Ukraine is preparing for “major fights” against Russian forces in the east, while Pope Francis urged for an Easter truce. On Saturday, evacuations from Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, resumed after a missile strike killed 52 people at a railway station the day before.

Johnson offered Ukraine armoured vehicles and anti-ship missiles to help stop the Russian naval siege of Black Sea ports, praising the country’s response to the Russian invasion. He made the offer after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of a Russian invasion.

A news conference with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Saturday revealed that big fights, possibly decisive, are being prepared in the east.

“We are ready to fight and also to resolve this war diplomatically.”

Meanwhile, Pope Francis urged for an Easter truce in Ukraine to allow for “serious talks”.

“Start the Easter truce. But not to furnish more guns and resume battle — no! — but to negotiate a truce that leads to peace,”  he said in St. Peter’s Square.

The pope condemned “heinous killings and appalling cruelty” against “defenceless citizens”.

Before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Zelensky’s adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said Ukraine must defeat Russia in the eastern Donbas region where Moscow controls two rebel territories.

“Ukraine is preparing for war. Ukraine must win, even in Donbas. Then Ukraine will be in a stronger negotiation position “he remarked on national television, according to Interfax.

“The presidents will then meet. Could be two, three weeks.”

In a video posted by Zelensky’s office, he and Cameron walked past shooters to Kyiv’s historic Maidan Square. Numerous civilian corpses found in Ukrainian towns “permanently tarnished” Putin’s image, Johnson added.

On Sunday, an AFP reporter witnessed two dead inside a manhole at a petrol station near Kyiv. In civilian and military attire, the bodies appeared.

A distressed woman stared under the manhole before breaking down and clawing the soil.

Then she cried “my son”.

After a failed attempt to conquer Kyiv six weeks into the Russian invasion, Moscow has moved its focus to eastern and southern Ukraine.

Thousands of people have been murdered in the violence, and over 11 million have fled their homes or nation.

“We need additional sanctions,” Zelensky stated via video Saturday.

“Our state needs more weaponry.”

‘Civilian War’

Local officials are encouraging locals to escape before Russian forces regroup in eastern and southern Ukraine.

The bombardment of Kharkiv and its environs killed at least two persons, governor Oleg Sinegubov announced on Facebook on Sunday. “The Russian army continues to conduct war on civilians,” he stated.

The mayor of eastern Lysychansk, Oleksandr Zaika, ordered residents to flee on Saturday due to Russian army shelling.

On the other hand, in Kramatorsk, minibuses collected frightened refugees. Almost 80 individuals, mostly elderly, sought refuge in a nearby building.

The local station was the principal evacuee hub for refugees from eastern Donbas still controlled by Ukraine. Pro-Russian rebels have used the phrase “for our children” since the combat in Donbas began in 2014.

According to Interfax, Donetsk’s governor stated a cluster munitions-loaded missile was used in the strike.

– New NATO force –

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said a global pledging event for Ukrainian migrants raised 10.1 billion euros ($11 billion).

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claimed the military alliance was planning a permanent military force on its frontier to deter Russian aggression.

“We are witnessing a new reality, a new normal for European security,” he told the Daily Telegraph.

We have thus urged our military leaders to propose a reset, a longer-term adaptation of NATO.

He called the new force one of the invasion’s “long-term effects.”

Russian troops are determined to build a land link between occupied Crimea and the Donbas separatist territories of Donetsk and Lugansk.

In response to mounting evidence of crimes, Ukraine’s EU partners imposed an embargo on Russian coal, frozen billions in assets of sanctioned persons, and closed its ports to Russian boats.

Bucha, where hundreds were purportedly slaughtered, some with their wrists bound, has become a symbol of alleged Russian occupation brutality.

Officials in Ukraine say they’re finding further wreckage in adjacent communities.

– Prisoner swap

A third prisoner swap with Russia was accomplished Saturday, bringing 12 military and 14 civilians home.

But Moscow alleged Russian troops also fired on a Ukrainian ship seeking to evacuate Azov battalion commanders from beleaguered Mariupol.

The Azov Special Operations Detachment has been fighting Russian soldiers in Mariupol, which lies between Russia-occupied Crimea and pro-Russian rebel districts in eastern Ukraine.

The fighting in the region has intensified as Russia shifts its attention.

Saturday, Russian shelling killed five civilians and injured five more in two eastern Ukrainian cities, claimed Donetsk’s governor.

Pavlo Kyrylenko stated on Telegram that four died in Vugledar and one in Novomikhaylovka.

The Ukrainian army said it had destroyed “four tanks, eight armoured vehicles, seven enemy vehicles, a plane, a helicopter, and drones” on Facebook.

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