Belarus Cites Need for Russian Security Guarantee 

latest developments:

• Two people were killed in Zaporizhia after a Russian airstrike on a residential building in the city of southeastern Ukraine.
• In his Easter Sunday message, Pope Francis prayed for both the Ukrainian and Russian peoples. He also praised the countries helping the refugees.
• Ukrainian photographer Turns war-ravaged bodies into works of art.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday that his country needed security guarantees from Russia, according to state broadcaster BelTA.

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The remarks came as Lukashenko hosted Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

According to BelTA, Lukashenko cited his conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, saying that the two leaders discussed the need to protect Belarus “as its own territory” if Russia sided with Belarus. There was “aggression”.

Putin drew criticism last month when he announced that Russia would deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Russian forces also used Belarus as a staging area to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, with the two allies insisting they were only conducting military exercises and planning an attack on Ukraine. There was no plan.

The Ukrainian military reported on Sunday that two Ukraine provinces – Kharkiv in the northeast and Zaporizhia in the southeast – had been hit by Russian missiles, rockets and artillery fire.

The governor of the Kherson region, Alexander Prokudin, said Russian warplanes hit two communities late Sunday, but he said there were no immediate reports of casualties, according to The Associated Press.

Kharkiv Governor Oleh Sinihubov said two people were killed on Sunday in shelling in Kupiansk, a city held by Russian forces before it came under control of Ukraine in September last year.

Later on Sunday, Sinihubov said on a telegram that the city was under attack, and Russian forces were targeting residential areas with rocket launchers, the AP reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the Russian airstrike, which coincided with the observance of Orthodox Palm Sunday. Most of Ukraine’s 41 million people are Orthodox Christians who celebrate Easter on 16 April.

“This is how the terrorist state marks Palm Sunday,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address. “Thus Russia isolates itself even more from the world.”

Some of the content in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.