Top news stories about the Russia-Ukraine war on Russia's Channel One on Monday, May 2, 2022.

By Madeline Roache and Jonathan Campion

What follows is NewsGuard’s summary and translation of top news stories from Russia’s state TV Channel One. NewsGuard presents these stories in the order that they appear on the program. NewsGuard shares this summary as part of our mission to monitor and report all categories of misinformation, including Russian disinformation. Please note that these summaries of Russian state TV broadcasts may well contain falsehoods or propaganda, and NewsGuard does not vet them for accuracy or balance.

In the Donetsk People’s Republic the Ukrainian army is firing on towns and settlements 

In the Donetsk People’s Republic, there are reports that three peaceful civilians have died in the last 24 hours from shooting by Ukrainian soldiers. Last night, Donetsk itself came under fire — the Ukrainian army attacked two of the city’s neighborhoods, including with the use of Grad missiles. Shells were also fired in the direction of Gorlovka — dozens of shots from an air defense missile system — and Yasinovataya.

In the Lugansk People’s Republic, there are reports that fighters from the national police force have evacuated 40 peaceful civilians from the town of Popasnaya, who the Ukrainians had been using as human shields. Some of the people had been wounded — they are all being given medical treatment. According to information from the Lugansk People’s Republic, the nationalists are now in the north-west part of the town, where they have set up firing positions in residential buildings.

The Russian Defense Ministry has shown footage of its Iskander missile system destroying a Ukrainian Smerch rocket launcher 

The Russian Defense Ministry has released new footage showing the Iskander-M missile system in action. In it, a crew is preparing to hit a battery of Smerch multiple-launch rocket systems belonging to the Ukrainian army. Their positions have been calculated by our intelligence. The Russian fighters launch an almost four-ton missile; the target is hundreds of kilometers away.

The strike is made directly at the target point. The task is accomplished. Russia’s Iskander systems have already destroyed dozens of the Ukrainian armed forces’ strategic facilities, including arms depots, fuel and lubricants, command posts, and troops headquarters.

Odessa remembers the victims of a tragedy at a trade union building 

It is a dark day in the history of Ukraine. Odessa is remembering those who died in a tragedy at the city’s trade union building. The guilty parties have still not been punished: in fact they are doing all they can to blame their victims for these harrowing events. In 2014, radicals carried out bloodshed among people who didn’t support the regime change in Kiev. The radical fighters booby-trapped the trade union building with explosives.

Oksana Didenko, whose husband was injured in the tragedy in 2014, said: ‘We understood that it wasn’t possible to stay [in Odessa]. It was too dangerous, for our children, for him… it was dangerous for all of our family. So the decision was made to leave.”

Russia demands that Kiev orders the neo-Nazis who have taken over the Azovstal steelworks to release people and stop fighting

The radicals are keeping peaceful civilians hostage underground, using children as human shields. Russia demands that Kiev orders the neo-Nazis who have taken over the Azovstal steelworks to release people and stop fighting. The head of our Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov spoke about this in an interview with the Italian television outlet Mediaset.

The situation in Ukraine was expectedly the main topic of conversation. The minister reminded us that the West had been trying to divide Moscow and Kiev long before 2014. It encouraged the Ukrainian authorities’ persecution of the Russian-speaking population, our media and church, and endorsed laws to promote Nazism.

Mr. Lavrov said that Russia has launched a special operation to protect the people of Donbass, while Ukraine is attacking with impunity its own citizens who disagree with its criminal policies.

Lavrov said: ‘The Tochka-U missile strikes in recent weeks have targeted the center of Donetsk, the passenger railway station in Kramatorsk, and a number of other locations, including Kherson. These attacks are clearly aimed at terrorizing the civilian population and preventing the inhabitants of these regions from deciding their own fate. The vast majority of people there are tired of the oppression they have suffered all these years from the regime in Kiev, which is becoming increasingly influential now that it is supported by neo-Nazis, the USA, and their closest allies. Those who came to power as a result of this bloody coup have started a war against their own people, after they had started a war against everything Russian: banning the Russian language, Russian education, and Russian mass media.” 

Lavrov stressed that was that the USA and Canada were actively training neo-Nazi units, which have joined the ranks of the regular Ukrainian army.

In Melitopol, liberated from nationalists, symbols of the Great Victory are being restored 

Thanks to Russian troops, peace is returning to Melitopol. The town is now under our protection, and people can once again honor the memory of their heroes and forefathers, whose heroism Kiev is now doing everything it can to erase. Soon they will be celebrating May 9th in Melitopol again — an important day for many in the town, but an occasion that was forbidden there for many long years. 

Vladimir Kapitonov, a World War Two veteran, said: “This [Soviet] flag is the flag of victory for all our nations. We lived as friends, and we will live as friends again. We all fought against fascism together.”