Russia-Ukraine War April 18 top news: Six killed, 11 wounded in strikes in Lviv; Ukrainians fight on in Mariupol

Six people died and 11, including a child, were wounded ater multiple explosions reportedly caused missiles struck the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Lviv’s regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyy, said three hit military infrastructure facilities and one struck a tire shop. He said emergency teams were putting out fires caused the strikes.
Here are some of the top developments of the day:
🔴 Ukraine’s government has halted humanitarian evacuations for the second day, saying Russian forces were targeting civilian evacuation corridors. According to Deputy Prime Miner IrynaVereshchuk, the government had been negotiating passage from Mariupol and Berdyansk, among other towns, as well as from the Luhansk region. The Luhansk government said four civilians trying to flee the region were shot to death Russian forces.
🔴 Shelling in a residential area in the eastern city of Kharkiv on Monday killed at least three people and injured three others, according to AP journals on the scene. One of the dead was a woman who appeared to have been going to collect water in the rain. She was found lying bloodied with a water caner and umbrella near her body.
🔴 According to media outlet Suspilne, two people were wounded in explosions in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
🔴 Russia’s defence minry said it had destroyed four arms and military equipment depots in Ukraine overnight with Iskander missiles, the TASS news agency reported. Russian forces had hit 315 Ukrainian targets in total overnight, TASS cited the minry as saying.
🔴 The fall of Mariupol, which has been reduced to rubble in a seven-week siege, would give Moscow its biggest victory of the war. But a few thousand fighters, Russia’s estimate, were holding on to the giant, 11-square-kilometer (4-square-mile) Azovstal steel mill. Many Mariupol civilians, including children, are also sheltering at the Azovstal plant, Mikhail Vershinin, head of the city’s patrol police, told Mariupol television. The relentless bombardment and street fighting in Mariupol have killed at least 21,000 people, Ukrainian estimates. An estimated 100,000 people remained in the city out of a prewar population of 450,000, trapped without food, water, heat or electricity.
🔴 Ukraine and Russia have failed to agree about humanitarian convoys for the evacuation of civilians from war-affected areas for the second day, Ukraine’s deputy Prime Miner Iryna Vereshchuk said. “For security reasons, it was decided not to open humanitarian corridors today,” Vereshchuk said on Telegram app.
🔴 Ukrainian authorities condemned Russian artillery attacks on cities in the northeast and the continuing siege of the southern port city of Mariupol, of which Moscow said it had taken almost full control. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, “This is nothing but deliberate terror: mortars, artillery against ordinary residential quarters, against ordinary civilians.” Russia denies targeting civilians and calls its action a special military operation to demilitarise Ukraine and eradicate what it calls dangerous nationals.
🔴 The Kremlin accused Ukraine of constantly changing its stance when it comes to issues that have already been agreed at peace talks. “Contacts continue at an expert level within the framework of the negotiation process”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call. “Unfortunately the Ukrainian side is not consent in terms of the points that have been agreed”, he said. “It is often changing its position and the trend of the negotiating process leaves much to be desired.”
🔴 Spain will reopen its embassy in Kyiv in the coming days, Prime Miner Pedro Sanchez said in an interview with the Antena3 TV network. The Spanish embassy in Ukraine’s capital was evacuated on February 24 when Russian troops invaded the country. The move comes after several other European countries, including France, recently announced they would move back their embassies to Kyiv.
With inputs from agencies