Published on: 04/22/2022 – 06:40 While the strategic port of Mariupol, which Moscow claims to have “liberated”, is still resisting Russian forces, according to kyiv, the Ukrainian president accused Thursday evening Russia of seeking to organize a fake independence referendum in the regions of Kherson and Zaporozhe that it occupies in the south of the country. Follow our live. 3:23 a.m.: Germany to donate 37 million euros for Ukraine reconstruction Germany is to donate an additional 37 million euros to Ukraine to help with its post-war reconstruction, German newspaper Augsburger reported on Friday Allgemeine citing sources from the German Development Ministry. About 22.5 million euros will be spent on rebuilding the Ukrainian electricity network and 14.4 million euros will be for the reconstruction of apartments attacked by Russian forces and to the purchase of medical equipment, according to the newspaper. “My ministry has reallocated funds for this purpose via an emergency programme,” Development Minister Svenja Schulze said. 3 a.m.: Ukraine accuses Russia of planning fake referendum in Kherson and Zaporizhia Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of seeking to organize a fake independence referendum in the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia it occupies in the south of the country. In a video message on Thursday evening, Volodymyr Zelensky asked residents of the occupied areas not to provide any personal data, such as their passport numbers, that the Russian forces would ask them. “It is not fair to carry out a census. (…) It is not to give you humanitarian aid of any kind. It is in fact to falsify a so-called referendum on your land, if the order to organize this comedy is coming from Moscow”, warned the Ukrainian president. 1:11 a.m.: Lives of residents trapped in Mariupol are in Putin’s hands, says mayor “It’s important to understand that the lives of the people who are still there are in the hands of one person, Vladimir Putin. He will also have on his hands the blood of all the people who will die from now on,” Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boichenko said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. The Russian president said the port city on the banks of the of the Sea of Azov had been “liberated”, although several hundred Ukrainian fighters remained entrenched in the Azovstal steelworks. “It’s not a liberation that was planned, it’s a destruction,” said Vadim Boïtchenko, estimating that 90% of Mariupol had been damaged or destroyed since the start of the Russian invasion. 12:18 a.m.: Bodies exhumed at ‘atrocities’ investigation center Makeshift graves found near a hospital in the devastated town of Borodianka, near kyiv, have revealed their secrets to experts investigating allegations of war crimes against Russian troops. Authorities said nine civilian corpses, many of them shot, had been exhumed from these graves. Investigators have collected more than 1,000 civilian bodies from streets, courtyards or improvised graves around the capital. Ukrainian soldiers, some of whom had their hands and feet tied or gunshot wounds to the back of the neck, officials said on Thursday. region of kyiv, described as “atrocities” committed following the invasion of Russian troops, who were subsequently forced to withdraw from the region. With AFP and Reuters