May 1, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is working with the United Nations in an ongoing operation to move people out of Mariupol and the besieged Azovstal steel plant, the ICRC said in a statement. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed in a tweet on Sunday that the "Evacuation of civilians from Azovstal began."

"The 1st group of about 100 people is already heading to the controlled area," he added.

Mariupol's city council said Sunday there was a "chance" to evacuate civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol.

The Council urged people to gather at 4 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET) near a shopping center called "Port City" in order to evacuate them to the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.

"If you have relatives or acquaintances in Mariupol, try to contact them by all ways. Call, text and say that it is possible to go to Zaporozhzhia, where it is safe," the Council said on Telegram.

"We pray that everything works," it added.

A local Telegram channel said earlier that through 3 p.m. local time, a "green corridor" would be open for citizens wishing to enter territory "controlled by the enemy in the Kamensky district."

There are about 100,000 people still in Mariupol, even though most of the city has been severely damaged by weeks of shelling and airstrikes by Russian forces.

Ukrainian officials have been giving more details on the evacuation of civilians who had been trapped at the Azovstal steep plant. 

David Arakhamia, an advisor to President Zelensky, said: "Today is the third day of a special operation we call "Azovstal evacuation." Since the beginning of the war, since the beginning of the blockade of Azovstal, we have managed to withdraw more than 100 civilians - small children, women and the elderly."

Iryna Vereshchuk, deputy prime minister, said on Ukrainian television: "Sorry, we were silent. We really wanted everything to work out. Our silence was in order for people to come out alive and unharmed. More than 100 people have been evacuated, and the evacuation continues. All this happened thanks to the control of the President of Ukraine Zelensky, Antonio Guterres, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, for which we are very, very grateful."

Some more context: Mariupol is home to the Azovstal steel plant, which has been subjected to heavy Russian bombardment in recent weeks. Hundreds of people, dozens of whom are injured, are thought to be inside the steel-making complex.

The Russian news agency TASS says that according to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, 80 civilians have now been rescued from the “territory” of the Azovstal plant and evacuated to a Russian controlled compound a few miles away 

It’s unclear whether any of them came from within the plant itself, where hundreds of civilians have been under a weeks-long bombardment. 

"Civilians evacuated by Russian servicemen from the Azovstal plant, who wished to leave for areas controlled by the Kiev regime, were handed over to representatives of the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross," the ministry said. 

The report followed comments from a Ukrainian commander inside the plant who said some civilians have been evacuated from the steel works after the introduction of a ceasefire.

It was hoped that these civilians, all women and children, would go to the "agreed destination" of Zaporizhzhia, Capt. Svyatoslav Palamar said.

CNN's Kostan Nechyporenko contributed to this report.

Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed confidence on Sunday that a new aid package for Ukraine could pass in Congress relatively quickly.

"I think time is of the essence," he told ABC's "This Week," adding that he believes the next two to three weeks are going to be "very pivotal" in Russia's war on Ukraine.

The Texas Republican said he wished Congress had been presented even earlier with the $33 billion supplemental funding bill for Ukraine aid that President Biden outlined last week.

"I don't think we have a lot of time to waste in Congress. I wish we'd had this a little bit sooner, but we have it now," he said, telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos that if it were up to him, he would call the House back from recess this week to pass the aid legislation.

On Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led an official congressional delegation to Kyiv, where the group discussed humanitarian and financial assistance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"Every day we don't send [Ukraine] more weapons is a day where more people will be killed and a day where they could lose this war. I think they can win it. But we have to give them the tools to do it," he explained.

Pressed on the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin may resort to using nuclear weapons, McCaul answered "that's always a concern."

He said he thinks Russia's potential use of a chemical weapon or tactical nuclear weapon would be "beyond the pale" and "crosses a red line."

If that happens, he said, the US and allies would have to respond "in kind."

On the Senate side, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez told Fox that they could take up the bill "either this week or next."

"Either this week, or the next of course, if there is consensus, if there is an agreement, as you know, anything can go through the Senate through unanimous consent," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "If somehow there is a desire to start picking it apart or having amendments to it, it could last longer, but time is of the essence."

Two lions that were trapped at the zoo in Kharkiv as fighting raged in the region have begun a new life hundreds of miles away in the zoo at Odesa.

The manager of Odesa zoo, Ihor Beliakov, said he and his deputy had driven to Kharkiv to collect the lions.

They drove all night to get to Kharkiv, loaded the lions into their van at 7 a.m. and then drove all the way back to Odesa — an 18-hour trip as they avoided the frontlines.

"The lions were silent during the trip. There were no incidents on the way, we were not shelled, nothing like that," Beliakov said. 

They only had to refuel once, and perhaps unsurprisingly there were no lines. 

The lions are now recovering in Odesa.

They have been renamed after characters in " The Lion King" — Mufasa and Nala. 

Beliakov said the workers at the Kharkiv Eco-Park were heroes for getting so many of the animals there to safety. 

Ukrainian Ambassador to the US Oksana Markarova said Sunday the recent visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Kyiv was "symbolic" and that Ukraine looks forward to the approval by the US Congress of a $33 billion supplemental funding bill aimed at supporting Ukraine over the next several months.

"We need all the assistance we can get in defensive weapons, in military support, in financial support but also in humanitarian support," Markarova said in an interview with ABC's "This Week." "We look forward to Congress approving it" and "we count on the US in this," she said.

Markarova reiterated Kyiv's position that "for us there is no question Ukraine will win" the war with Russia, adding "the question is how many brave Ukrainians we will lose."

On Saturday, Pelosi led the first official US congressional delegation to Ukraine since Russia's invasion began. 

The prosecutor general of Ukraine said her office is opening new cases of alleged war crimes by Russian forces, with a total of 9,158 criminal cases "involving purely war crimes."

"We have already identified specific war criminals," said Iryna Venedictova. "There are 15 people in the Kyiv region for instance, 10 of them in Bucha. We are holding them accountable for torture, rape, and looting."

Ukrainian prosecutors named ten Russian soldiers last week as suspected of a variety of crimes in Bucha.

On the identification of victims in Bucha, Venedictova said that some bodies cannot be identified and DNA samples are collected.

"Unfortunately, we have grounds to open new cases every day: the death of civilians, bombing, deportation of our citizens and children to the occupied territories and to the territory of the aggressor state, etc," she said.

She said the cases covered the regions of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy.

Venedictova added that Ukraine was receiving international assistance in its investigations.

"Now we have a team of French experts, and experts from Slovakia. We are waiting for the experts from Lithuania next Tuesday," she said.

In a signal that the United States is stepping up its support for Ukraine, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Kyiv with a congressional delegation on Saturday, becoming the most high-level American official to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky since the war began more than two months ago.

The visit was kept under wraps until Pelosi and other Democratic lawmakers returned to Poland, where they held a press conference on Sunday and pledged to "stand with Ukraine until victory is won."

But there was no sign of a détente over the weekend, as fighting continued to rage on the front line in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military said on Sunday that Russia was reinforcing its two-week-old offensive in the country's industrial heartland, pouring in more weapons and military equipment.

Here are some other developments:

There is a "chance" to evacuate civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol on Sunday, Mariupol's city council has announced.

It urges people to gather at 4 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET) near a shopping center called "Port City" in order to evacuate them to the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.

"If you have relatives or acquaintances in Mariupol, try to contact them by all ways. Call, text and say that it is possible to go to Zaporozhzhia, where it is safe," the Council said on Telegram.

"We pray that everything works," it added.

A local telegram channel said earlier that through 3 p.m. local time a "green corridor" would be open for citizens wishing to enter territory "controlled by the enemy in the Kamensky district."

There are about 100,000 people still in Mariupol, even though most of the city has been severely damaged by weeks of shelling and airstrikes by Russian forces.

Some context: Mariupol is home to the Azovstal steel plant, which has been subjected to heavy Russian bombardment in recent weeks. Hundreds of people, dozens of whom are injured, are thought to be inside the steel-making complex.

Earlier Sunday, Russian state news agencies said that 46 civilians had been evacuated from the vicinity of the plant, quoting the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Their reports followed comments from a a Ukrainian commander inside the plant who said some civilians have been evacuated from the steel works after the introduction of a ceasefire.

It was hoped that these civilians, all women and children, would go to the "agreed destination" of Zaporizhzhia, Capt. Svyatoslav Palamar said.

As hundreds of evacuees arrived overnight at a processing center for internally displaced persons in the southern city of Kryvyi Rih, for one family it was an all-too-familiar experience.

For the second time in eight years, a Ukrainian family had been forced to flee their home, they told CNN.

Having lost their home in Crimea when Russia captured and annexed the territory in 2014, they moved north to Kherson.

Yet when Kherson was taken by Russia in the first week of March, the family were once again forced to abandon their home and flee north, this time to Kryvyi Rih.

They joined the 500 evacuees who arrived overnight at the city's Narodnyi Dim processing center, a CNN team was told.

The center has been open and supporting evacuees since the start of the war, with around 50,000 people registering and transiting through, said the center's acting head Natalya Patrusheva.

Spread over two floors, neat racks of clothes hold everything from small items for babies to clothing for adults. The CNN team saw boxes of food and other basic supplies piled up against the walls.

After being processed, evacuees are assisted by volunteers. Some evacuees move on by train to Lviv, in the far west of Ukraine, while others travel on by bus to cities such as Odesa, Vinnytsia, and Khmelnytskyi.

Some context: Over 7.7 million people are internally displaced in Ukraine after being forced to flee their homes by Russia's invasion, according to a report by the International Organization for Migration published last month.

According to the third Ukraine Internal Displacement Report, published April 21, the number of internally displaced people in Ukraine has risen to at least 17.5% – or more than one in six – of Ukraine’s pre-war population.

With more than 5 million refugees having left Ukraine for neighboring countries, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a total of at least 12.7 million people have been left displaced since the beginning of the Russian invasion in late February.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she traveled to Kyiv on Saturday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and send "a clear message to the world that America stands with Ukraine."

Pelosi led the first official US congressional delegation to visit the country since Russia's invasion began more than two months ago.

"America stands with Ukraine, we stand with Ukraine until victory is won, and we stand with NATO," Pelosi told reporters in Rzeszow, Poland, after leaving Ukraine.

Pelosi said that she and Zelensky discussed humanitarian and financial assistance during her visit, which lasted just over three hours. She said it was "a great honor" to meet with Zelensky and "to convey to him a message of unity from the US Congress and a message of appreciation." 

US President Joe Biden told reporters late Sunday morning that he had yet to speak with the Speaker about her trip.