Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events on day 51

Here are the key events so far on Friday, April 15.

Get the latest updates here.

Fighting

• Powerful explosions were heard in Kyiv early on Friday, and air raid sirens blared across Ukraine as residents braced for new Russian attacks.
•  Ukraine’s military said it repulsed eight attacks in the east in the past 24 hours and destroyed several vehicles, including four tanks.
• The governor of the Kharkiv region said four civilians were killed and 10 wounded in the Russian shelling of Kharkiv city.
• A second village in Russia’s Belgorod region has come under fire from Ukraine.
• Russian officials said Ukrainian helicopters hit residential buildings and injured seven people in the Bryansk region.
• Russia’s setbacks could lead President Vladimir Putin to resort to using a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon, CIA Director William Burns says.
• Russia and Ukraine agreed to a prisoners’ swap in the southern region of Kherson, the Ukrainian defence ministry said.

Civilians

• Ukraine says nine humanitarian corridors agreed to evacuate civilians from eastern cities, including Mariupol.
• A United Nations committee says the lives of some 2.7 million people with disabilities are at risk in Ukraine.
• At least 503 civilians killed in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region since Russia launched its invasion on February 24.
• Ukraine asked the UN to facilitate the return of Ukrainian children who have been “illegally deported from the territory of Ukraine to Russian families”.

Diplomacy

• The threat of Russia potentially using tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons in Ukraine cannot be taken lightly, CIA Director William Burns said.
• President Joe Biden said top US officials are deciding soon whether to send a senior official to Kyiv in a show of support for Ukraine.
• The United Kingdom has sanctioned two close associates of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, saying it was the largest asset freeze imposed by the government.
• France says its embassy in Ukraine will return to Kyiv from the western city of Lviv, where it had been relocated in early March after the Russian invasion.
• Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says that a meeting between Russia’s Putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not a distant prospect.