What did 18 April 2022 show about Russia's shifting offensive?

What did the war look like on 18 April 2022, nearly two months into the Russian invasion? The day's reports pointed in several directions at once: a new offensive in the east, missile strikes far from the front, an ultimatum at Mariupol still unanswered, and an administrative step in occupied Kherson.

The east: Kreminna falls

Russian troops captured the city of Kreminna in Luhansk Oblast on 18 April 2022, during what was described as a new offensive in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said the city had been levelled. Russian artillery shelling was reported to have begun overnight on Sunday and continued into Monday. Local authorities said four refugees were shot dead while trying to escape the city, and the reports on the shelling also put the civilian death toll at four.

The capture fits the pattern set out in the day's reporting: the fighting was concentrated on the eastern front, and civilians were exposed to both bombardment and the dangers of leaving.

Strikes beyond the front

Russia's defence ministry said its forces had destroyed 16 Ukrainian military facilities overnight in what it called mass strikes. It listed five command posts, a fuel depot and three ammunition warehouses. It also claimed to have shot down two Ukrainian MiG-29s and one Su-25. These were Russian claims, made by the ministry itself.

In Lviv, a Russian missile strike killed at least seven people and wounded 11, according to the head of the regional military administration, Maksym Kozytskyi. He said the missiles hit three military targets, while a fourth struck a tyre-fitting workshop. A day earlier, on 17 April, six people had been reported killed in missile strikes on Lviv. Russian air strikes on Kyiv had been reported on 16 April, and a missile strike on Kharkiv the same day killed one person.

Taken together, these reports show attacks reaching the western city of Lviv and the capital as well as the eastern cities.

Mariupol: an ultimatum ignored

The situation in Mariupol framed the days around 18 April. On 17 April, most of the Ukrainian soldiers remaining in the besieged city, along with what was described as a large group of civilians, had taken shelter inside the Azovstal iron and steel works as Russian forces advanced. Russia issued a surrender-or-die ultimatum, demanding that troops at the plant lay down their arms by 6 a.m. Moscow time and evacuate by 1 p.m. Ukrainian forces did not respond, and the defenders of the port ignored the demand.

Kherson: an occupation appointment

On 18 April 2022, Igor Kastyukevich was appointed the de facto mayor of Kherson. The city was the only Ukrainian oblast capital captured during the invasion. The appointment was an administrative step under Russian control rather than a battlefield event, but it showed an effort to organise authority in the occupied city.

Two other signals

Two earlier reports added a different tone. On 16 April it was reported that Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich had visited Kyiv in an effort to revive peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. And on 17 April the Polish Border Guard said that, for the first time since the invasion began, more Ukrainians had entered Ukraine from Poland than left it.

What the day tells us

The reports from 18 April 2022 show a war being fought on several levels. In the east, Russian forces took a city and civilians died trying to flee. In the west, a missile strike on Lviv killed at least seven people. In Mariupol, defenders held out against an ultimatum. In Kherson, an occupation figure was installed. Alongside this, reports of a peace-seeking visit and of a reversal in border crossings from Poland were part of the same picture, though the fighting dominated the day.