Ukraine Report: Moscow threatens to intensify attacks

Explosions rumbled and smoke rose this week from a steel-making district in besieged Mariupol where dwindling Ukrainian forces are holed up as Russia tries to take full control of its biggest city yet.

Russia's defense ministry also warned it will intensify attacks on Kyiv in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian soil, after accusing Ukraine of targeting Russian border towns.

Here are more of the biggest stories - and what you may have missed - on day 51 of the war in Ukraine.

To read the previous i24NEWS report providing a recap on day 50 of the Ukraine war, click here.

Ukrainian authorities find over 900 executed civilians near Kyiv 

Ukrainian authorities said on Friday they found the bodies of over 900 civilians in the Kyiv region following Russia’s withdrawal, with indications that most were shot execution style. 

Kyiv police chief Andriy Nebytov said bodies were abandoned in the streets or placed in shallow graves. Some 95% of the victims died from gunshot wounds inflicted with small arms.

More bodies are being found every day, under rubble and in mass graves, he added. The largest number of victims were found in Bucha, where there were more than 350, he said.

Five million flee Ukraine 

More than five million people have now fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion on February 24, the United Nations says.

The UN's refugee agency lists 4,796,245 million Ukrainians who have crossed the borders, while its International Organization for Migration says nearly 215,000 third-country nationals have also left. - AFP

Russia threatens Kyiv

Russian officials accused Ukraine of sending two helicopters into Russia to bomb a town in the southern Bryansk region, wounding seven people including a toddler. Ukraine denied the accusations.

"The number and scale of missile strikes against targets in Kyiv will increase in response to any terrorist attacks or sabotage committed by the Kyiv nationalist regime on Russian territory," Russia's Defense Ministry said.

Russia hit a "military" factory outside Kyiv late Thursday using Kalibr sea-based long-range missiles, it added.

'Polish mercenaries' killed

Russia's Defense Ministry said that it killed up to 30 Polish mercenaries fighting for Ukrainian forces in the country's northeastern region of Kharkiv.

Its strategic rocket forces "eliminated up to 30 Polish mercenaries" in a strike on the village of Izyumskoe, not far from the city of Kharkiv, it said.

Ten killed in east

Ukraine said that Russian strikes killed ten people in the east of the country after President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow's forces were aiming to "destroy" the region.

Two people were killed and two more wounded in the eastern Lugansk region while another three were killed and seven wounded in the neighboring Donetsk region, the Kyiv presidency said.

Ukraine says swapped captured soldiers with Russia

Ukraine said Friday it swapped several captured soldiers with Russia in the south of the war-scarred country, where Moscow's invading forces have solidified their greatest gains.

"After tense negotiations, we managed to reach agreements on a prisoner exchange near the village of Posad-Pokrovskoye, where four Russian military personnel were exchanged for our five," Ukraine's Defense Ministry said.