Mariupol, Donetsk and Kyiv Oblast: 11 April 2022 in the regions
A look back at reports from Ukraine's regions on 11 April 2022, from the besieged port to the towns around Kyiv.
What did the war look like from Ukraine's regions on 11 April 2022? Reports from that day and the one before it described a country under fire in the south, east and north, and still counting the dead in the areas around Kyiv.
Mariupol under siege
The heaviest assessments concerned Mariupol. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the city had been completely destroyed, and put the death toll at tens of thousands. According to Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the defence of the besieged city continued throughout the day with intense fighting and bombardment. In his evening video address to the nation, Zelenskyy said the siege could be lifted if Ukraine had proper military weaponry.
Shelling in the east
In Donetsk Oblast, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reported that rocket attacks had killed three people and injured eight more. A day earlier, on 10 April, Russian shelling in the town of Derhachi, Kharkiv Oblast, had killed two people and injured several others.
Russian strikes also reached other regions. On 10 April, Dnipro International Airport was completely destroyed by missile strikes, and five people were injured. The same day, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov claimed that air-launched missiles had hit Ukrainian S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems in the south of Mykolaiv Oblast and at an air base in Chuhuiv. That was a Russian claim, not a confirmed account.
Counting the dead near Kyiv
Around the capital, the focus was on the toll among civilians. On 10 April, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said that 1,222 bodies had so far been discovered in Kyiv Oblast. Also on 10 April, a mass grave of Ukrainian civilians was found near the village of Buzova in the same oblast.
Diplomats return to Kyiv
There was one sign of movement in the other direction. On 9 April, EU High Representative Josep Borrell announced that the European Union and Italy would resume their diplomatic operations in Kyiv after temporarily relocating to Lviv.
Taken together, the reports from 10 and 11 April showed a war fought across many regions at once: a siege in the south-east, shelling in Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts, strikes on infrastructure in Dnipro, and the grim documentation of deaths in Kyiv Oblast. Each region faced a different kind of pressure, and officials there were reporting it in the same days as the first diplomatic return to the capital was announced.
