Ukraine news – live: Russian ship Admiral Makarov ‘on fire’ near Snake Island

Russia appears to be planning Victory Day celebrations in the battered Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Observers have speculated for months that Vladimir Putin would take the opportunity on 9 May – when grand ceremonies will be held to remember the Russian sacrifices of the Second World War – to hold a parade in the city which has become a desperate symbol of Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.

My colleague Liam James reports:

It was said to have been sailing close to Snake Island in the Black Sea south of Odesa.

My colleague Liam James reports:

My colleagues Thomas Kingsley and Joe Sommerlad have a recap on the war in Ukraine.

During two decades in power, Putin has had an ability to sense the popular mood, writes Mary Dejevsky. But in recent times his judgement has seemed less sure – and the Ukraine invasion may prove a step too far for his citizens.

Ready Mary’s full piece here:

More civilians have been rescued from the tunnels under a besieged steel plant in Mariupol, a Ukrainian official said Friday, even as fighters holed up at the sprawling complex made their last stand to prevent Moscow’s complete takeover of the strategic port city.

“We conducted another stage of a complex operation to evacuate people from Mariupol and Azovstal. I can say that we managed to take out almost 500 civilians,” the head of Ukraine‘s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said Friday on the Telegram messaging app.

Hungary will not support the European Union’s sanctions package on Russia, which includes an embargo on oil imports, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday.

Our international editor David Harding reports:

Amnesty International said on Friday there was compelling evidence that Russian troops had committed war crimes, including extrajudicial executions of civilians, when they occupied an area outside Ukraine’s capital in February and March.

Civilians also suffered abuses such as “reckless shootings and torture” at the hands of Russian forces during their failed onslaught on Kyiv in the early stages of the invasion launched by the Kremlin on Feb. 24, the rights group said in a report.

“These are not isolated incidents. These are very much part of a pattern wherever Russian forces were in control of a town or a village,” Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s senior crisis response adviser, told a news conference in Kyiv.

The sinking of the Moskva, flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet on 14 April, was considered a major victory for Ukraine as it sought to stave off the military might of Russia. Two cruise missiles sunk the vessel in an embarrassing blow to Moscow.

My colleague Andrew Buncombe reports:

A UN food agency official said on Friday that nearly 25 million tonnes of grains was stuck in Ukraine and unable to leave the country due to infrastructure challenges and blocked ports in the Black Sea.

“It’s an almost grotesque situation we see at the moment in Ukraine with nearly 25 mln tonnes of grain that could be exported but that cannot leave the country simply because of lack of infrastructure, the blockade of the ports,” Josef Schmidhuber, FAO deputy director, markets and trade division told a Geneva press briefing.

Ukraine has accused the Kremlin of “food terrorism” after Vladimir Putin’s troops stole tonnes of grain from Russian-controlled areas.

Kyiv said Russian soldiers are targeting farmers’ harvests in the south and the eastern region of Donbas, where fierce fighting continues.

Government officials said around 400,000 tonnes of grain had been looted from occupied Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

They have also been targetting farm equipment including tractors and harvesters, hitting food storage sites with artillery.

“Chechen soldiers, fighting for Russia, act like criminals in the 1990s,” Ivan Fedorov, mayor of Melitopol, an occupied city in the Zaporizhzhia region, told CNN.

“First they offer to buy grain for a ridiculously low price,” he added. “But if you don’t agree, they take everything from you for nothing.”