Ukraine Update….150 days into the Russian move on the Ukraine

• Putin said Zircon hypersonic missiles “have no equivalent in the world” and could evade any defense. Russia said earlier this year it had used a type of hypersonic missile — which fly at five times the speed of sound — against Ukraine. The development of the Zircon missile has been underway for years.
• Putin also signed a new naval doctrine outlining Russia’s determination to boost its naval strength in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, which border Ukraine. Among the perceived threats to Russia listed in the 55-page doctrine were the “advance” of NATO military infrastructure to Russia’s borders.
• The attack on Russia’s Black Sea fleet headquarters, in the Crimean city of Sevastopol, sent a defiant message on Russia’s Navy Day. The attack forced the cancellation of celebrations of Navy Day in Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 where the Black Sea Fleet is headquartered. Ukraine denied responsibility for the attack, but said Russian military outposts in Crimea are legitimate targets.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a mandatory evacuation order for civilians still living in the war-torn eastern region of Donetsk, saying many were refusing to leave. “There are hundreds of thousands of people, tens of thousands of children … many people refuse to leave … but it really needs to be done,” he said in his nightly address. Russian forces have seized large areas of Donetsk but observers say its offensive has slowed.
• One of Ukraine’s richest businessmen and his wife were killed in overnight attacks on the southern city of Mykolaiv, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said. Oleksiy Vadatursky owned the Nibulon agricultural company. Zelensky said Vadatursky’s death was “a great loss for all of Ukraine.”

• Russia says it has invited representatives of the United Nations and the Red Cross to investigatethe deaths of Ukrainian prisoners of war — many of whom were members of the Azov Regiment who surrendered in Mariupol — at a detention center in Olenivka, in a Russian-occupied sector of Donetsk. Kyiv insists Russia was behind the deaths while Russian-backed separatists allege more than 50 prisoners of war were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack.
• The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Ukraine requested access to the POWs from the Olenivka facility on Friday. As of Saturday, its request had not been granted, ICRC said on Twitter. Granting the ICRC access is required under the Geneva Conventions, the committee said.

• Satellite images released by Maxar Technologies showed damaged sections of the center. In before and after shots, Maxar said the pictures showed “one part of a building within the prison compound can be seen with extensive damage on today’s imagery, reportedly part of a destroyed barracks at the prison.”
• Russian-backed forces fired up to 50 shells in residential areas of Nikopol in Dnipropetrovsk, the region’s governor said on Telegram on Sunday. Valentyn Reznichenko said two other districts were set on fire, and gas and water pipelines are damaged….

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Here’s what you need to know:

• The more people leave Donetsk now, Zelensky says, ‘the fewer people the Russian Army will have time to kill.’

• A mother of six is intent on staying in her Donetsk home.

• One of Ukraine’s richest businessmen is killed in the port city of Mykolaiv.

• The Red Cross says it still doesn’t have access to the prison camp where dozens of Ukrainians died.

• A former Kremlin adviser is hospitalized in Europe.New

• Russia says a drone attack hit the Crimean base of its Black Sea Fleet.

• Tensions are flaring on the border between Kosovo and Serbia as Western nations focus on Ukraine…

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