These are the key events on day 1,146 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is where things stand on Monday, April 14 :
Fighting
- Ukraine’s Air Force said that Russian missiles and guided bombs have once more struck the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine. Local officials said the attack struck the city’s outskirts and reported no casualties, a day after a missile strike in the city killed 35 people.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking in a nightly video address, said the toll from Sunday’s attack in Sumy had risen to 35 dead and 119 injured. Forty people remain in hospital, with 11 in serious condition.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had attacked a meeting of Ukrainian military officers on Sunday in Sumy. Ukraine called the strike a deliberate attack on civilians.
- Three people have been killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Kursk region, according to the regional governor, Alexander Khinshtein.
- Ukrainian authorities held a news conference on Monday, in which Chinese prisoners of war who travelled to fight in Ukraine as mercenaries on behalf of Russia appeared to warn others not to follow in their footsteps.
Military aid
- United States President Donald Trump criticised Zelenskyy and implied Kyiv had started the war against Russia, saying the Ukrainian leader was “always looking to purchase” US missiles. “You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and hope people give you some missiles,” Trump said.
- Trump also promised to deliver “some very good proposals” on resolving Russia’s war in Ukraine “very soon”.
- Trump administration officials have been at odds over how to approach the conflict, the Reuters news agency reported, with some suggesting Ukraine should cede territory to Russia and others pushing for more support for Ukraine.
- Democrats in the US House of Representatives introduced legislation to bolster Ukraine’s defences. The bill, which has not been made public, would provide security and reconstruction funding, and impose further sanctions on Russia.
- The Kremlin has criticised a German announcement that it will send Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the incoming German chancellor’s position would “inevitably lead to a further escalation of the situation around Ukraine”.
- The United Kingdom has transferred $990m to Ukraine to help it buy air defences and artillery as part of a broader $50bn international loan programme backed by frozen Russian assets. The payment is the second of three instalments, with the first transferred on March 6 and the final instalment to be paid next year.
- NATO members are discussing a spending target for civil defence and more support for Ukraine, according to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. Speaking to reporters in Stockholm, Kristersson said a meeting of NATO leaders in June may agree to a defence spend above 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), with a second target for other spending more broadly relating to security and defence.
Politics and diplomacy
- Zelenskyy said that nearly 50 countries had sent messages of support to Ukraine following Russia’s attack on Sumy, which hit a church where a Christian congregation was celebrating Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter.
- Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said that Moscow’s attacks on Sumy and the city of Kryvyi Rih showed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was seeking a continuation of war, not an end to it. The Kremlin says Russia is willing to seek a lasting peace that addresses what it calls the root causes of the conflict.
- The European Commission will reveal a detailed strategy to phase out Russian oil and gas imports in May after twice delaying the plan. In an announcement on Monday, the Commission said it would publish the roadmap on May 6. The European Union has introduced sanctions on Russian oil but continues to import Russian gas.
- A German court will review the seizure of a Russian “shadow fleet” tanker allegedly used to circumvent oil sanctions, Germany’s finance minister said. The Panama-flagged vessel, the Eventin, was seized after it was found drifting out of control off the German coast in January.
- Russia’s new energy strategy foresees stable crude oil production and significant growth in gas extraction out to 2050, despite Western sanctions. Russia’s fossil fuel production has been used to finance its invasion of Ukraine.
- Russia has extended a suspension on the publication of oil and gas statistics, meaning the country will not provide an update until April 1, 2026. Russia has suspended or delayed publishing key statistics since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
- A Russian court on Monday ruled that a children’s charity set up by a prominent Kremlin critic should close. Yevgeny Roizman, a former lawmaker and ex-mayor of Yekaterinburg, who was friends with the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny, described the decision as “personal revenge” after he criticised Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but did not leave the country.
