Russia plans full control of Donbas, S Ukraine

MOSCOW, Apr 22 (Reuters/AP): Russia plans to take full control of Donbas and southern Ukraine as part of the second phase of its military operation, the deputy commander of Russia's central military district said on Friday, the Interfax news agency reported.
The commander, Rustam Minnekayev, was also cited as saying that Russia planned to forge a land corridor between Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014, and Donbas in eastern Ukraine.
the port city of Mariupol in Donbas are holed up at a vast industrial facility which President Vladimir Putin has ordered to be blockaded rather than stormed. Mariupol sits between areas held by Russian separatists and Crimea and its capture would allow Russia to link the two areas.
Minnekayev said taking control of southern Ukraine would improve Russian access to Moldova's pro-Russian breakaway region of Transdniestria, which borders Ukraine and which Kyiv fears could be used as a launching pad for new attacks against it.
Kyiv earlier this month said that an airfield in the region was being prepared to receive aircraft and be used by Moscow to fly in Ukraine-bound troops, allegations Moldova's defence ministry and authorities in Transdniestria denied.
"Control over the south of Ukraine is another way to Transdniestria, where there is also evidence that the Russian-speaking population is being oppressed," TASS quoted Minnekayev as saying at a meeting in Russia's central Sverdlovsk region.
Minnekayev was not cited as providing any evidence for or details of that alleged oppression.
Satellite photos show possible
mass graves near Mariupol
Satellite images released Thursday showed what appeared to be mass graves near Mariupol, and local officials accused Russia of burying up to 9,000 Ukrainian civilians there in an effort to conceal the slaughter taking place in the siege of the port city.
The images emerged hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the battle for the Mariupol, despite the presence of an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters who were still holed up at a giant steel mill. Putin ordered his troops not to storm the stronghold but to seal it off "so that not even a fly comes through."
Satellite image provider Maxar Technologies released the photos, which it said showed more than 200 mass graves in a town where Ukrainian officials say the Russians have been burying Mariupol residents killed in the fighting. The imagery showed long rows of graves stretching away from an existing cemetery in the town of Manhush, outside Mariupol.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko accused the Russians of "hiding their military crimes" by taking the bodies of civilians from the city and burying them in Manhush.
The graves could hold as many as 9,000 dead, the Mariupol City Council said Thursday in a post on the Telegram messagin
Zelenskyy gets John
F. Kennedy award
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is among five people named Thursday as recipients of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for acting to protect democracy.
Zelenskyy was chosen because of the way he has "marshaled the spirit, patriotism and untiring sacrifice of the Ukrainian people in a life-or-death fight for their country," as Russia pours in troops and assaults cities and towns, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation said.