’s a significant threat … because the Pokrovsk and Toretsk fronts are taking a large share of the daily aviation strikes carried out on the positions of Ukrainian defenders.”

Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov claimed on Friday that Moscow’s forces had captured five settlements in the Donetsk region in the past week. Those claims were not verified, but analyst Pasi Paroinen said the Russian had seized 57 square km (22 square miles).

Kyiv-based aviation expert Valeriy Romanenko summarized the “conveyor belt” of Russia’s assaults:

The Russians are not piercing our defence, they are pushing it back. They are advancing 100, 150, 200 meters every day using this tactic: dropping guided bombs, then a “meat assault”.

[If those are] repelled, dropping guided bombs again, a “meat assault” again.

Romanenko said the supply of US F-16 fighters to Ukraine could disrupt the Russian tactics, but cautioned that such operations are unlikely for now given the risk for newly-trained Ukrainian pilots.