April 28, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

The US State Department is "deeply disappointed" its request to visit detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in May was denied, principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Friday.

On Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry rejected the US request to see Gershkovich, saying the decision was in response to Washington’s denial to provide visas to Russian reporters for Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to the United Nations this week.

Some background: Gershkovich was arrested in Moscow in late March on spying charges, which the Wall Street Journal has vehemently denied. Gershkovich, who faces up to 20 years in prison, is currently being held in a pre-trial detention center at the notorious Lefortovo prison until May 29.

American citizen Paul Whelan has been held in Russia for over four years. His sister attended the UN Security Council meeting that Lavrov chaired on Monday, urging for his release his remarks prior to the meeting.

The US State Department has designated both Gershkovich and Whelan as wrongfully detained.

The death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in Uman has increased to at least 23, according to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. The death toll includes four children, officials said.

The strike in Uman, which is located in the central Cherkasy region, injured at least 18 other people, Ukrainian officials said earlier Friday.

There were 46 apartments inside one of the buildings that were hit, of which 27 were completely destroyed, according to Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko.

East of Uman, a woman and her 2-year-old child were killed in a strike in Dnipro, authorities said.

The self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic said nine people have been killed in shelling by Ukrainian forces in the city of Donetsk.

The DPR’s Coordination Center said that "massive shelling" killed six women, two men and an 8-year-old girl in the city center, injuring 16 others.

CNN cannot confirm the reported casualties. But unofficial Telegram channels have published video and photos of extensive damage in several areas of the city. 

The coordination center said that most of the strikes had been by Ukrainian artillery using 155 mm shells targeting the central Petrovsky district. But it also claimed that multiple launch rockets had been used.

Meanwhile on Friday, Ukraine said that Russian strikes killed more than 20 people in the central city of Uman.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reiterated the country's call for F-16 fighter jet training from allies in a meeting with foreign ministers from eight countries Thursday.

Kuleba, during a joint news conference at the summit in Odesa, asked allies "to make every effort to speed up the decision to start training Ukrainian pilots on such aircraft."

Getting military training on how to maneuver the aircraft could be the first step in the country gaining access to the jets, Kuleba said.

Foreign ministers from Latvia, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and Finland attended the joint meeting.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, emphasized the need for advanced military equipment and pointed to the death toll in Friday's strike in Uman, which killed at least 22 people, including three children.

"Every day that the decision to supply Ukraine with modern combat aircraft is delayed means delaying the end of the war," he said in a tweet.

Some context: Ukraine has long lobbied for the US and other Western allies to send the country F-16s to help stunt Russia's invasion, but the fighter jets are sophisticated and can take months to learn how to fly.

The US and other Western allies have been skeptical of providing the jets to Ukraine. Russia has extensive anti-aircraft systems that could easily shoot the planes down, and some officials warn providing such equipment could be seen as provoking Russia.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand and Alex Marquardt contributed to this report.

Rescue and recovery efforts are underway following overnight Russian strikes on residential buildings in the central city of Uman, Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities said in an update that at least 22 people were killed.  

A CNN team at the site of the attacks witnessed the partial collapse of the floors of one apartment building, where firefighters were set to lower themselves from a top floor into the rubble in an effort to recover bodies that may be buried in the debris. Neighbors in the surrounding area said the building housed families with young children, some of whom remained missing following the strike.

Watch the report here:

France has condemned “in the strongest terms the renewed strikes carried out last night by Russia on Ukrainian territory, particularly in the regions of Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement Friday.

The statement highlighted Russia's deliberate targeting of residential buildings in the central city of Uman, which “resulted in a heavy toll of civilian casualties, including children.”

According to the latest update from the Ukrainian interior ministry on Friday, twenty people were killed in the missile strike in Uman. 

About 23 missiles were launched from Russian aircraft in the Caspian Sea area, along with two drones, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Twenty-one of the missiles were intercepted by Ukrainian air defenses, it said. 

“Such targeting of Ukrainian infrastructure and civilian populations underlines Russia's clear desire to continue escalating its war of aggression in Ukraine,” the ministry said. 

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna stressed they will continue supporting Ukrainian courts and the International Criminal Court “in order to fight against impunity” for Russian war crimes.

At least 20 people are confirmed dead in a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Uman on Friday according to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry.

“Another body was pulled out of the rubble. As of 17:00 (10 a.m. ET), we have 20 dead,” it said.

A CNN team at the site of the attack saw bodies being taken from the apartment building’s basement in Uman, a city located in Cherkasy. Two rockets hit three high-rise buildings, which included residential buildings and a warehouse.

According to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko, there were 46 apartments inside the building that was hit, 27 of which were completely destroyed. He said it may take a day to clear all the rubble.

The strike – by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile – is thought to have caused the highest number of civilian casualties in a single incident since a missile struck an apartment block in Dnipro in January.

Here are some photos showing the aftermath of Russia's latest round of missile strikes in the Ukrainian city of Uman.

CNN's Julia Kesaieva, Nic Robertson, AnneClaire Stapleton, Olga Voitovych, Josh Pennington and Maria Avdeeva contributed to this report.

Russia launched a barrage of long-range cruise missiles at Ukraine in the early hours of Friday morning, according to Ukrainian officials. 

At around 4 a.m. local time (9 p.m. ET), 23 missiles were launched from Russian aircraft in the Caspian Sea area, along with two drones, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Twenty-one of the missiles were intercepted by Ukrainian air defenses, it said. 

But missiles did hit the central Ukrainian cities of Uman, in the Cherkasy region south of Kyiv, and Dnipro.

Uman: Officials say the death toll in Uman stands at 20, including three children. At least 18 people have been wounded. 

According to Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko, there were 46 apartments inside one of the buildings that were hit, of which 27 were completely destroyed. He said it may take a day to clear all the rubble.

Emergency workers at the site "have almost finished clearing the ground floor [of the building]" and will continue combing the building, according to Yulia Norovkova, a press officer for the Cherkasy region state emergency service. 

CNN also spoke to a local woman, Liuda, whose friend lived on the eighth floor. When she heard the building had been hit, Liuda rushed there to find that her friend had survived, but her friend’s husband had been hospitalized and their two daughters, aged 7 and 13, were still missing. 

Some context: The strike – by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile – is thought to have caused the highest number of civilian casualties in a single incident since a missile struck an apartment block in Dnipro in January.

Dnipro: Ukrainian authorities have given more details about a 31-year-old woman who died, along with her 2-year-old child, after a Russian missile strike on the city of Dnipro on Friday morning.

Serhii Lysak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said the woman had moved to her parents' house due to the war.

The woman’s parents are both hospitalized, Lysak said.  

CNN's Nic Robertson and Julia Kesaieva contributed to this post.

The presidents of the Czech Republic and Slovakia visited Ukraine on Friday, their first joint visit abroad, Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová said in a tweet on Friday.

Čaputová said the visit is intended to bring "a message of friendship, solidarity & support," noting that the three countries "share parts of common history."

Czech Republic President Petr Pavel also confirmed the visit on Twitter, saying that he and Čaputová "both value freedom and justice."

The Czech president shared a picture of himself shaking hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and said he would push for accession talks with the European Union to start for Ukraine by the end of the year.

He said EU and NATO membership for Ukraine "is not a question of if, but when."

The Czech president also tweeted pictures of him visiting Bucha, the Kyiv suburb that was under Russian occupation for over a month last year and has since become synonymous with Russian atrocities.

Some background on Pavel: He won the Czech Republic’s presidential election in January and took office in March of this year, after a campaign featuring strong backing for NATO and the European Union and support for aid to Ukraine.

A former army chief, Pavel became chairman of NATO’s military committee for three years before retiring in 2018. 

The visit comes after recent tensions between Ukraine and several eastern European states. Slovakia temporarily suspended grain imports from Ukraine earlier this month, following similar moves by Poland and Hungary. Farmers in countries neighboring Ukraine have protested the effects of increased imports of Ukrainian grain in their grain prices, the European Commission said in a statement in March.