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No end in sight for Ukraine war as Putin hails Victory Day
Russian President Vladimir Putin used a major patriotic holiday Monday to again justify his war in Ukraine but did not declare even a limited victory or signal where the conflict was headed, as his forces continued to pummel targets across the country with few signs of significant progress.
The Russian leader oversaw a Victory Day parade on Red Square, with troops marching in formation, military hardware on display, and a brass band blaring to mark the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany. But his much-anticipated speech offered no new insights to how he intended to salvage the grinding war — and instead stuck to allegations that Ukraine posed a threat to Russia, even though Moscow’s nuclear-armed forces are far superior in numbers and firepower.
“The danger was rising by the day,” he said as he surveyed the troops. “Russia has given a pre-emptive response to aggression. It was a forced, timely and the only correct decision.”
Ukrainian leaders and their Western backers have often rejected claims that Kyiv posed any threat to its giant neighbor.
Many analysts had suggested Putin might use his speech to declare some sort of limited victory — potentially in the besieged strategic port city of Mariupol — as he looks for an exit from the conflict that has unleashed punishing sanctions from the West and strained Russia’s resources. Others suggested he might order a nationwide mobilization to beef up the depleted ranks for an extended conflict.
There was “nothing significant in Putin’s speech today, but he will need to make a decision regarding mobilization in the coming weeks,” wrote Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, on Twitter.
Also read: Putin to mark Victory Day as Russia presses Ukraine assault
As Putin laid a wreath in Moscow, air raid sirens echoed again in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in his own Victory Day address that his country would eventually defeat the Russians.
“Very soon there will be two Victory Days in Ukraine,” he said in a video released to mark the holiday. “We have never fought against anyone. We always fight for ourselves. ... We are fighting for freedom for our children, and therefore we will win.”
An adviser to Zelenskyy also pushed back against the idea that Ukraine and its Western allies posed any threat to Russia.
Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter that “NATO countries were not going to attack Russia. Ukraine did not plan to attack Crimea,” which Russia seized in 2014.
The Ukrainian military’s General Staff warned Monday of a high probability of missile strikes on the holiday, and Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its daily assessment Russian forces could increasingly subject Ukrainian towns and cities to “intense and indiscriminate bombardments with little or no regard for civilian casualties" as they run short of precision-guided munitions.
In fact, more than 60 people were feared dead after a Russian bomb flattened a Ukrainian school being used as a shelter in Bilohorivka, an eastern village, Ukrainian officials said.
With the war now in its 11th week, battles were being waged on multiple fronts, but Russia was perhaps closest to victory in Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters are making a last stand at a sprawling steel mill in a battle that has highlighted some of the worst suffering of the war.
The complete capture of Mariupol would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to complete a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, and free troops up for fighting elsewhere in the Donbas, which is now Putin's stated focus following his failure to seize the capital in the early days of the conflict. The fall of the city would provide a much-needed symbolic victory for Russia.
Russian forces pounded away over the weekend at the plant, where as many as 2,000 Ukrainian fighters are are estimated to be holding out.
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“We are under constant shelling,” said Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment, which held the mill.
Lt. Illya Samoilenko, another regiment member, said a couple hundred wounded soldiers were inside. He declined to say how many able-bodied fighters remained. He said fighters had to dig by hand to free people from bunkers that collapsed under shelling.
For weeks, hundreds of civilians also took shelter with the fighters at the plant, but the last were evacuated Saturday. In a convoy led by the United Nations and international Red Cross, they arrived Sunday night in Zaporizhzhia, the first major Ukrainian city beyond the frontlines. They spoke of constant shelling, dwindling food, ubiquitous mold — and using hand sanitizer for cooking fuel.
The Ukrainian military warned Russian troops were seizing "personal documents from the local population without good reason” in parts of the Zaporizhzhia region that they controlled — allegedly as a way to force residents to join in Victory Day commemorations.
As a stiffer than expected Ukrainian resistance, bolstered by Western arms, has bogged down Russian forces, Moscow scaled back its war aims. It is now pressing offensives in some areas of southern Ukraine and the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for years. But they still have struggled to make significant strides, and Ukrainian and Russian forces have fought village by village in recent weeks.
A Ukrainian counteroffensive in the northeast near Kharkiv, outside of the Donbas but key to offensive there, was making “significant progress,” according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
However, Rodion Miroshnik, a pro-Kremlin official in the Luhansk region of the Donbas, said Moscow-backed separatist forces and Russian troops had captured most of Popasna, an embattled city that saw two months of fierce fighting.
The southern Black Sea port of Odesa has also seen increased fighting recently, and Ukrainian officials said Russia fired four cruise missiles targeting the city Monday from Crimea. It said no civilians were wounded in the attack, but did not elaborate on what was struck.
“The enemy continues to destroy the infrastructure of the region and exert psychological pressure on the civilian population,” the command said. “There is a very high probability of continued missile attacks in the region.”
As they struggle to make gain, Russian forces have repeatedly shelled cities and towns indiscriminately. About 90 people were sheltering in the school basement in Bilohorivka when it was attacked Saturday. Emergency crews found two bodies and rescued 30 people, but “most likely all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk province, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s military also warned some 19 Russian battalion tactical groups were stationed just across the border in Russia’s Belgorod region. Those groups likely consist of some 15,200 troops with tanks, missile batteries and other weaponry.
As Victory Day turned attention toward Putin, Western leaders showed new signs of support for Ukraine.
The Group of Seven leading industrial democracies pledged Sunday to ban or phase out imports of Russian oil.
The United States, meanwhile, announced new sanctions, cutting off Western advertising from Russia’s three biggest TV stations, banning U.S. accounting and consulting firms from providing services, and cutting off Russia’s industrial sector from wood products, industrial engines, boilers and bulldozers.
U.S. first lady Jill Biden met Sunday with her Ukrainian counterpart. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised his country’s flag at its embassy in Kyiv. And U2′s Bono, alongside bandmate The Edge, performed in a Kyiv subway station that had been used as a bomb shelter, singing the 1960s song “Stand by Me.”
Putin to mark Victory Day as Russia presses Ukraine assault
Russian forces pushed forward Monday in their assault on Ukraine, seeking to capture the crucial southern port city of Mariupol as Moscow prepared to celebrate its national Victory Day holiday.
Determined to show a success in a war now in its 11th week, Russian troops have targeted a sprawling seaside steel mill where an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters were making what appeared to be their last stand to save Mariupol from falling.
The mill is the only part of the city not overtaken by the invaders, and its defeat would deprive Ukraine of a vital port and allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that worsening attacks could be linked to Victory Day, which marks Russia’s greatest triumph, over Nazi Germany in 1945. Russian President Vladimir Putin may want to proclaim a win in Ukraine when he addresses troops parading on Red Square.
“They have nothing to celebrate,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said of the Russians, speaking on CNN. “They have not succeeded in defeating the Ukrainians. They have not succeeded in dividing the world or dividing NATO. And they have only succeeded in isolating themselves internationally and becoming a pariah state around the globe.”
Though fighting continues on multiple fronts, Russia is closest to victory in Mariupol.
Ukrainian fighters in the steel mill have rejected deadlines set by the Russians for laying down their arms even as attacks continued by warplanes, artillery and tanks.
“We are under constant shelling,” said Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment, a unit holding the steel mill.
Also Read: Western officials visit Ukraine after deadly school bombing
Lt. Illya Samoilenko, another member of the Azov Regiment, said there were a couple of hundred wounded soldiers at the plant but declined to reveal how many able-bodied fighters remained. He said fighters didn’t have lifesaving equipment and had to dig by hand to free people from bunkers that had collapsed under the shelling.
“Surrender for us is unacceptable because we cannot grant such a gift to the enemy,” Samoilenko said.
The last of the civilians taking shelter with fighters at the plant were evacuated Saturday. They arrived Sunday night in Zaporizhzhia, the first major Ukrainian city beyond the frontlines, and spoke of constant shelling, dwindling food, ubiquitous mold — and using hand sanitizer for cooking fuel.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, more than 60 people were feared dead after a Russian bomb flattened a school being used as a shelter in the eastern village of Bilohorivka, Ukrainian officials said.
Authorities said about 90 people were sheltering in the school’s basement when it was attacked Saturday. Emergency crews found two bodies and rescued 30 people, but “most likely all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk province, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Russian shelling also killed two boys, ages 11 and 14, in the nearby town of Pryvillia, Haidai said. Luhansk is part of the Donbas, the industrial heartland in the east that Russia’s forces are working to capture.
On Ukraine’s coast, explosions echoed again across the major Black Sea port of Odesa. The Ukrainian military said Moscow was focusing its main efforts on destroying airfield infrastructure in eastern and southern Ukraine.
In a sign of the dogged resistance that has sustained the fighting into its 11th week, Ukraine’s military struck Russian positions on a Black Sea island that was captured in the war’s first days. A satellite image by Planet Labs showed smoke rising from two sites on the island.
But Moscow’s forces showed no sign of backing down in the south. Satellite photos show Russia has put armored vehicles and missile systems at a small base in the Crimean Peninsula.
The most intense combat in recent days has taken place in eastern Ukraine. A Ukrainian counteroffensive in the northeast near Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, is making “significant progress,” according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank.
However, the Ukrainian army withdrew from the embattled eastern city of Popasna, regional authorities said.
Rodion Miroshnik, a representative of the pro-Kremlin, separatist Luhansk People’s Republic, said its forces and Russian troops had captured most of Popasna after two months of fierce fighting.
The Kharkiv regional administration said three people were killed in shelling of the town of Bogodukhiv, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Kharkiv.
South of Kharkiv, in Dnipropetrovsk province, the governor said a 12-year-old boy was killed by a cluster munition that he found after a Russian attack. An international treaty bans the use of such explosives, but neither Russia nor Ukraine has signed the agreement.
“This war is treacherous,” the governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, wrote on social media. “It is near, even when it is invisible.”
As Victory Day neared and the spotlight turned to Putin, Western leaders showed new signs of support for Ukraine.
The Group of Seven industrial democracies pledged to ban or phase out imports of Russian oil. The G-7 consists of the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Japan.
Also Read: Dozens feared dead as Russian shell hits Ukrainian school
The United States also announced new sanctions against Russia, cutting off Western advertising from Russia’s three biggest TV stations, banning U.S. accounting and consulting firms from providing services, and cutting off Russia’s industrial sector from wood products, industrial engines, boilers and bulldozers.
U.S. first lady Jill Biden met with her Ukrainian counterpart. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised his country’s flag at its embassy in Kyiv. And U2′s Bono, alongside bandmate The Edge, performed in a Kyiv subway station that had been used as a bomb shelter, singing the 1960s song “Stand by Me.”
The acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Kristina Kvien, posted a picture of herself at the American Embassy, and described plans for the eventual U.S. return to the Ukrainian capital after Moscow’s forces abandoned their effort to storm Kyiv weeks ago and began focusing on the capture of the Donbas.
Zelenskyy released a video address marking the day of the Allied victory in Europe 77 years ago, drawing parallels between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the evils of Nazism. The black-and-white footage showed Zelenskyy standing in front of a ruined apartment block in Borodyanka, a Kyiv suburb.
Zelenskyy said that generations of Ukrainians understood the significance of the words “Never again,” a phrase often used as a vow not to allow a repeat of the horrors of the Holocaust.
Western officials visit Ukraine after deadly school bombing
Dozens of Ukrainians were feared dead Sunday after a Russian bomb flattened a school sheltering about 90 people in its basement, while Ukrainian troops refused to surrender at a besieged steel plant that Moscow’s invading forces sped to seize before Russia’s Victory Day holiday.
The governor of Luhansk province, one of two areas that make up the eastern industrial heartland known as the Donbas, said the school in the village of Bilohorivka caught fire after Saturday’s bombing. Emergency crews found two bodies and rescued 30 people, he said.
“Most likely, all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” Gov. Serhiy Haidai wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Russian shelling also killed two boys, ages 11 and 14, in the nearby town of Pryvillia, he said.
The largest European conflict since World War II has developed into a punishing war of attrition due to the Ukrainian military’s unexpectedly effective defense. Since failing to capture Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, Moscow’s forces have attacked cities, towns and villages in eastern and southern Ukraine but not gained much ground, according to Western military analysts.
To demonstrate success in time for Victory Day on Monday, the Russian military worked to complete its takeover of Mariupol, which has been under relentless assault since the start of the war. The sprawling seaside steel mill where an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters made a last stand is the only part of the city not under Russian control.
All the remaining women, children and older civilians who were sheltering with the fighters in the Azovstal plant were evacuated Saturday. The Ukrainian troops rejected deadlines given by the Russians who said the defenders could leave with their lives if they laid down their arms.
Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, the deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, a Ukrainian National Guard battalion holding the steel mill, told an online news conference Sunday that the site was targeted overnight by three fighter jet sorties, artillery and tanks.
“We are under constant shelling,” he said, adding that Russian infantry tried to storm the plant -- a claim Russian officials denied in recent days - and to lay landmines.
Palamar said there was a “multitude of casualties” at the plant.
Lt. Illya Samoilenko, another member of the Azov Regiment, said there were a “couple of hundred” wounded soldiers at the plant, but he declined at the same news conference to reveal how many abled-body fighters also remained in the plant.
He described the situation as dire because they didn’t have life-saving equipment in their tunnels. He also said fighters had to dig out people by hand when some bunkers collapsed under the Russian shelling.
“The truth is, we are unique because no one expected we would last so long,” Samoilenko said. “Surrender for us is unacceptable because we cannot grant such a gift to the enemy.”
After rescuers evacuated the last civilians, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was trying to secure humanitarian corridors for residents of Mariupol and surrounding towns to leave.
The Ukrainian government has reached out to international organizations to try to secure safe passage for the fighters remaining in the plant’s underground tunnels and bunkers.
The Ukrainian leader was expected to hold online talks Sunday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders from other Group of Seven countries. The meeting is partly meant to display unity among Western allies on Victory in Europe Day, which marks Nazi Germany’s 1945 surrender.
Also Read: Dozens feared dead as Russian shell hits Ukrainian school
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a surprise visit to Irpin Sunday, which had been damaged by Russia’s attempt to take Kyiv at the start of the war, according to Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne and Irpin Mayor Olexander Markushyn.
Markushyn posted images of Trudeau on social media, saying that the Canadian leader was shocked by the damage he saw at civilian homes.
Canadian officials said the prime minister would meet with Zelenskyy and “reaffirm Canada’s unwavering support for the Ukrainian people.”
Zelenskyy also met Sunday with the German parliament speaker, Bärbel Bas, in Kyiv to discuss further defense assistance as well as sanctions against Russia, according to Zelenskyy’s press office.
Trudeau is the latest Western leader to visit Ukraine to offer their support to the war-ravaged country. The prime ministers of the U.K., Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia traveled there earlier, as did the U.N.’s secretary-general.
U.S. first lady Jill Biden also made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine Sunday for a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with Zelenskyy’s wife, first lady Olena Zelenska. They visited a village school as Russia pressed its punishing war in the eastern regions.
Elsewhere, on Ukraine’s coast, explosions echoed again Sunday across the major Black Sea port of Odesa, which Russia struck with six cruise missiles on Saturday, while rocket fire damaged some 250 apartments, according to the city council.
Ukrainian leaders warned that attacks would only worsen in the lead-up to Victory Day, the May 9 holiday when Russia celebrates Nazi Germany’s defeat in 1945 with military parades. Russian President Vladimir Putin is believed to want to proclaim some kind of triumph in Ukraine when he addresses the troops on Red Square on Monday.
Zelenskyy released a video address Sunday marking the day of the Allied victory in Europe 77 years ago, drawing parallels between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the evils of Nazism.
The black-and-white video, published on social media, showed Zelenskyy standing in front of a ruined apartment block in Borodyanka, one of the Kyiv suburbs pummeled before Russian troops withdrew from the capital region weeks ago.
“Every year, on May 8, along with the whole civilized world, we pay our respects to everyone who defended the planet against Nazism during World War II,” Zelenskyy said, adding that prior generations of Ukrainians understood the significance of the words “Never again,” a phrase often used as a vow to never allow a repeat of the horrors of the Holoucaust.
“We knew the price our ancestors have paid for this wisdom. We knew how important it was to protect it and pass it on to our descendants. … But we hadn’t any notion that our generation will witness the abuse of these words,” he said.
In neighboring Moldova, Russian and separatists troops were on “full alert,” the Ukrainian military warned. The region has increasingly become a focus of worries that the conflict could expand beyond Ukraine’s borders.
Pro-Russian forces broke off the Transnistria section of Moldova in 1992, and around 1,500 Russian troops have been stationed there since, ostensibly as peacekeepers. Those forces are on “full combat readiness,” Ukraine said, without giving details on how it came to the assessment.
Also Read: Ukraine evacuates civilians from steel plant under siege
Vadim Krasnoselsky, the president of the unrecognized territory, denied those claims, saying it “does not pose a threat to neighboring states, observes neutrality and remains committed to the principle of resolving all issues at the negotiating table.”
Moscow has sought to sweep across southern Ukraine both to cut off the country from the Black Sea and to create a corridor to Transnistria. But it has struggled to achieve those objectives.
In a sign of the dogged resistance that has sustained the fighting into its 11th week, Ukraine’s military struck Russian positions on a Black Sea island that was captured in the war’s first days and has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed Ukraine targeting Russian-held Snake Island in a bid to impede Russia’s efforts to control the sea.
A satellite image taken Sunday morning by Planet Labs PBC showed smoke rising from two sites on the island. On the island’s southern edge, a fire smoked next to debris. That corresponded to a video released by the Ukrainian military showing a strike on a Russian helicopter that had flown to the island.
The most intense combat in recent days has taken place in eastern Ukraine. A Ukrainian counteroffensive near Kharkiv, a city in the northeast that is the country’s second-largest, “is making significant progress and will likely advance to the Russian border in the coming days or weeks,” according to the Institute for the Study of War.
The Washington-based think tank added that “the Ukrainian counteroffensive demonstrates promising Ukrainian capabilities.”
However, the Ukrainian army withdrew from Luhansk province’s embattled city of Popasna, Haidai, the regional governor, said Sunday. In a video interview posted on his Telegram channel, Haidai said that Kyiv’s troops had “moved to stronger positions, which they had prepared ahead of time.”
Rodion Miroshnik, a representative of the pro-Kremlin, separatist Luhansk People’s Republic, said its forces and Russian troops had captured most of Popasna after two months of fierce fighting.
The Russia-backed rebels have established a breakaway region in Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk, which together make up Ukraine’s industrial heartland known as the Donbas. Russia has targeted areas still under Ukrainian control.
One million residents in Luhansk, including those in separatist-held territory, were left without running water Sunday after Russian shelling damaged a local water utility, the region’s Ukrainian governor wrote on social media.
To the west in Dnipropetrovsk province, the governor said a 12-year-old boy was killed by a cluster munition that he found after a Russian attack. An international treaty bans the use of those kind of explosives, but neither Russia nor Ukraine have signed the agreement.
The regional governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, said the boy was the sixth local child killed by cluster munitions.
“This war is treacherous,” he wrote on social media. “It is near, even when it is invisible.”
Dozens feared dead as Russian shell hits Ukrainian school
Dozens of Ukrainians were feared dead Sunday after a Russian bomb destroyed a school sheltering about 90 people in the basement as Moscow's invading forces kept up their barrage of cities, towns and villages in eastern and southern Ukraine.
The governor of Luhansk province, one of two areas that make up the eastern industrial heartland known as the Donbas, said the school in the village of Bilohorivka caught fire after Saturday's bombing. Emergency crews found two bodies and rescued 30 people, he said.
“Most likely, all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” Gov. Serhiy Haidai wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Russian shelling also killed two boys, ages 11 and 14, in the nearby town of Pryvillia, he said.
Since failing to capture Ukraine's capital, Russia has focused its offensive in the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting since 2014 and occupy some territory. The largest European conflict since World War II has developed into a punishing war of attrition due to the Ukrainian military's unexpectedly effective defense.
To demonstrate success, Moscow was aiming to complete its conquest of the besieged port city of Mariupol in time for Victory Day celebrations on Monday. All the remaining women, children and older civilians who had been sheltering with Ukrainian fighters in a sprawling steel mill that is the city's last defense holdout were evacuated Saturday.
Also read: Ukraine evacuates civilians from steel plant under siege
The troops still inside have refused to surrender and requested international help to get them out, too. Capturing Mariupol would give Moscow a land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula, annexed from Ukraine during a 2014 invasion.
Satellite photos shot Friday by Planet Labs PBC showed vast devastation at the Azovstal steel mill. Buildings had gaping holes in the roofs, including one under which hundreds of fighters were likely hiding.
After rescuers evacuated the last civilians Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that the focus would turn to extracting the wounded and medics: “Of course, if everyone fulfills the agreements. Of course, if there are no lies.”
Elsewhere on the coast, air raid sirens sounded several times early Sunday in the major Black sea port of Odesa, which Russia struck with six cruise missiles on Saturday.
The Odesa city council said four of the missiles hit a furniture company, with the shock waves and debris badly damaging high-rise apartment buildings. The other two missiles hit the Odesa airport, where a previous Russian attack destroyed the runway.
In a sign of the dogged resistance that has sustained the fighting into its 11th week, Ukraine’s military struck Russian positions on a Black Sea island that was captured in the war’s first days and has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Western military analysts also said a Ukrainian counteroffensive was advancing around the country's second-largest city, Kharkiv. Ukraine's military said retreating Russian forces destroyed three bridges on a road northeast of the city to try to slow the Ukrainian advance.
Also read: Ukraine braces for escalated attacks ahead of Russia’s V-Day
Ukrainian leaders warned that attacks would only worsen in the lead-up to Victory Day, when Russia celebrates Nazi Germany’s defeat in 1945 with military parades. Russian President Vladimir Putin is believed to want to proclaim some kind of triumph in Ukraine when he addresses the troops on Red Square on Monday.
In neighboring Moldova, Russian and separatists troops were on “full alert," the Ukrainian military warned. The region has increasingly become a focus of worries that the conflict could expand beyond Ukraine's borders.
Pro-Russian forces broke off the Transnistria section of Moldova in 1992, and Russian troops have been stationed there since, ostensibly as peacekeepers.
Those forces are on “full combat readiness,” Ukraine said, without giving details on how it came to the assessment.
Moscow has sought to sweep across southern Ukraine both to cut off the country from the sea and create a corridor to Transnistria. But it has struggled to achieve those objectives.
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed Ukraine targeting Russian-held Snake Island in a bid to impede Russia’s efforts to control the Black Sea.
A satellite image taken Sunday morning by Planet Labs PBC showed smoke rising from two sites on the island. On the island’s southern edge, a fire smoked next to debris. That corresponded to a video released by the Ukrainian military showing its strike on a Russian helicopter that had flown to the island.
A Planet Labs image from Saturday showed most of the island’s buildings, as well as what appeared to be a Serna-class landing craft against the island’s northern beach. had been destroyed by Ukrainian drone attacks.
The most intense combat in recent days has taken place in eastern Ukraine. Western military analysts said a counter-offensive by Ukrainian forces was progressing around Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city. The Ukrainian military said it retook control of five villages and part of a sixth near the northeastern city.
However, the Ukrainian army withdrew from Luhansk province's embattled city of Popasna, Haidai, the regional governor, said Sunday.
In a video interview posted on his Telegram channel, Haidai said that Kyiv’s troops had “moved to stronger positions, which they had prepared ahead of time.”
“All free settlements in the Luhansk region are hot spots,” Haidai added. “Right now, there are shooting battles in (the villages) of Bilohorivka, Voivodivka and towards Popasna.”
Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that work would also continue Sunday on securing humanitarian corridors for residents of Mariupol and surrounding towns to leave.
It remains unclear what will happen to the estimated 2,000 fighters at the Azovstal plant, both those still in combat and the hundreds believed to be wounded. The Ukrainian government has been reaching out to international organizations to try to secure safe passage for them. surrender.
Zelenskyy said officials were trying to find a way to evacuate them. He acknowledged the difficulty, but said: “We are not losing hope, we are not stopping. Every day we are looking for some diplomatic option that might work.”
Ukraine evacuates civilians from steel plant under siege
Russian forces fired cruise missiles at the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa on Saturday and bombarded a besieged steel mill in Mariupol, hoping to complete their conquest of the port in time for Victory Day celebrations. Officials announced that the last women, children and older adults had been evacuated from the mill, but Ukrainian fighters remained trapped.
In a sign of the unexpectedly effective defense that has sustained the fighting into its 11th week, Ukraine’s military flattened Russian positions on a Black Sea island that was captured in the war’s first days and has become a symbol of resistance.
Western military analysts also said a Ukrainian counteroffensive was advancing around the country's second-largest city, Kharkiv, even as it remained a key target of Russian shelling.
The largest European conflict since World War II has developed into a punishing war of attrition that has killed thousands of people, forced millions to flee their homes and destroyed large swaths of some cities. Ukrainian leaders warned that attacks would only worsen in the lead-up to Russia’s holiday on Monday celebrating Nazi Germany’s defeat 77 years ago, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged people to heed air raid warnings.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that Zelenskyy and his people “embody the spirit of those who prevailed during the Second World War.” He accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying “to twist history to attempt to justify his unprovoked and brutal war against Ukraine.”
“As war again rages in Europe, we must increase our resolve to resist those who now seek to manipulate historical memory in order to advance their own ambitions,” Blinken said in a statement as the United States and United Kingdom commemorated the Allied victory in Europe.
The most intense fighting in recent days has been in eastern Ukraine, where the two sides are entrenched in a fierce battle to capture or reclaim territory. Moscow's offensive there has focused on the Donbas, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting since 2014.
The governor of the Luhansk region, one of two that make up the Donbas, said a Russian strike destroyed a school in the village of Bilogorivka where 90 people were seeking safety in the basement. Gov. Serhiy Haidai, who posted pictures of the burning rubble on Telegram, said 30 people were rescued. The emergency services later reported that two bodies had been found and more could still be buried under the rubble. Rescue work was suspended overnight but was to resume on Sunday.
Haidai also said two boys aged 11 and 14 were killed by Russian shelling in the town of Pryvillia, while two girls aged 8 and 12 and a 69-year-old woman were wounded.
Moscow also has sought to sweep across southern Ukraine both to cut off the country from the sea and create a corridor to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, long home to Russian troops. But it has struggled to achieve those objectives.
On Saturday, six Russian cruise missiles fired from aircraft hit Odesa, where a curfew is in place until Tuesday morning. Videos posted on social media showed thick black smoke rising over the Black Sea port city as sirens wailed.
The Odesa city council said four of the missiles hit a furniture company, with the shock waves and debris badly damaging high-rise apartment buildings. The other two missiles hit the Odesa airport, where the runway had already been taken out in a previous Russian attack.
Air raid sirens sounded several times early Sunday, the city council said.
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed Ukraine targeting Russian-held Snake Island in a bid to impede Russia’s efforts to control the Black Sea. An image taken early Saturday by Planet Labs PBC showed that most of the island’s buildings had been destroyed by Ukrainian drone attacks, as well as what appeared to be a Serna-class landing craft against the island's northern beach.
The image corresponds with a Ukrainian military video showing a drone striking the Russian vessel, engulfing it in flames. Snake Island, located some 35 kilometers (20 miles) off the coast, figured in a memorable incident early in the war when Ukrainian border guards stationed there defied Russian orders to surrender, purportedly using colorful language.
In Mariupol, Ukrainian fighters made a final stand against a complete Russian takeover of the strategically important city, which would give Moscow a land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula, annexed from Ukraine during a 2014 invasion.
Satellite photos shot Friday by Planet Labs PBC showed vast devastation at the sprawling Azovstal seaside steel mill, the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the city. Buildings had gaping holes in the roofs, including one under which hundreds of fighters were likely hiding.
After rescuers evacuated the last civilians Saturday, Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that the focus would turn to extracting the wounded and medics: “Of course, if everyone fulfills the agreements. Of course, if there are no lies.”
He added that work would also continue Sunday on securing humanitarian corridors for residents of Mariupol and surrounding towns to leave.
The situation at the plant has drawn the world’s attention, with the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross desperately trying to organize evacuations.
In recent days, fighters inside described bringing out small groups of civilians who had been hiding there for weeks. The fighters said via social media that both they and the Russians had used a white flag system to halt fighting in order to get civilians out.
But Russian forces have intensified fire on the mill with mortars, artillery, truck-mounted rocket systems, aerial bombardment and shelling from the sea, making evacuation operations difficult.
Three Ukrainian fighters were reportedly killed and six more wounded during an evacuation attempt Friday. Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, the deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, said his troops had waved white flags, and he accused Russian forces of firing an anti-tank weapon at a vehicle.
It remains unclear what will happen to the estimated 2,000 fighters at Azovstal, both those still in combat and the hundreds believed to be wounded. In recent days the Ukrainian government has been reaching out to international organizations to try to secure safe passage for them. The fighters have repeatedly vowed not to surrender.
Zelenskyy said officials were trying to find a way to evacuate them. He acknowledged the difficulty, but said: “We are not losing hope, we are not stopping. Every day we are looking for some diplomatic option that might work.”
Russian forces have probed the plant and even reached into its warren of tunnels, according to Ukrainian officials.
Kharkiv, which was the first Soviet capital in Ukraine and had a prewar population of about 4 million, remained a key target of Russian shelling in the northeast. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Saturday that the Russian military also hit large shipments of weapons from the U.S. and other Western countries with Iskander missiles in the region. His claims couldn’t be independently verified.
But Western military analysts said Ukrainian forces were making progress in securing positions around the city. The Ukrainian military said it retook control of five villages and part of a sixth, and that Russian forces destroyed three bridges on a road northeast of the city to try to slow Ukraine's advance.
A Washington-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said in its most recent assessment that Ukraine may be able to push Russian forces “out of artillery range of Kharkiv in the coming days,” providing a respite for the city and an opportunity to build the defenders' momentum “into a successful, broader counteroffensive.”
Overnight, a Russian missile destroyed a national museum in the Kharkiv region dedicated to the life and work of 18th-century philosopher and poet Gregory Skovoroda, the local council said. It posted photographs on Facebook showing the building engulfed in flames.
Zelenskyy expressed outrage at the missile attacks on the museum and on Odesa, “where almost every street has something memorable, something historical.” He said Russian forces have destroyed or damaged about 200 cultural heritage sites.
“Every day of this war, the Russian army does something that leaves you speechless,” he said. “But then the next day it does something that makes you feel this way in a new way.”
Ukraine braces for escalated attacks ahead of Russia’s V-Day
Ukrainian troops solidified their positions around the nation’s second-largest city Saturday as Russian forces delivered more punishing attacks on an embattled steelworks in a bid to complete their conquest of the southern port of Mariupol in time for Victory Day celebrations.
As Monday’s holiday commemorating the Soviet Union’s World War II victory over Nazi Germany approached, cities across Ukraine prepared for an expected increase in Russian attacks. Officials urged residents numbed by more than 10 weeks of war to heed air raid warnings.
“These symbolic dates are to the Russian aggressor like red to a bull,” Ukraine’s first deputy interior minister, Yevhen Yenin, said. “While the entire civilized world remembers the victims of terrible wars on these days, the Russian Federation wants parades and is preparing to dance over bones in Mariupol."
The most intense fighting in recent days has befallen eastern Ukraine, where the two sides are entrenched in a fierce race to capture territory not under their control. Western military analysts said a Ukrainian counter-offensive was advancing around the northeastern city of Kharkiv while the Russians made minor gains in Luhansk, an area where Moscow-backed separatists have fought since 2014.
Against that backdrop, Ukrainian fighters were making a final stand to prevent a complete takeover of Mariupol. Securing the strategically important Sea of Azov port that would give Moscow a land bridge to the Crimea Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine during a 2014 invasion.
Also read: 7.7 million people displaced inside Ukraine
New satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed vast devastation at a sprawling seaside steel mill that is the last corner of Ukrainian resistance in the city. Buildings at the Azovstal plant, including one under which hundreds of fighters and civilians are likely hiding, had large, gaping holes in the roof, according to the images shot Friday by Planet Labs PBC.
The bombardment of the steel mill intensified in recent days despite a Russian pledge for a temporary cease-fire to allow civilians inside to escape. Russia has used mortars, artillery, truck-mounted rocket systems, aerial bombardment and shelling from sea to target the facility.
Rescuers sought to evacuate more civilians on Saturday after a week of on-and-off convoys to get people out of Mariupol. Dozens of civilians were delivered Friday to the care of United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross representatives, Russian and Ukrainian officials confirmed. The Russian military said the group of 50 included 11 children.
The latest evacuees followed roughly 500 others who were allowed to leave the plant and other parts of the city in recent days.
The Ukrainian government has called on international organizations to also help evacuate the fighters defending the plant. By Russia’s most recent estimate, roughly 2,000 Ukrainian fighters remained at the Azovstal steelworks. They have repeatedly refused to surrender.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “influential states” were involved in efforts to rescue the soldiers, although he did not mention any by name.
“We are also working on diplomatic options to save our troops who are still at Azovstal,” he said in his nightly video address early Saturday.
While they pounded away at the plant, Russian forces struggled to make significant gains elsewhere nearly 2 1/2 months into a ruinous war that has killed thousands of people, forced millions to flee Ukraine and flattened large swaths of some cities.
Kharkiv, which was the first Soviet capital in Ukraine, remained a key target of Russian shelling, the Ukrainian military said. The Ukrainian army said it made progress around the hotly contested city with a pre-war population of about 1.4 million, recapturing five villages and part of a sixth.
A Washington-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said in its most recent assessment that Ukraine’s military may be able to push Russian forces “out of artillery range of Kharkiv in the coming days,” providing a respite for the city and an opportunity to build the defenders’ momentum “into a successful, broader counteroffensive.”
Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that the “extraordinary strength of the Ukrainian position” lies in all the countries of the free world understanding what is at stake in the ruinous war.
Also read: Defenders inside Ukrainian steel mill refuse to surrender
“We are defending ourselves against an onslaught of tyranny that wants to destroy everything that freedom gives to people and states,” the Ukrainian leader said. “And such a struggle, for freedom and against tyranny, is fully comprehensible for any society, in any corner of the globe.”
7.7 million people displaced inside Ukraine
Humanitarian needs continue to rise in war-torn Ukraine where an estimated 7.7 million people are now internally displaced, UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths said Thursday.
He was addressing the International Donor Conference for Ukraine in Warsaw co-hosted by Poland and Sweden, in cooperation with the Presidents of the European Commission and the European Council. The conference raised a reported $6.5 billion.
According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, more than 5.7 million people have now fled across Ukraine's borders seeking shelter, in the two and a half months since the Russian invasion on February 24.
In a tweet, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said in his briefing at the conference, that he had stressed priorities for the millions of refugees and internally displaced, the importance of cash programmes, shelter and accommodation, and protection of the vulnerable.
World Food Programme (WFP) chief David Beasley, also addressed the conference, following the announcement by the UN emergency food relief agency that it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, to scale up cash transfers to half a million people across Ukraine.
The agreement will support people displaced by the war and expand the assistance already provided to 170,000 people through cash assistance.
Also Read: Defenders inside Ukrainian steel mill refuse to surrender
Since the beginning of April, the WFP has transferred nearly $11 million in local currency, to more than 170,000 people In Vinnytsia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv and other cities. Those eligible are receiving between $75 and $225 per month, depending on family size.
Cash allows people to buy the items and services that they consider most important. It is extremely useful to families with a variety of needs in a volatile environment, when they may be moving locations.
Every dollar spent by a family in Ukraine is directly injected into the local economy, said the WFP.
Meanwhile, UN independent human rights experts together with the coordinator of the international non-governmental group known as the Global Protection Cluster issued a statement Thursday, highlighting the "appalling" humanitarian situation facing millions in Ukraine.
"Multiple forms of gender-based violence are being reported such as sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual violence, including conflict-related sexual violence. Women and girls on the move – at border crossing points or transit and collective centres and in bomb shelters – experience particularly high insecurity and risk of violence, including trafficking in persons," they said.
"Numerous families have been separated during displacement, and unaccompanied and separated children are particularly vulnerable to the risks of trafficking, violence, abuse and exploitation."
They also expressed deep concern over the plight of older people and those with disabilities in the war zone.
"Many of them are still in conflict zones because of mobility limitations or reliance on others for care and face challenges in accessing bomb shelters or safe areas. We are especially concerned about those persons with disabilities, including children, living in institutions for persons with disabilities who face barriers to access humanitarian assistance and evacuation on an equal basis with others."
Defenders inside Ukrainian steel mill refuse to surrender
Ukrainian fighters battling Russian forces in the tunnels beneath Mariupol’s immense steel plant refused to surrender in the face of relentless attacks, with the wife of one commander saying they had vowed to “stand till the end.”
The battle, in the last Ukrainian stronghold of the strategic port city reduced to ruins by the Russian onslaught, appeared increasingly desperate on Thursday.
“They won’t surrender,” Kateryna Prokopenko said after speaking by phone to her husband, a leader of the steel plant defenders. “They only hope for a miracle.”
Also read:‘Seemed like goodbye’: Mariupol defenders make their stand
She said her husband, Azov Regiment commander Denys Prokopenko, told her he would love her forever.
“I am going mad from this. It seemed like words of goodbye,” she said.
The bloody battle came amid growing speculation that President Vladimir Putin wants to present the Russian people with a battlefield triumph — or announce an escalation of the war — in time for Victory Day on Monday. Victory Day is the biggest patriotic holiday on the Russian calendar, marking the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany.
Some 2,000 Ukrainian fighters, by Russia’s most recent estimate, were holed up in a maze of tunnels and bunkers beneath Mariupol’s sprawling Azovstal steelworks. A few hundred civilians were also believed trapped there.
“There are many wounded (fighters), but they are not surrendering,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Thursday in his nightly video address. “They are holding their positions.”
He said the attack was preventing the evacuation of remaining civilians.
“Just imagine this hell! And there are children there,” he said “More than two months of constant shelling, bombing, constant death.”
The Russians managed to get inside with the help of an electrician who knew the layout, said Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry.
“He showed them the underground tunnels which are leading to the factory,” Gerashchenko said in a video posted late Wednesday. “Yesterday, the Russians started storming these tunnels, using the information they received from the betrayer.”
The Kremlin denied its troops were storming the plant.
The fall of Mariupol would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops to fight elsewhere in the Donbas, the eastern industrial region that the Kremlin says is now its chief objective.
Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, pleaded on Ukrainian TV for the evacuation of civilians and wounded fighters from the steelworks, saying soldiers were “dying in agony due to the lack of proper treatment.”
The Kremlin has demanded the troops surrender. They have refused. Russia has also accused them of preventing the civilians from leaving.
Also read:Russia pounds Ukraine, targeting supply of Western arms
The head of the United Nations said another attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol and the plant was underway. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “We must continue to do all we can to get people out of these hellscapes.”
More than 100 civilians were rescued from the steelworks over the weekend. But many previous attempts to open safe corridors from Mariupol have fallen through, with Ukraine blaming shelling and firing by the Russians.
Meanwhile, 10 weeks into the devastating war, Ukraine’s military claimed it recaptured some areas in the south and repelled other attacks in the east, further frustrating Putin’s ambitions after his abortive attempt to seize Kyiv. Ukrainian and Russian forces are fighting village by village.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russian forces are making only “plodding” progress in the Donbas.
The head of Britain’s armed forces, Chief of the Defense Staff Adm. Tony Radakin, said Putin is “trying to rush to a tactical victory” before Victory Day. But he said Russian forces are struggling to gain momentum.
On Thursday, an American official said the U.S. shared intelligence with Ukraine about the location of a Russian flagship before the mid-April strike that sank it, one of Moscow’s highest-profile failures in the war.
The U.S. has provided “a range of intelligence” that includes locations of warships, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said the decision to target the missile cruiser Moskva was purely a Ukrainian decision.
Fearful of new attacks surrounding Victory Day, the mayor of the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk urged residents to leave for the countryside over the long weekend and warned them not to gather in public places.
And the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, a key transit point for evacuees from Mariupol, announced a curfew from Sunday evening through Tuesday morning.
Mariupol, which had a prewar population of over 400,000, has come to symbolize the misery inflicted by the war. The siege of the city has trapped perhaps 100,000 civilians with little food, water, medicine or heat.
As the battle raged there, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Russian bombardment Thursday hit dozens of Ukrainian military targets, including troop concentrations in the east, an artillery battery near the eastern settlement of Zarozhne and rocket launchers near the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Five people were killed and dozens injured in shelling of cities in the Donbas over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian officials said, with shells hitting schools, apartments and a medical facility.
Ukrainian forces said they made some gains on the border of the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv and repelled 11 Russian attacks in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas.
The war has devastated the country’s medical infrastructure, Zelenskyy said in a video link to a charity event in the U.K. Nearly 400 health care facilities have been damaged or destroyed, he said.
“There is simply a catastrophic situation regarding access to medical services and medicines,” in areas occupied by Russian forces, he said. “Even the simplest drugs are lacking.”
With the challenge of mine-clearing and rebuilding after the war in mind, Zelenskyy announced the launch of a global fundraising platform called United24.
At the same time, Poland hosted an international donor conference that raised $6.5 billion in humanitarian aid. The gathering was attended by prime ministers and ambassadors from many European countries, as well as representatives of nations farther afield and some businesses.
In addition, a Ukrainian cabinet body began to develop proposals for a comprehensive postwar reconstruction plan, while Zelenskyy also urged Western allies to put forward a program similar to the post-World War II Marshall Plan plan to help Ukraine rebuild.
‘Seemed like goodbye’: Mariupol defenders make their stand
Ukrainian fighters in the tunnels underneath Mariupol’s pulverized steel plant held out against Russian troops Thursday in an increasingly desperate and perhaps doomed effort to deny Moscow what would be its biggest success of the war yet: the complete capture of the strategic port city.
The bloody battle came amid growing speculation that President Vladimir Putin wants to present the Russian people with a battlefield triumph — or announce an escalation of the war — in time for Victory Day on Monday. Victory Day is the biggest patriotic holiday on the Russian calendar, marking the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany.
Some 2,000 Ukrainian fighters, by Russia’s most recent estimate, were holed up at Mariupol’s sprawling Azovstal steelworks, the last pocket of resistance in a city largely reduced to rubble over the past two months. A few hundred civilians were also believed trapped there.
The defenders will “stand till the end. They only hope for a miracle,” Kateryna Prokopenko said after speaking by phone to her husband, a leader of the steel plant defenders. “They won’t surrender.”
She said her husband, Azov Regiment commander Denys Prokopenko, told her he would love her forever.
“I am going mad from this. It seemed like words of goodbye,” she said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack was preventing the evacuation of civilians remaining in the plant’s underground bunkers.
“Just imagine this hell! And there are children there,” he said late Thursday in his nightly video address. “More than two months of constant shelling, bombing, constant death.”
The Russians managed to get inside with the help of an electrician who knew the layout, said Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry.
READ: Ukraine: Russia using ‘missile terrorism’ in wide attacks
“He showed them the underground tunnels which are leading to the factory,” Gerashchenko said in a video posted late Wednesday. “Yesterday, the Russians started storming these tunnels, using the information they received from the betrayer.”
The Kremlin denied its troops were storming the plant.
The fall of Mariupol would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops to fight elsewhere in the Donbas, the eastern industrial region that the Kremlin says is now its chief objective.
Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, pleaded on Ukrainian TV for the evacuation of civilians and wounded fighters from the steelworks, saying soldiers were “dying in agony due to the lack of proper treatment.”
The Kremlin has demanded the troops surrender. They have refused. Russia has also accused them of preventing the civilians from leaving.
The head of the United Nations said another attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol and the plant was underway. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “We must continue to do all we can to get people out of these hellscapes.”
More than 100 civilians were rescued from the steelworks over the weekend. But many previous attempts to open safe corridors from Mariupol have fallen through, with Ukraine blaming shelling and firing by the Russians.
Meanwhile, 10 weeks into the devastating war, Ukraine’s military claimed it recaptured some areas in the south and repelled other attacks in the east, further frustrating Putin’s ambitions after his abortive attempt to seize Kyiv. Ukrainian and Russian forces are fighting village by village.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russian forces are making only “plodding” progress in the Donbas.
The head of Britain’s armed forces, Chief of the Defense Staff Adm. Tony Radakin, said Putin is “trying to rush to a tactical victory” before Victory Day. But he said Russian forces are struggling to gain momentum.
Radakin told British broadcaster Talk TV that Russia is using missiles and weapons at such a rate that it is in a “logistics war” to keep supplied. “This is going to be a hard slog,” he said.
On Thursday, an American official said the U.S. shared intelligence with Ukraine about the location of a Russian flagship before the mid-April strike that sank it, one of Moscow’s highest-profile failures in the war.
The U.S. has provided “a range of intelligence” that includes locations of warships, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said the decision to target the missile cruiser Moskva was purely a Ukrainian decision.
Fearful of new attacks surrounding Victory Day, the mayor of the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk urged residents to leave for the countryside over the long weekend and warned them not to gather in public places.
And the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, a key transit point for evacuees from Mariupol, announced a curfew from Sunday evening through Tuesday morning.
In other developments, Belarus’ authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in an interview with The Associated Press but said he didn’t expect the conflict to “drag on this way.”
Lukashenko, whose country was used by the Russians as a launch pad for the invasion, said Moscow had to act because Kyiv was “provoking” Russia.
But he also created some distance between himself and the Kremlin, repeatedly calling for an end to the conflict and referring to it as a “war” — a term Moscow refuses to use. It insists on calling the fighting a “special military operation.”
Mariupol, which had a prewar population of over 400,000, has come to symbolize the misery inflicted by the war. The siege of the city has trapped perhaps 100,000 civilians with little food, water, medicine or heat.
As the battle raged there, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Russian bombardment Thursday hit dozens of Ukrainian military targets, including troop concentrations in the east, an artillery battery near the eastern settlement of Zarozhne, and rocket launchers near the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Five people were killed and dozens injured in shelling of cities in the Donbas over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian officials said, with shells hitting schools, apartments and a medical facility.
Ukrainian forces said they made some gains on the border of the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv and repelled 11 Russian attacks in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said that Ukrainian forces “have largely stalled Russian advances in eastern Ukraine,” and intensified Russian airstrikes on transportation infrastructure in the western part of the country have failed to stop Western aid shipments to Ukraine.
But the war has devastated the country’s medical infrastructure, Zelenskyy said in a video link to a charity event in the U.K., with nearly 400 healthcare facilities damaged or destroyed.
“There is simply a catastrophic situation regarding access to medical services and medicines,” in areas occupied by Russian forces, he said. “Even the simplest drugs are lacking.”
With the challenge of mine-clearing and rebuilding after the war in mind, Zelenskyy announced the launch of a global fundraising platform called United24.
At the same time, Poland hosted an international donor conference that raised $6.5 billion in humanitarian aid. The gathering was attended by prime ministers and ambassadors from many European countries, as well as representatives of nations farther afield and some businesses.
In addition, a Ukrainian cabinet body began to develop proposals for a comprehensive postwar reconstruction plan, while Zelenskyy also urged Western allies to put forward a program similar to the post-World War II Marshall Plan plan to help Ukraine rebuild.
Russia pounds Ukraine, targeting supply of Western arms
Russian forces pounded targets across Ukraine, taking aim at supply lines for foreign weapons in the west and intensifying an offensive in the east, as the European Union moved Wednesday to further punish Moscow for the war with a proposed ban on oil imports.
The Russian military said Wednesday it used sea- and air-launched precision guided missiles to destroy electric power facilities at five railway stations across Ukraine, while artillery and aircraft also struck troop strongholds and fuel and ammunition depots.
The defense minister repeated that Russian forces have blocked off a steel mill in Mariupol from which scores of civilians were evacuated over the weekend. Another official denied they were storming the plant, as its defenders said a day earlier.
Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, said attacks in the eastern Donbas region left 21 civilians dead.
The flurry of attacks over the past day comes as Russia prepares to celebrate Victory Day on May 9, marking the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany. This year the world is watching for whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will use the occasion to declare a limited victory — or expand what he calls a “special military operation” to a wider war.
Also read:EU leader calls for Russian oil ban in new set of sanctions
A declaration of all-out war would allow Putin to introduce martial law and mobilize reservists to replace what Western officials say have been significant troop losses.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday dismissed the speculation as “untrue” and “nonsense.”
As areas across Ukraine came under renewed attack, Belarus, which Russia used as a staging ground for its invasion, announced military drills. The Defense Ministry in Minsk said the exercises that began Wednesday don’t threaten any neighbors but a top Ukrainian official the country will be ready to act if Belarus joins the fighting.
While the Russian attacks were across a wide swath of Ukraine, some were concentrated in and around Lviv, the western city close to the Polish border that has been a gateway for NATO-supplied weapons.
Explosions were heard late Tuesday in the city, which has seen only sporadic attacks during the war and has become a haven for civilians fleeing the fighting elsewhere. The mayor said the strikes damaged three power substations, knocking out electricity in parts of the city and disrupting the water supply. Two people were wounded.
The attacks on rail infrastructure were meant to disrupt the delivery of Western weapons, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said, while his boss, Minister Sergei Shoigu, told top military brass that the West was “stuffing Ukraine with weapons.”
Western weaponry pouring into Ukraine helped its forces blunt Russia’s initial offensive and seems certain to play a central role in the battle for the Donbas, which Moscow now says is its focus following its failure to take Kyiv in the early weeks of the war.
Ukraine has urged the West to ramp up the supply of weapons ahead of that potentially decisive battle. Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, which had been slow at first to help arm Ukraine, said Wednesday his government is considering supplying Ukraine with howitzers, in addition to Gepard anti-aircraft guns and other equipment it has already agreed to send.
The governor of the eastern Donetsk region, which lies in the Donbas, said Russian attacks left 21 dead on Tuesday, the highest number of known fatalities since April 8, when a missile attack on the railway station in Kramatorsk killed at least 59 people.
Russia has deployed a significant number of troops in the region and appears to be trying to advance in the north, as they try to cut Ukrainian forces off, according to an assessment from the British Defense Ministry. However, Moscow’s push has been slow as Ukrainian fighters dig in and use long-range weapons to target the Russians.
In addition to supplying weapons to Ukraine, Europe and the United States have sought to punish Moscow with sanctions. The EU’s top official called on the 27-nation bloc on Wednesday to ban Russian oil imports.
“We will make sure that we phase out Russian oil in an orderly fashion, in a way that allows us and our partners to secure alternative supply routes and minimizes the impact on global markets,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
Also read:Ukraine hopes for more evacuations from besieged steel mill
The proposals need unanimous approval from EU countries and are likely to be the subject of fierce debate. Hungary and Slovakia have already said they won’t take part in any oil sanctions, but von der Leyen didn’t elaborate on whether they would receive an exemption, which appears likely.
Von der Leyen also proposed that Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, and two other major banks be disconnected from the SWIFT international banking payment system.
On Tuesday, in one of the most crucial battles of the war, Ukrainian fighters said Russian forces began storming the bombed-out steel mill in Mariupol, the last pocket of resistance in the city. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that was not true.
“There is no assault. We see that there are cases of escalation due to the fact that the militants take up the firing positions. These attempts are being suppressed very quickly,” Peskov said.
Shoigu, the defense minister, said that fighters at the Azovstal mill have been “securely blocked” inside, while Russian forces continue to demand their surrender — something they have repeatedly refused to do.
Over the weekend, however, scores of civilians were successfully evacuated from the plant’s underground tunnels after enduring weeks of shelling.
It is unclear how many Ukrainian fighters are still inside, but the Russians put the number at about 2,000 in recent weeks, and 500 were reported to be wounded. A few hundred civilians also remained there, said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
Officials have expressed hope more people could yet be evacuated. No new rescues from the plant have been announced, but Vereshchuk said Wednesday authorities plan to continue efforts to evacuate civilians from Mariupol and nearby areas if the security situation allows it.
Thanks to the evacuation effort over the weekend, 101 people — including women, the elderly, and 17 children, the youngest 6 months old — emerged from the bunkers under the steelworks to “see the daylight after two months,” said Osnat Lubrani, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine.
One evacuee said she went to sleep at the plant every night afraid she wouldn’t wake up.
“You can’t imagine how scary it is when you sit in the bomb shelter, in a damp and wet basement, and it is bouncing and shaking,” 54-year-old Elina Tsybulchenko said upon arriving in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles (230 kilometers) northwest of Mariupol.
Mariupol — and the plant in particular — has come to symbolize the human misery inflicted by the war. The Russians’ two-month siege of the strategic port has trapped civilians with little or no food, water, medicine or heat, as Moscow’s forces pounded the city into rubble.
The city’s fall would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops for fighting elsewhere in the Donbas.