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Ukrainian officials: Russian strikes kill at least 7 in Lviv
Russian forces launched missile attacks on the western city of Lviv and pounded other targets across Ukraine on Monday in an intensified bid to wear down the country’s defenses ahead of an all-out assault on the east.
At least seven people were reported killed in Lviv, where plumes of thick black smoke rose over a city that had become a relative haven for people fleeing intense fighting farther east during almost two months of war.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, meanwhile, vowed to “fight absolutely to the end” in strategically vital Mariupol, where the last known pocket of resistance in the seven-week siege consisted of Ukrainian fighters holed up in a sprawling steel plant laced with tunnels. The holdouts ignored a surrender-or-die ultimatum from the Russians on Sunday.
The governor of the Lviv region, Maksym Kozytskyy, said the Russian missile strikes hit three military infrastructure facilities and an auto mechanic shop. He said the wounded included a child, and emergency teams battled fires caused by the attack.
A hotel sheltering Ukrainians who had fled fighting in other parts of the country was among the buildings badly damaged, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.
READ: Russia strikes Ukraine's big cities, bears down on Mariupol
“The nightmare of war has caught up with us even in Lviv," said Lyudmila Turchak, 47, who fled with two children from the eastern city of Kharkiv. "There is no longer anywhere in Ukraine where we can feel safe.”
A powerful explosion also rocked Vasylkiv, a town south of the capital of Kyiv that is home to a military airbase, according to residents. It was not immediately clear what was hit.
Military analysts say Russia is increasing its strikes on weapons factories, railways and other infrastructure targets across Ukraine to wear down the country’s ability to resist a major ground offensive in the Donbas, Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking eastern industrial heartland.
The Russian military said its missiles struck more than 20 military targets in eastern and central Ukraine in the past day — including ammunition depots, command headquarters and groups of troops and vehicles. It claimed artillery hit an additional 315 Ukrainian targets, and warplanes conducted 108 strikes on Ukrainian troops and military equipment. The claims could not be independently verified.
Gen. Richard Dannatt, a former head of the British Army, told Sky News the strikes were part of a “softening-up” campaign by Russia ahead of a planned ground offensive in the Donbas.
Ukraine’s government halted civilian evacuations for a second day on Monday, saying Russian forces were shelling and blocking the humanitarian corridors.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Ukraine had been negotiating passage from cities and towns in eastern and southeastern Ukraine, including Mariupol and other areas in the Donbas. The government of the Luhansk region in the Donbas said four civilians trying to flee were shot and killed by Russian forces.
Vereshchuk said Russia could be prosecuted for war crimes over its refusal to allow civilians to leave Mariupol.
“Your refusal to open these humanitarian corridors will in the future be a reason to prosecute all involved for war crimes,” she wrote on social media.
The Russians, in turn, accused “neo-Nazi nationalists” in Mariupol of hampering the evacuation.
Russia is bent on capturing the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists already control some territory, after its attempt to take the capital failed.
“We are doing everything to ensure the defense” of eastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation on Sunday.
The looming offensive in the east, if successful, would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a badly needed victory to point to amid the war’s mounting casualties and the economic hardship caused by Western sanctions.
The capture of Mariupol is seen as a key step in preparations for any eastern assault since it would free Russian troops up for that new campaign. The fall of the city on the Sea of Azov would also hand Russia its biggest military victory of the war, giving it full control of a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014, and depriving Ukraine of a major port and prized industrial assets.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar has described Mariupol as a “shield defending Ukraine."
The city has been reduced to rubble in the siege, but a few thousand fighters, by Russia's estimate, are holding on to the giant, 11-square-kilometer (4-square-mile) Azovstal steel mill.
The relentless bombardment of Mariupol — including at a maternity hospital and a theater where civilians were sheltering — along with street fighting have killed at least 21,000 people, by Ukrainian estimates. An estimated 100,000 people remain in the city out of a prewar population of 450,000, trapped without food, water, heat or electricity.
A pro-Russian Ukrainian politician who was arrested last week on a treason charge appeared in a video offering himself in exchange for the evacuation of Mariupol’s trapped civilians. Ukraine’s state security services posted the video of Viktor Medvedchuk, the former leader of a pro-Russian opposition party with personal ties to Putin.
It was not clear whether Medvedchuk was speaking under duress.
The eastern city of Kharkiv was hit by shelling on Monday that killed at least three people and wounded three others, according to AP journalists on the scene. One of the dead was a woman who appeared to be going out to collect water in the rain. She was found lying with a water canister and umbrella by her side.
Putin repeated his insistence that the Western sanctions “blitz” against Russia had failed.
The Russian leader said the West had not managed to “provoke panic in the markets, the collapse of the banking system and shortages in stores,” though he acknowledged a sharp increase in consumer prices in Russia, saying they rose by 17.5%.
Japan, Switzerland agree to keep tough sanctions on Russia
Swiss President Ignazio Cassis said Monday his country has joined the international community in implementing tough sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, but that does not mean it has abandoned its traditional neutrality.
Cassis and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed in talks in Tokyo that Russia must be held accountable for attacks on Ukrainian civilians, Japan's Foreign Ministry said.
Kishida, in opening remarks at their meeting, said Russia’s invasion undermines the foundation of the international order not only in Europe but also in Asia. “Now is the time for the international society to unite more than ever,” he said.
Cassis, who is also foreign minister, said at a separate news conference that Switzerland strongly denounces war and urged Russia to immediately halt its invasion.
Also read: Russia strikes Ukraine's big cities, bears down on Mariupol
He said Switzerland, which does not belong to the European Union, fully backs EU sanctions against Russia and implemented a fifth round of measures last week. But that does not mean his country has abandoned its policy of neutrality, he said.
“Supplies of war material would not be compatible with neutrality. Participation in military alliances would not be compatible with neutrality. Using one’s own territory to transport or fly over war material to war would be incompatible with neutrality. On the other hand, condemning any action that strongly violates our values, which are in the constitution, that is compatible with neutrality,” he said through a translator.
Japan also was quick in joining the United States and European Union in imposing sanctions against Russia because Tokyo fears the impact of its invasion on East Asia, where China has been increasingly pushing its own territorial claims.
Also read: Riots in Sweden against far-right group leave 3 injured
Japan has frozen the assets of hundreds of Russian individuals and groups and banned new investment and trade, including exports of goods that could be used for military purposes. Japan also announced plans to phase out imports of Russian coal.
Cassis told reporters that he understood through his talks with Japanese officials about Japan's harsh security environment. Japan is a neighbor of Russia and also faces the threat of North Korea’s missile and nuclear development, tensions with China and disputes over history with South Korea.
Is Ukrainian a language or a dialect? That depends on whom you ask and how the war ends
(THE CONVERSATION) Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the number of people studying Ukrainian on Duolingo, a language learning website and mobile app, has increased by more than 500%.
Most of those who are taking up Ukrainian are probably unaware that there is a long-running controversy about this particular form of speech. One side views Russians and Ukrainians as “one people,” and the opposing side does not.
The former claim that Ukrainian is just a dialect of Russian, while the latter argue that it is a separate language. Who’s correct?
Unfortunately, there isn’t a clear answer. The difference between a language and a dialect depends upon whom you ask.
The linguistics angle
Many linguists base their determination of language-or-dialect on whether forms of speech are mutually understandable. In simple terms, if two people are speaking different dialects of the same language, they can probably understand each other. However, if two people are speaking separate languages, they probably won’t be able to understand each other.
By this definition, Czech and Slovak could be viewed as dialects of the same language. The same goes for Indonesian and Malay.
Some spoken forms look quite different when pen is put to paper. For instance, Serbian is written with a variation of the Cyrillic alphabet, like Russian, while Croatian uses a form of the Latin alphabet, like English. Nonetheless, many linguists would consider Serbian and Croatian to be dialects of the same language, because it’s the understandability of spoken forms that generally counts.
READ: Russia strikes Ukraine's big cities, bears down on Mariupol
Humans have been talking for a very long time, but we’ve only been writing things down for a few millennia. Plus, of the roughly 7,000 known living languages only about 4,000 have a writing system.
Politics says something different
For political scientists, the difference between a language and a dialect is not based on mutual understandability, but rather politics. For example, Hindi and Urdu are separate languages because the governments of India and Pakistan say they are, even though the colloquially spoken forms of the two varieties are strikingly similar.
Max Weinreich, a Yiddish scholar, popularized the idea that “a language is a dialect with an army and navy.” In other words, a government can promote the view that a dialect is a separate language even if it isn’t in linguistic terms.
Moldova, for instance, argues that Moldovan is a separate language, even though it is nearly identical to Romanian. Although Romania has gotten upset about such linguistic rebranding, according to Article 13 of the Moldovan Constitution, the country’s official language is Moldovan, and not Romanian. Thus the two are separate languages – at least politically.
Bestowing official status on a particular spoken form not only encourages its use in government, including the courts, but it also usually means that a spoken form will be taught in schools, thereby ensuring that future generations share a common language – even if it was invented for nationalistic purposes.
Just as a dialect with an army and navy can be considered its own language, a language with an army and a navy can call other languages mere dialects. For example, the official language of the People’s Republic of China is Standard Chinese, which is often shortened to simply “Chinese” and is sometimes – contentiously – referred to as Mandarin. However, this is not the only form of speech that can be heard throughout the country.
Cantonese is widely spoken in and around Hong Kong, yet it is often treated as a dialect of “Chinese.” However, spoken Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually understandable. As such, in linguistic terms, these two forms of speech would not be considered dialects of a single language, but rather separate languages.
In order to strengthen the power of the central government against separatist sentiment, the Chinese government has long promoted a language unification agenda. The intent is both to create a common way of communicating for the country but also to minimize the linguistic and cultural differences that exist among different communities. To help spread the adoption of Standard Chinese, as defined by the government, television and radio professionals are subject to strict requirements and can even be fined for using incorrect pronunciation.
Throughout China, local forms of speech are being phased out as mediums of instruction in schools in favor of Mandarin. Many of these forms are now declining, and some are at risk of going extinct. Such efforts do not necessarily mean that these types of speech aren’t “real languages” in the linguistic sense.
But politically, the difference between a language and a dialect is whatever China says it is. This is even reflected at the international level, as many organizations, such as the United Nations, recognize “Chinese” as being the form of speech standardized and promoted by the Chinese government.
Resolving the conflict
So, is Ukrainian a dialect of Russian or a separate language? Linguistically, Ukrainian and Russian are about as different as French and Portuguese. Although French and Portuguese both descend from Latin, they’ve now diverged enough to make mutual understanding difficult. Similarly, while both Ukrainian and Russian share a common ancestor, their present-day spoken forms are now different enough that there’s a strong linguistic case for them to be considered separate languages.
Politically, however, whether Ukrainian is a dialect or language will, in part, depend upon how the war ends. If Ukraine remains an independent country that considers Ukrainian a separate language – it is a separate language.
If, however, Russia ends up controlling the entirety of Ukraine, thereby finishing the process that it began in 2014 with its annexation of Crimea, then Russia could promote the view that Ukrainian is but a mere dialect of Russian, to reinforce Ukraine’s diminished status as a part of Russia.
In short, not only is Ukraine’s territorial integrity at risk, but so is the independence of a unique and distinct cultural community.
[You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter.]
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/is-ukrainian-a-language-or-a-dialect-that-depends-on-whom-you-ask-and-how-the-war-ends-180849.
Governor: Missiles in western Ukrainian city kill 6
Multiple explosions apparently caused by missiles struck the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early Monday as the country was bracing for an all-out Russian assault in the east. At least six people were killed in the city, which has been spared much of the worst violence in almost two months of war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to “fight absolutely to the end” in strategically vital Mariupol, meanwhile, where the ruined southeastern port city’s last known pocket of resistance was holed up in a sprawling steel plant laced with tunnels.
Plumes of thick, black smoke were rising over Lviv after the explosions, which were witnessed by Associated Press staff. Lviv and the rest of western Ukraine have not been immune but have been less affected by the fighting than other parts of the country and have been considered a relative haven.
Lviv’s regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyy, said six people were killed and another eight, including a child, were wounded by four Russian missile strikes. He said three hit military infrastructure facilities and one struck a tire shop. He said emergency teams were putting out fires caused by the strikes.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi put the toll at six dead and 11 wounded, including one child.
Read: Missiles cause multiple blasts in western Ukrainian's Lviv
Military analysts say Russia is increasing its strikes on weapons factories, railways and other infrastructure targets across Ukraine to wear down the country’s ability to resist a major ground offensive in the Donbas, Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern industrial heartland.
With missiles and rockets battering various parts of the country, Zelenskyy accused Russian soldiers of torture and kidnappings in areas they control.
The fall of Mariupol, which has been reduced to rubble in a seven-week siege, would give Moscow its biggest victory of the war. But a few thousand fighters, by Russia’s estimate, were holding on to the giant, 11-square-kilometer (4-square-mile) Azovstal steel mill.
“We will fight absolutely to the end, to the win, in this war,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal vowed Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” He said Ukraine is prepared to end the war through diplomacy if possible, “but we do not have intention to surrender.”
Many Mariupol civilians, including children, are also sheltering at the Azovstal plant, Mikhail Vershinin, head of the city’s patrol police, told Mariupol television. He said they are hiding from Russian shelling and from Russian soldiers.
Capturing the city on the Sea of Azov would free Russian troops for a new offensive to take control of the Donbas region in Ukraine’s industrial east. Russia also would fully secure a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and it would deprive Ukraine of a major port and prized industrial assets.
Read: `No surrender’: Ukrainians fight on in Mariupol steel plant
Russia is bent on capturing the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists already control some territory, after its attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, failed.
“We are doing everything to ensure the defense” of eastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation.
As for besieged Mariupol, there appeared to be little hope of military rescue. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the remaining Ukrainian troops and civilians there are basically encircled. He said they “continue their struggle,” but that the city effectively doesn’t exist anymore because of massive destruction.
The relentless bombardment and street fighting in Mariupol have killed at least 21,000 people, by Ukrainian estimates. A maternity hospital was hit by a lethal Russian airstrike in the opening weeks of the war, and about 300 people were reported killed in the bombing of a theater where civilians had taken shelter.
An estimated 100,000 people remained in the city out of a prewar population of 450,000, trapped without food, water, heat or electricity.
Drone footage carried by the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti showed mile after mile of shattered buildings and, on the city’s outskirts, the steel complex, from which rose towering plumes of smoke.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar described Mariupol as a “shield defending Ukraine.”
Russian forces, meanwhile, carried out aerial attacks near Kyiv and elsewhere in an apparent effort to weaken Ukraine’s military capacity ahead of the anticipated assault on the Donbas.
Read: Riots in Sweden against far-right group leave 3 injured
After the humiliating sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet last week in what the Ukrainians boasted was a missile attack, the Kremlin had vowed to step up strikes on the capital.
Russia said Sunday that it had attacked an ammunition plant near Kyiv overnight with precision-guided missiles, the third such strike in as many days. Explosions were also reported in Kramatorsk, the eastern city where rockets earlier this month killed at least 57 people at a train station crowded with civilians trying to evacuate ahead of the Russian offensive.
At least five people were killed by Russian shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Sunday, regional officials said. The barrage slammed into apartment buildings. The streets were littered with broken glass and other debris.
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov, in an impassioned address marking Orthodox Palm Sunday, lashed out at Russian forces for not letting up the bombing campaign on such a sacred day.
Zelenskyy called the bombing in Kharkiv “nothing but deliberate terror.”
Zelenskyy also appealed for a stronger response to what he said was the brutality of Russian troops in parts of southern Ukraine.
“Torture chambers are built there,” he said. “They abduct representatives of local governments and anyone deemed visible to local communities.”
He again urged the world to send more weapons and apply tougher sanctions against Moscow.
Malyar, the Ukrainian deputy defense minister, said the Russians were pounding Mariupol with airstrikes and could be preparing for an amphibious landing to reinforce their ground troops.
The looming offensive in the east, if successful, would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a badly needed victory to sell to the Russian people amid the war’s mounting casualties and the economic hardship caused by Western sanctions.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer — who met with Putin in Moscow this past week in a first by a European leader since the invasion Feb. 24 — said the Russian president is “in his own war logic” on Ukraine. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Nehammer said he thinks Putin believes he is winning the war, and “we have to look in his eyes and we have to confront him with that, what we see in Ukraine.”
Missiles cause multiple blasts in western Ukrainian's Lviv
Multiple explosions apparently caused by missiles struck the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early Monday as the country was bracing for an all-out Russian assault in the east.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to “fight absolutely to the end” in strategically vital Mariupol, meanwhile, where the ruined port city’s last known pocket of resistance was holed up in a sprawling steel plant laced with tunnels.
Plumes of thick, black smoke were rising over Lviv after the explosions, which were witnessed by AP staff. Lviv and the rest of western Ukraine have not been immune but have been less affected by the fighting than other parts of the country and have been considered a relatively haven.
Also read:`No surrender’: Ukrainians fight on in Mariupol steel plant
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said on Facebook that five missiles struck the city and that emergency services were responding to the blasts.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, the chairman of the Ukrainian rail service, said the strikes hit near railway facilities and that there were no known casualties. Train traffic has resumed with some delays, he said, vowing to restore the damaged network.
With missiles and rockets battering various parts of the country, Zelenskyy accused Russian soldiers of torture and kidnappings in areas they control.
The fall of Mariupol, which has been reduced to rubble in a seven-week siege, would give Moscow its biggest victory of the war. But a few thousand fighters, by Russia's estimate, were holding on to the giant, 11-square-kilometer (4-square-mile) Azovstal steel mill.
“We will fight absolutely to the end, to the win, in this war,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal vowed Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” He said Ukraine is prepared to end the war through diplomacy if possible, “but we do not have intention to surrender.”
Many Mariupol civilians, including children, are also sheltering at the Azovstal plant, Mikhail Vershinin, head of the city’s patrol police, told Mariupol television. He said they are hiding from Russian shelling and from Russian soldiers.
Capturing the city on the Sea of Azov would free Russian troops for a new offensive to take control of the Donbas region in Ukraine's industrial east. Russia also would fully secure a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, depriving Ukraine of a major port and prized industrial assets.
Russia is bent on capturing the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists already control some territory, after its attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, failed.
“We are doing everything to ensure the defense” of eastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation.
As for besieged Mariupol, there appeared to be little hope of military rescue. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the remaining Ukrainian troops and civilians there are basically encircled. He said they “continue their struggle,” but that the city effectively doesn’t exist anymore because of massive destruction.
The relentless bombardment and street fighting in Mariupol have killed at least 21,000 people, by Ukrainian estimates. A maternity hospital was hit by a lethal Russian airstrike in the opening weeks of the war, and about 300 people were reported killed in the bombing of a theater where civilians had taken shelter.
An estimated 100,000 people remained in the city out of a prewar population of 450,000, trapped without food, water, heat or electricity.
Also read:Russian troops carrying out torture: Zelenskyy
Drone footage carried by the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti showed mile after mile of shattered buildings and, on the city's outskirts, the steel complex, from which rose towering plumes of smoke.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar described Mariupol as a “shield defending Ukraine.”
Russian forces, meanwhile, carried out aerial attacks near Kyiv and elsewhere in an apparent effort to weaken Ukraine’s military capacity ahead of the anticipated assault on the Donbas.
After the humiliating sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet last week in what the Ukrainians boasted was a missile attack, the Kremlin had vowed to step up strikes on the capital.
Russia said Sunday that it had attacked an ammunition plant near Kyiv overnight with precision-guided missiles, the third such strike in as many days. Explosions were also reported in Kramatorsk, the eastern city where rockets earlier this month killed at least 57 people at a train station crowded with civilians trying to evacuate ahead of the Russian offensive.
At least five people were killed by Russian shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Sunday, regional officials said. The barrage slammed into apartment buildings. The streets were littered with broken glass and other debris.
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov, in an impassioned address marking Orthodox Palm Sunday, lashed out at Russian forces for not letting up the bombing campaign on such a sacred day.
Zelenskyy called the bombing in Kharkiv “nothing but deliberate terror.”
In his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskyy also appealed for a stronger response to what he said was the brutality of Russian troops in parts of southern Ukraine.
“Torture chambers are built there,” he said. “They abduct representatives of local governments and anyone deemed visible to local communities.”
He again urged the world to send more weapons and apply tougher sanctions against Moscow.
Malyar, the Ukrainian deputy defense minister, said the Russians were pounding Mariupol with airstrikes and could be preparing for an amphibious landing to reinforce their ground troops.
The looming offensive in the east, if successful, would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a badly needed victory to sell to the Russian people amid the war’s mounting casualties and the economic hardship caused by Western sanctions.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who met with Putin in Moscow this past week — the first European leader to do so since the invasion Feb. 24 — said the Russian president is “in his own war logic” on Ukraine. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Nehammer said he thinks Putin believes he is winning the war, and “we have to look in his eyes and we have to confront him with that, what we see in Ukraine.’’
Zelenskyy also marked Easter on Sunday, saying on Twitter: “The Lord’s Resurrection is a testimony to the victory of life over death, good over evil.”
`No surrender’: Ukrainians fight on in Mariupol steel plant
Braced for an all-out Russian assault in the east, Ukraine vowed to “fight absolutely to the end” in strategically vital Mariupol, where the ruined port city’s last known pocket of resistance was holed up in a sprawling steel plant laced with tunnels.
With missiles and rockets also battering other parts of the country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian soldiers of carrying out torture and kidnappings in areas they control.
The fall of Mariupol, which has been reduced to rubble in a seven-week siege, would give Moscow its biggest victory of the war. But a few thousand fighters, by Russia’s estimate, hold on to the giant, 11-square-kilometer (4-square-mile) Azovstal steel mill.
“We will fight absolutely to the end, to the win, in this war,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal vowed Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” He said Ukraine is prepared to end the war through diplomacy if possible, “but we do not have intention to surrender.”
Many Mariupol civilians, including children, are also sheltering at the Azovstal plant, Mikhail Vershinin, head of the city’s patrol police, told Mariupol television. He said they are hiding from Russian shelling, and from any occupying Russian soldiers.
Capturing the city on the Sea of Azov would free up Russian troops for the expected new offensive to take control of the Donbas, in Ukraine’s industrial east. It also would allow Russia to fully secure a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and deprive Ukraine of a major port and its prized industrial assets.
Russia is bent on capturing the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists already control some territory, since its attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, failed.
“We are doing everything to ensure the defense” of eastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation.
As for besieged Mariupol, there appeared to be little hope of military rescue by Ukrainian forces anytime soon. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the remaining Ukrainian troops and civilians there are basically encircled. He said they “continue their struggle,” but that the city effectively doesn’t exist anymore because of massive destruction.
The relentless bombardment and street fighting in Mariupol have killed at least 21,000 people, by Ukrainian estimates. A maternity hospital was hit by a lethal Russian airstrike in the opening weeks of the war, and about 300 people were reported killed in the bombing of a theater where civilians were taking shelter.
Read: Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol defy surrender-or-die demand
An estimated 100,000 people remained in the city out of a prewar population of 450,000, trapped without food, water, heat or electricity.
Drone footage carried by the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti on Sunday showed mile after mile of shattered buildings and, on the city’s outskirts, the steel complex, from which rose towering plumes of smoke.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar described Mariupol as a “shield defending Ukraine.”
Russian forces, meanwhile, carried out aerial attacks near Kyiv and elsewhere in an apparent effort to weakenUkraine’s military capacity ahead of the anticipated assault on the Donbas.
After the humiliating sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet last week in what the Ukrainians boasted was a missile attack, the Kremlin had vowed to step up strikes on the capital.
Russia said Sunday that it had attacked an ammunition plant near Kyiv overnight with precision-guided missiles, the third such strike in as many days. Explosions were also reported in Kramatorsk, the eastern city where rockets earlier this month killed at least 57 people at a train station crowded with civilians trying to evacuate ahead of the Russian offensive.
Read: 2 minors dead, 8 wounded in shooting at Pittsburgh party
At least five people were killed by Russian shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Sunday, regional officials said. The barrage slammed into apartment buildings and left the streets scattered with broken glass and other debris.
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov, in an impassioned address marking Orthodox Palm Sunday, lashed out at Russian forces for not letting up the bombing campaign on such a sacred day.
Zelenskyy called the bombing in Kharkiv “nothing but deliberate terror.”
In his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskyy also called on the world to respond to what he said was the brutality of Russian troops in parts of southern Ukraine.
“Torture chambers are built there,” he said. “They abduct representatives of local governments and anyone deemed visible to local communities.”
He again called on the world to send Kyiv more weapons and apply tougher sanctions on Moscow.
Malyar, the Ukrainian deputy defense minister, said the Russians continued to hit Mariupol with airstrikes and could be getting ready for an amphibious landing to reinforce their ground troops.
The looming offensive in the east, if successful, would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a badly needed victory that he could sell to the Russian people amid the war’s mounting casualties and the economic hardship caused by the West’s sanctions.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who met with Putin in Moscow this week — the first European leader to do so since the invasion Feb. 24 — said the Russian president is “in his own war logic” on Ukraine. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Nehammer said he thinks Putin believes he is winning the war, and “we have to look in his eyes and we have to confront him with that, what we see in Ukraine.”
Zelenskyy also marked Easter on Sunday, saying on Twitter: “The Lord’s Resurrection is a testimony to the victory of life over death, good over evil.
Riots in Sweden against far-right group leave 3 injured
Swedish police said they fired warning shots during a riot in an eastern city to disperse protesters angry about demonstrations over the past several days by a Danish anti-Islam group in Sweden. Three people were slightly injured during the clashes.
A crowd of about 150 people threw stones at officers and police vehicles, and set fire to cars. Police said they responded by firing warning shots and “three people seem to have been hit by ricochets" and were hospitalized in Norrkoping, which has around 130,000 residents and is about 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Stockholm.
Also read:Unrest sparked by far-right demos continues in Sweden
“All three injured are arrested on suspicion of crime,” police said, adding that none of them had serious injuries.
A photographer for Swedish news agency TT at the scene reported that several riot police officers were seen carrying a wounded man to an ambulance.
The riot broke out following Danish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan’s meetings and planned Quran burnings in various Swedish cities and towns since Thursday.
Paludan and his Stram Kurs party had planned a demonstration in Norrkoping on Sunday but he never showed up in the city, Swedish media reported. Unrest was also reported in the nearby city of Linkoping.
Paludan said on the party’s Facebook page that he decided to cancel Sunday's demonstrations in the two locations as the Swedish authorities in the region have “shown that they are completely incapable of protecting themselves and me. If I was seriously injured or killed due to the inadequacy of the police authority, then it would be very sad for Swedes, Danes and other northerners.”
Apart from Norrkoping and Linkoping, unrest and violent clashes have been reported in Stockholm, Orebro, Landskrona and Malmo, Sweden third-largest city, in the past three days.
On Friday evening, violent clashes between demonstrators and counterprotesters erupted in the central city of Orebro before Paludan’s plan to burn a Quran there, leaving 12 police officers injured and four police vehicles set ablaze.
In Landskrona, southern Sweden, a few hundred mostly young people threw stones and set cars, tires and dustbins on fire. They also erected a barrier fence that obstructed traffic on Saturday evening. Similar unrest took place in nearby Malmo, where a city bus was set on fire, among other things, late Saturday.
Also read: UAE authorities order arrests over rare riot at soccer match
Paludan, a Danish lawyer who also holds Swedish citizenship, set up Stram Kurs, or “Hard Line” in 2017. The website of the party, which runs on an anti-immigration and anti-Islam agenda, says “Stram Kurs is the most patriotic political party in Denmark.”
Russian troops carrying out torture: Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian troops in southern Ukraine have been carrying out torture and kidnappings, and he called on the world Sunday to respond.
“Torture chambers are built there,” Zelenskyy said in an evening address to the nation. “They abduct representatives of local governments and anyone deemed visible to local communities.”
Zelenskyy said humanitarian aid has been stolen, creating famine.
Also read:Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol defy surrender-or-die demand
In occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, he said, the Russians are creating separatist states and introducing Russian currency, the ruble.
Intensified Russian shelling of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, has killed 18 people and wounded 106 in the last four days alone, Zelenskyy said.
“This is nothing but deliberate terror. Mortars, artillery against ordinary residential neighborhoods, against ordinary civilians,” he said.
He said a planned Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine “will begin in the near future.”
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Zelensky again called for increased sanctions against Russia, including its entire banking sector and oil industry. “Everyone in Europe and America already sees Russia openly using energy to destabilize Western societies,” Zelenskyy said. “All of this requires greater speed from Western countries in preparing a new, powerful package of sanctions.”
Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol defy surrender-or-die demand
Ukrainian fighters who were holed up in a massive steel plant in the last known pocket of resistance inside the shattered city of Mariupol ignored a surrender-or-die ultimatum from Russia on Sunday and held out against the capture of the strategically vital port.
The fall of Mariupol, the site of a merciless 7-week-old siege that has reduced much of the city to a smoking ruin, would be Moscow's biggest victory of the war and free up troops to take part in a potentially climactic battle for control of Ukraine’s industrial east.
Capturing the southern city would also allow Russia to fully secure a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and deprive Ukraine of a major port and its prized industrial assets.
Also read:Russian troops carrying out torture: Zelenskyy
As its missiles and rockets slammed into other parts of the country, Russia estimated that 2,500 Ukrainian troops and about 400 foreign mercenaries were dug in at the sprawling Azovstal steel mill, which covers more than 11 square kilometers (4 square miles) and is laced with tunnels.
Many Mariupol civilians, including children, are also sheltering at the Azovstal plant, Mikhail Vershinin, head of the city’s patrol police, told Mariupol television on Sunday. He said they are hiding from Russian shelling, and from any occupying Russian soldiers.
Moscow had given the defenders a midday deadline to surrender and "keep their lives,” but the Ukrainians rejected it, as they've done with previous ultimatums.
“We will fight absolutely to the end, to the win, in this war,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal vowed on ABC's “This Week.” He said Ukraine is prepared to end the war through diplomacy if possible, “but we do not have intention to surrender.”
As for besieged Mariupol, there appeared to be little hope Sunday of military rescue by Ukrainian forces anytime soon. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the remaining Ukrainian troops and civilians in Mariupol are basically encircled. He said they “continue their struggle,” but that the city effectively doesn’t exist anymore because of massive destruction.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent Easter greetings via Twitter, saying: "The Lord’s Resurrection is a testimony to the victory of life over death, good over evil.”
If Mariupol falls, Russian forces there are expected to join an all-out offensive in the coming days for control of the Donbas, the eastern industrial region that the Kremlin is bent on capturing after failing in its bid to take Kyiv, Ukraine's capital.
The relentless bombardment and street fighting in Mariupol have killed at least 21,000 people, by the Ukrainians' estimate. A maternity hospital was hit by a lethal Russian airstrike in the opening weeks of the war, and about 300 people were reported killed in the bombing of a theater where civilians were taking shelter.
An estimated 100,000 remained in the city out of a prewar population of 450,000, trapped without food, water, heat or electricity in a siege that has made Mariupol the scene of some of the worst suffering of the war.
"All those who will continue resistance will be destroyed,” Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry's spokesman, said in announcing the latest ultimatum.
Drone footage carried by the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti showed towering plumes of smoke over the steel complex, which sits on the outskirts of the bombed-out city, on the Sea of Azov.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar described Mariupol as a “shield defending Ukraine” as Russian troops prepare for battle in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists already control some territory.
Russian forces, meanwhile, carried out aerial attacks near Kyiv and elsewhere in an apparent effort to weaken Ukraine’s military capacity ahead of the anticipated assault.
After the humiliating sinking of the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet last week in what the Ukrainians boasted was a missile attack, the Kremlin had vowed to step up strikes on the capital.
Russia said Sunday that it had attacked an ammunition plant near Kyiv overnight with precision-guided missiles, the third such strike in as many days.
Explosions were also reported overnight in Kramatorsk, the eastern city where rockets earlier this month killed at least 57 people at a train station crowded with civilians trying to evacuate ahead of the Russian offensive.
At least five people were killed by Russian shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Sunday, regional officials said. The barrage slammed into apartment buildings and left the streets scattered with broken glass and other debris, including part of at least one rocket.
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov, in an impassioned address marking Orthodox Palm Sunday, lashed out at Russian forces for not letting up the bombing campaign on such a sacred day.
And Zelenskyy, in his nightly address to the nation, called the bombing in Kharkiv “nothing but deliberate terror.”
Also read:Russia strikes Ukraine's big cities, bears down on Mariupol
A regional official in eastern Ukraine said at least two people were killed when Russian forces fired at residential buildings in the town of Zolote, near the front line in the Donbas.
Zelenskyy said Russian troops in parts of southern Ukraine have been carrying out torture and kidnappings, and he called on the world to respond with more weapons and tougher sanctions.
“Torture chambers are built there,” he said in his address. “They abduct representatives of local governments and anyone deemed visible to local communities.”
Malyar, the Ukrainian deputy defense minister, said the Russians continued to hit Mariupol with airstrikes and could be getting ready for an amphibious landing to reinforce their ground troops.
The looming offensive in the east, if successful, would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a vital piece of the country and a badly needed victory that he could sell to the Russian people amid the war's mounting casualties and the economic hardship caused by the West's sanctions.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who met with Putin in Moscow this week — the first European leader to do so since the invasion Feb. 24 — said the Russian president is “in his own war logic” on Ukraine.
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Nehammer said he thinks Putin believes he is winning the war, and “we have to look in his eyes and we have to confront him with that, what we see in Ukraine.’’
Ukrainians defy deadline to surrender in Mariupol or die
The battered port city of Mariupol appeared on the brink of falling to Russian forces Sunday after seven weeks under siege, a development that what would give Moscow a crucial success in Ukraine following Russia's failure to storm the capital and the loss of its Black Sea flagship.
The Russian military estimated that about 2,500 Ukrainian fighters holding out at a hulking steel plant with a warren of underground passageways provided the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol. Russia gave a deadline for their surrender, saying those who put down their weapons were “guaranteed to keep their lives,” but the Ukrainians did not submit.
Also read:Russia strikes Ukraine's big cities, bears down on Mariupol
"All those who will continue resistance will be destroyed,” Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry's spokesman, said. He said intercepted communications indicated there were about 400 foreign mercenaries along with the Ukrainian troops at the Azovstal steel mill, a claim that couldn’t be independently verified.
Seizing Mariupol would free up Russian forces to weaken and encircle Ukrainian soldiers forces in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has focused its war aims for now and is deploying personnel and equipment withdrawn from the north after a botched attempt to take Kyiv.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar described Mariupol as a “shield defending Ukraine” as Russian troops prepare for a full-scale offensive in Donbas, the country’s eastern industrial heartland where Moscow-backed separatists already control some territory.
In a reminder that no part of Ukraine was immune until the war ends, Russian forces carried out new missile strikes Sunday near Kyiv and elsewhere in an apparent effort to weaken Ukraine’s military capacity before the anticipated assault in the east.
After the humiliating loss of the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet, Russia’s military command vowed Friday to step up missile strikes on the capital. The Russian military said Sunday that it had attacked an ammunition plant near Kyiv overnight with precision-guided missiles, the third such strike in as many days.
Russia renewed attacks on Kyiv after accusing Ukrainian forces of airstrikes on Russian territory that wounded seven people and damaged about 100 residential buildings in Bryansk, a region bordering Ukraine. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed hitting targets in Russia.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a Saturday strike on what Russia’s Defense Ministry identified as an armored vehicle plant killed one person and wounded several. He advised residents who fled the city earlier in the war not to return.
The Russian military also claimed Sunday to have destroyed Ukrainian air defense radars in the east, near Sievierodonetsk, as well as several ammunition depots elsewhere. Explosions were reported overnight in Kramatorsk, an eastern city where rockets killed at least 57 people at a train station crowded with civilians trying to evacuate before the expected Russian offensive.
The ongoing siege and relentless bombardment of Mariupol has come at a terrible cost, with officials estimating Russians had killed at least 21,000 people. Just 120,000 people remain in the city, out of a prewar population of 450,000.
Malyar, the deputy defense minister, said the Russians have continued to hit Mariupol with airstrikes and could be getting ready for an amphibious landing to beef up their ground forces.
Capturing the city with a land area about half the size of Hong Kong’s would mark Russia's first palpable success after two months of fighting and help reassure the Russian public amid the worsening economic situation from Western sanctions.
It would allow Russia to secure a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and deprive Ukraine of a major port and prized industrial assets.
Mariupol's seizure also would make more troops available for a new offensive in the east, which if successful, would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a position of strength from which to pressure Ukraine into making concessions.
So far, tunnels at the sprawling Azovstal steel mill, which covers an area of more than 11 square kilometers (over 4.2 square miles), have allowed the defenders to hide and resist until they run out of ammunition.
With Russia apparently poised to declare victory, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the city’s fall could scuttle any attempt at a negotiated peace.
“The destruction of all our guys in Mariupol — what they are doing now — can put an end to any format of negotiations,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with Ukrainian journalists.
In his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskyy called on the West to send more heavy weapons immediately if there is any chance of saving the city, adding Russia “is deliberately trying to destroy everyone who is there.”
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who met with Putin in Moscow this week — the first European leader to do so since the invasion began Feb. 24 — said the Russian president is “in his own war logic” on Ukraine.
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Nehammer said he thinks Putin believes he is winning the war and “we have to look in his eyes and we have to confront him with that, what we see in Ukraine.’’
Italian Premier Mario Draghi called Ukraine’s continued resistance to Russia’s invasion “heroic,” depriving Russia of what it had expected to be a speedy victory.
“What awaits us is a war of resistance, prolonged violence with destruction that will continue,'' Draghi told Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera in an interview published Sunday. "There is no sign that the Ukraine population can accept a Russian occupation.”
Also read:Russia renews strikes on Ukraine capital, hits other cities
Like Mariupol, the northeast city of Kharkiv has been an ongoing target of Russian aggression since the early days of the invasion and has seen conditions deteriorate ahead of the eastern offensive.
Multiple rockets struck the center of the Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, on Sunday, according to Associated Press journalists who were there. At least two people were killed and four others were injured, though the scale of the attack suggested the toll could rise.
The barrage slammed into apartment buildings and left broken glass, debris and the part of at least one rocket scattered on the street. Firefighters and residents scrambled to douse flames in several apartments that caught fire.
On Saturday, three people were killed and 34 wounded when an explosion believed to have been caused by a missile went off near an outdoor market, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. Local officials said 10 people died in rocket attacks on residential areas of Kharkiv on Friday.
Nate Mook, a member of the World Central Kitchen NGO run by celebrity chef José Andrés, said in a tweet that four workers in Kharkiv were wounded by a strike. Andrés tweeted that staff members were unnerved but safe.
Zelenskyy estimated that 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian troops have died in the war, and about 10,000 have been wounded. The office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said Saturday that at least 200 children have been killed, and more than 360 wounded.
Despite the war still raging, Zelenskyy spoke in his nightly address about Ukraine's plans for a memorial to honor the dead and the sacrifices of the Ukrainian people.
One proposal is to tell the story of the destroyed bridge near the capital that people used to escape, “to remind all generations of our people of the brutal and senseless invasion Ukraine has been able to fend off,'' he said.
Pope Francis made an anguished Easter Sunday plea for peace in the “senseless” war in Ukraine.
“May there be peace for war-torn Ukraine, so sorely tried by the violence and destruction of this cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged,” Francis said, without mentioning Putin's decision to invade Ukraine on Feb. 24.
“Please, please, let us not get used to war,″ Francis pleaded.