As Russia continues shelling, Pope Francis urges peace in Ukraine

Weekend shelling by Russian forces has killed at least seven civilians, Ukrainian officials have reported, as Pope Francis used his traditional Easter message to highlight the war in Ukraine.

While Russia continued to concentrate on seizing all of Ukraine’s industrial east, two other provinces – Kharkiv in the northeast and Zaporizhia in the southeast – came under missile, rocket and artillery fire, the Ukrainian military reported on Sunday.

Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov said two men died on Sunday in shelling in Kupiansk, a city Russia held before Ukrainian forces regained control of almost all of the province.

The city remained under attack later Sunday as Russian forces targeted residential areas with multiple rocket launchers, Syniehubov said.

Elsewhere in the province, a 30-year-old man was hospitalised in serious condition after Russian shelling of the city of Chuhuiv, he said on Telegram.

A 50-year-old man and his 11-year-old daughter were killed after Russian forces struck a residential building early on Sunday in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, the capital of Zaporizhia province, according to City Council Secretary Anatoliy Kurtev.

The Zaporizhia region’s Governor Yurii Malashko said 18 communities were shelled. Three people were killed, and five were wounded on Saturday, Malashko said.

Zaporizhia is home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and is one of four Ukrainian provinces that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed in September. Since then, Russia’s military has sought to remove Ukraine’s troops from those areas, especially Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, which make up the industrial region known as the Donbas.

Bakhmut, a city in Donetsk, has seen the 13-month war’s longest battle. Western analysts have said Russian forces recently entered the city’s centre. Seizing Bakhmut after more than eight months would give the Kremlin a badly wanted victory and a path to push on towards bigger Ukrainian-held cities.

The Russian army is moving elite units to Bakhmut, Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Eastern Group of Forces, said Sunday.

Cherevaty said the Wagner Group, a private Russian military company whose fighters have spearheaded the offensive on Bakhmut, was incurring heavy losses, making it necessary to move in units from the regular army, including paratroopers and motorised riflemen.

Easter address

The vast majority of Ukrainians with a religious affiliation identify as Orthodox Christian, a faith that observes Easter on April 16 this year. Some Catholics celebrated Easter on Sunday, while Orthodox churches marked Palm Sunday this weekend.

While delivering his Easter address from the central balcony of the Vatican’s St Peter’s Basilica, the Catholic Church’s Pope Francis asked God to “help the beloved Ukrainian people on their journey towards peace, and shed the light of Easter upon the people of Russia.″

“Comfort the wounded and all those who have lost loved ones because of the war, and grant that prisoners may return safe and sound to their families,” Francis said.

Between Saturday and Sunday mornings, Russian forces launched 40 air strikes, four missile strikes and 58 attacks from multiple-rocket launchers on various parts of Ukraine, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported.

According to the General Staff, Russia focused attacks on the Donetsk province communities of Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka. Donetsk regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said Sunday morning that two civilians were wounded Saturday.

Officials in Kherson province, where Ukrainian forces forced a partial Russian retreat in November, said the southern region also received numerous attacks. They did not report any casualties.