Russian forces have called for air strikes on the besieged steel plant in the southern city of Mariupol to try to displace the last Ukrainian troops detained in the strategic port, Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday, while President Vladimir Zelensky said he would meet in Kyiv with two senior US officials.
Zelensky gave several details about the logistics of his talks with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on the 60th day since Russia invaded Ukraine. But he told reporters he expected results – “not just gifts or cakes, we expect concrete things and concrete weapons.”
The visit will be the first in Kyiv of high-ranking US officials since the beginning of the invasion on February 24. While visiting Poland in March, Blinken briefly marched on Ukrainian soil to meet with the country’s foreign minister. Zelensky’s last face-to-face meeting with the US leader was on February 19 in Munich with Vice President Kamala Harris.
The meeting was to take place when Ukrainians and Russians celebrate Orthodox Easter, Zelensky stressed the allegorical significance of his evening address to the people of his country after nearly two months of war.
“Life will defeat death”
“There will be a Resurrection. Life will defeat death. Truth will defeat every lie. And evil will be punished,” he said. “And Russia will have to learn these truths again, it’s only a matter of time.
Russia has been trying to take Mariupol for nearly two months, and the city on the Sea of Azov has experienced some of the worst hardships of the war. Its capture will deprive Ukraine of a vital port, free Russian troops to fight elsewhere, and create a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula that Moscow captured in 2014.
About 2,000 troops are fighting hard to hold the last remaining Ukrainian post in the city, the Azovstal steel plant, which also has civilians taking refuge in its labyrinthine tunnel system.
Russian forces continue to strike at the plant, using air strikes, including from long-range aircraft, Alexander Stupun, a spokesman for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said on Sunday.
Mariupol was blocked for most of the war. Ukrainian authorities say they expect to find thousands of civilians killed and evidence of war crimes there when the fighting ends. Satellite images show what appear to be mass graves excavated in cities west and east of Mariupol.
On the last day, Russia also pushed back attacks elsewhere in the eastern region of Donbass, where Moscow-backed separatists controlled some pre-war territories and the Russians are seeking full control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial center.
Ukraine repulsed many attacks: Britain
Stupun said Russian forces had stepped up their assault operations on the cities of Popasna and Severodonetsk in Luhansk and Kurakhov in Donetsk. Luhansk Governor Sergei Haidai said on Sunday that eight people had been killed and two others injured in a Russian shelling on Saturday.
The Russians also fired on the Dnieper region west of Donbass, where at least one person was killed by a Russian missile, according to regional governor Valentin Reznichenko.
Russia withdrew forces from Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the north to feed off the Donbass offensive, but the British Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had repulsed numerous attacks in the past week.
A family from Mirn, a city currently occupied by Russian forces, is waiting to register with police at an evacuation center for people fleeing Mariupol, Melitopol and surrounding Russian-controlled cities on April 23rd. (Chris McGrath / Getty Images)
“Although Russia has made some territorial strides, Ukrainian resistance has been strong on all fronts and has caused significant costs to Russian forces,” the ministry said in an intelligence update.
“Poor Russian morale and limited time to rebuild, re-equip and reorganize forces from previous offensives are likely to hamper Russia’s combat effectiveness,” the statement said.
The Ukrainian military announced on Saturday that it had destroyed a Russian command post in Kherson, a southern city that had fallen from Russian forces at the start of the war.
Two more Russian generals were killed, Ukraine said
A command post was struck on Friday, killing two generals and seriously injuring another, according to a statement from Ukrainian military intelligence. The Russian military did not comment on the allegation, which could not be confirmed.
If true, at least nine Russian generals have been killed since the invasion, according to Ukrainian reports.
Ukrainian officials attend a religious service at the Nativity Cathedral of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Odessa on Sunday. (Igor Tkachenko / Reuters)
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. Ukrainian authorities estimate that more than 20,000 civilians have been killed in the city.
Another attempt to evacuate women, children and the elderly from Mariupol failed on Saturday. 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 northwest.
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