Members of the emergency team work near a residential building damaged by a missile strike during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Odessa, Ukraine, April 23, 2022. STRINGER / Reuters
Russian forces in Ukraine tried to storm a steel plant housing troops and civilians in the southern city of Mariupol on Saturday in a bid to crush the last corner of resistance on the ground with deep symbolic and strategic value to Moscow, Ukrainian authorities said.
The reported attack on the eve of Orthodox Easter came after the Kremlin said its military had taken over the entire destroyed city except the Azovstal plant, and after Russian forces struck other cities in southern and eastern Ukraine.
A 3-month-old baby was among six killed when Russia fired cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odessa, officials said.
Meanwhile, President Vladimir Zelensky said he would meet on Sunday in Kyiv with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Minister Lloyd Austin. He announced his visit at a press conference and did not immediately share more details. The White House declined to comment.
Zelensky also complains about the baby’s death in Odessa. “The war started when this baby was one month old. Can you imagine what’s going on? “He said.” They’re just bastards. … I have no other words for that, just bastards. “
The fate of the Ukrainians in the vast seaside steel plant in Mariupol was not immediately clear; earlier in the day, a ukrainian military released a video that was reportedly filmed two days earlier, in which women and children hid underground, some for two months, saying they longed to see the sun.
Members of the Ukrainian special forces talk about the defense of Kyiv, call for weapons to confront the Russian army in the east
“We want to see a peaceful sky, we want to breathe fresh air,” a woman said in the video. “You just have no idea what it means for us to just eat, drink some sweetened tea. For us, this is already happiness. “
As the battle for the port continued, Russia claims to have taken control of several villages elsewhere in the eastern Donbass region and destroyed 11 Ukrainian military targets overnight, including three artillery depots. Russian attacks also hit settlements.
MURAT YUKSELIR / GLOSS AND POST, SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS
Associated Press reporters observed shelling in residential areas of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city; District Governor Oleh Sinehubov said three people had been killed. In the Luhansk region of Donbass, Governor Sergei Haidai said six people had died in the shelling of the village of Gorskoy.
In Slavyansk, a town in northern Donbas, the AP saw two soldiers arrive at a hospital, one of whom was mortally wounded. A small group of people gathered nearby in front of a church, where a priest blessed them with water on Holy Saturday.
While British officials said Russian forces had not won a significant new position, Ukrainian authorities announced a national curfew before Easter, a sign of an end to the war and a threat to the whole country.
Mariupol has been a key Russian target since the invasion began on February 24 and has gained enormous importance in the war. Completing its conquest will give Russia its biggest victory to date, after a nearly two-month siege led much of the city to smoldering ruins.
This will deprive Ukrainians of a vital port, free Russian troops to fight elsewhere, and create a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula that Moscow captured in 2014. Russian-backed separatists control parts of Donbass.
An adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, Alexei Arestovich, said at a briefing on Saturday that Russian forces had resumed air strikes on the Azovstal plant and were trying to storm it. A direct attempt to seize the plant would be to overturn an order issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin two days earlier.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin on Thursday that all of Mariupol, with the exception of Azovstal, had been “liberated.” At the time, Putin ordered him not to send troops to the plant, but instead to block it, an apparent attempt to tire those inside and force them to surrender.
Ukrainian authorities estimate that about 2,000 of their troops are inside the plant, along with civilians hiding in its underground tunnels. Arestovic said they were trying to counter the new attacks.
Earlier on Saturday, the Azov Regiment of the National Guard of Ukraine, which has members hiding in the plant, released a video of about two dozen women and children. Its contents cannot be independently verified, but if it is authentic, this will be the first video testimony to what life was like for civilians trapped underground.
The video shows soldiers giving sweets to children who respond with punches. A young girl says she and her relatives “have seen neither the sky nor the sun” since leaving home on February 27.
Regiment Deputy Commander Svyatoslav Palamar told the AP that the video was shot on Thursday. The Azov Regiment has its roots in the Azov Battalion, which was formed in 2014 by far-right activists at the beginning of the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine and has drawn criticism for some of its tactics.
It is estimated that more than 100,000 people – less than the pre-war population of about 430,000 – remain in Mariupol with scarce food, water or heat, according to Ukrainian authorities, who estimate that more than 20,000 civilians were killed in the city during of the Russian blockade.
Satellite images released this week show what appears to be a second mass grave near Mariupol, and local authorities have accused Russia of burying thousands of civilians to cover up the massacre. The Kremlin has not commented on satellite images.
Ukrainian authorities said they would try again on Saturday to evacuate women, children and the elderly from Mariupol, but similar to previous plans to remove civilians from the city, it failed. Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said Russian forces had not allowed Ukrainian-organized buses to take residents to Zaporozhye, a city 227 kilometers (141 miles) northwest.
“At 11 a.m., at least 200 Mariupol residents gathered near the Port City shopping center, awaiting evacuation,” Andryushchenko wrote in the Telegram news release. “The Russian military approached the Mariupol residents and ordered them to disperse because there would be shelling now.
At the same time, he said, Russian buses had gathered about 200 meters away. Residents who boarded were told they had been taken to separatist-occupied territory and were not allowed to disembark, Andryushchenko said. His account cannot be verified independently.
In the attack on Odessa, Russian troops fired at least six missiles, according to Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister. Defense forces repelled some of the missiles, but at least one was hit, he said.
“Residents of the city heard explosions in different areas,” Gerashchenko said in a Telegram post. “Residential buildings have been damaged. One victim is already known. He burned in his car in the yard of one of the buildings. “
President Andriy Ermak’s chief of staff later announced that the 3-month-old baby was among the five killed.
In his night video address, Zelenski mourned all the victims of the war, noting that Easter marks the resurrection of Christ after his death by crucifixion.
“We believe in the victory of life over death,” he said. “No matter how fierce the battles, there is no chance of death winning life. Everyone knows that. Every Christian knows this. ”
About 80 people who fled the besieged city of Mariupol finally reached Zaporozhye on April 21 after more than 24 hours.
Associated Press
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