ZAPORIZHE, Ukraine – Ukrainian civilians evacuated from the devastated city of Mariupol brought with them new stories of survival and terror on Monday as Western nations worked to turn their growing promises of aid into action, preparing billions of dollars in military and economic aid, oil embargo and other once unthinkable steps.
Despite the early morning shelling, the evacuation stoppage observed by the Red Cross and the UN was considered the best and probably last hope for hundreds of civilians who had been locked up for weeks in bunkers under the wreckage of the Azovstal steel plant, and an unknown number which are scattered throughout the ruins of the mostly abandoned city.
Those trapped in front of the steel plant in Mariupol described a fragile existence, feeding on Russian rations prepared outside on fires amid daily shelling that left corpses lying in rubble.
Elena Gibert, a psychologist who arrived in Ukraine with her teenage son on Monday, described “hopelessness and despair” in Mariupol and said residents were “starting to talk about suicide because they stayed in that situation”.
Heavy fighting in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk has brought minimal gains to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces, Western officials say. But the Russians continued to fire rockets and shells at Ukrainian military positions, cities, towns and infrastructure along the 300-kilometer front, including the bombing of the Azovstal plant, where the last remaining Ukrainian fighters were stationed in Mariupol.
Smoke rises over the Azovstal steel plant on Monday in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine. Credit … Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters
On Monday, Ukraine said it used Turkish drones to destroy two Russian patrol ships off the Black Sea port of Odessa just before Russian missiles hit the city, causing an unknown number of casualties and damage to a religious building.
The US State Department said Russia’s military goals now include the annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk – partially controlled before the February 24 invasion by Russian-backed separatists – as early as mid-May and possibly the southern Kherson region.
“We believe that the Kremlin can try to hold fictitious referendums to try to add a veneer of democratic or electoral legitimacy, and this is straight from the Kremlin’s book,” said Michael Carpenter, US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. told reporters at a State Department briefing in Washington.
As the war dragged on and the evidence of atrocities increased, the West’s appetite for revenge, which would have been rejected out of control a few months ago. The US Senate is preparing to adopt President Biden’s $ 33 billion aid package for Ukraine, including a significant increase in heavy weapons, and the European Union is expected to impose an embargo on Russian oil this week, a significant step for a bloc whose members have for a long time it depended on Russian energy.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw on Monday after becoming the highest-ranking US official to visit Kyiv since the start of the war, in a bid to boost Washington’s partnership with a key ally. NATO, which has swallowed millions of Ukrainian refugees and helped transfer weapons to the battlefield.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, surrounded by US and Polish officials, attended a wreath-laying ceremony Monday at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw. Credit … Tomasz Gzel / EPA, via Shutterstock
Ms Pelosi called for “the strongest possible military response, the strongest sanctions” to punish Russia for the invasion, despite Moscow’s threats of revenge against the West. “They have already carried out their threat, which has killed children and families, civilians and others,” she said.
More than two months after the invasion, Russia is struggling to seize and hold territory, according to a senior Pentagon official who briefed reporters on the background to discuss intelligence. The official called Russia’s latest offensive in eastern Ukraine, a region known as Donbass, “very cautious, very lukewarm” and in some cases “anemic.”
“We see minimal progress at best,” the official said Monday, citing Russia’s growing progress in cities and villages. “They will come in, declare victory, then withdraw their troops, just to allow the Ukrainians to take it.
The British Defense Intelligence Agency said that of the 120 battalion tactical groups Russia used during the war – approximately 65 per cent of all its ground forces – probably more than a quarter had been “made ineffective in combat”.
Some of Russia’s most elite units, including its airborne forces, “have suffered the highest levels of exhaustion,” the British assessment said, adding that “it will probably take years for Russia to rebuild those forces.”
As fighting raged in eastern and southern Ukraine, Moscow faced a growing diplomatic backlash on Monday after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov said Jews were “the biggest anti-Semites.”
Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv, lay in ruins on Monday after weeks of fierce fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces on the capital’s doorstep. Credit … David Gutenfelder for The New York Times
Mr Lavrov did so on Sunday in front of an Italian television journalist who asked him why Russia claimed it was “denazifying” Ukraine when its president, Vladimir Zelensky, was Jewish and members of his family were killed in the Holocaust.
Mr Lavrov said he believed Hitler himself had Jewish roots, a claim rejected by historians, adding: “We have long heard wise Jewish people say that the greatest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador to Israel to explain Mr Lavrov’s remarks, while Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid apologized. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said of Mr Lavrov’s remarks: “The purpose of such lies is to accuse the Jews themselves of the most heinous crimes in history against them.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, the leader of the majority and the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States, called Mr Lavrov’s comments “disgusting.”
Those who fled Mariupol and reached the southern city of Zaporozhye managed to survive in a Russian-occupied city crushed by heavy shelling, where Ukrainian authorities say more than 20,000 civilians have been killed. About 20 civilians hiding under Azovstal’s mill left the city on Saturday, about 100 did so on Sunday, and an unknown number followed on Monday.
Every morning at about 6 a.m., Ms. Gibert said, residents in front of the plant lined up for rations distributed by Russian soldiers. They had to listen to the Russian national anthem first, and then the anthem of the separatist Ukrainian region known as the Donetsk People’s Republic, she said.
Yaroslav Dmitrishin, 52, arrived in Zaporozhye on Monday with his son, Artem, 4, and two other children, Veronica, 5, and Denis, 8, after fleeing the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol. The car’s license plate says “children.” Credit … Lincy Addario for The New York Times
A number was scratched on each resident’s hand, and then they waited, sometimes all day, to get boxes of food, Ms. Gibbert said. The typical ration box contained pasta, rice, oatmeal, canned meat, sweet and condensed milk, sugar, and butter. It was supposed to last a month, but not always – especially when shared with a teenager, Ms. Gibbert said.
In a city where many apartment buildings have been destroyed and others lack electricity, heat or running water most of the time, Ms. Gibbert said she and her son are among the lucky ones.
“Our apartment is still partially intact,” she said. “On the one hand, we have all our windows.”
Anastasia Dembitskaya, 35, who arrived in Zaporozhye with her two children and a dog, said the drop in fighting in Mariupol over the past few weeks has allowed back-up telephone service to return and open small markets selling food from Russia and controlled from Russian Ukrainian territory at stratospheric prices.
“At least they started disposing of the rubbish, which is good,” Ms Dembitskaya said. “The bodies, the rubbish, and the wires that lay everywhere.”
Ksenia Safonova, who also arrived in Zaporozhye, said she and her parents wanted to leave Mariupol weeks ago, but were pressured by rocket fire.
“When we tried to leave, there was intense shelling,” she said. “Everything was exploding. The planes were flying overhead and it was too scary to leave. ”
When food became scarce, she said, her family relied on rations from Russian troops. She pulled out a can of canned meat, which she said was part of a package of Russian humanitarian aid. Its expiration date was January 31, nearly a month before the invasion began.
Elena Safonova, right, with her husband Sergei and their daughter Ksenia, on Monday after fleeing Mariupol to Zaporozhye. Credit … Lincy Addario for The New York Times
Ms. Safonova and her family finally managed to leave Mariupol on April 26 in a minibus with six other people. At checkpoints on the road to Zaporozhye, she said, Russian soldiers had insulted her and her family, warning that Ukrainian forces would not welcome them and could fire on them when they arrived.
Once, she said, soldiers tried to trick them into revealing their loyalty to Ukraine.
“At a checkpoint, they shouted ‘Glory to Ukraine’ to see if we would shout ‘Glory to the Heroes,’ but of course we knew it would end badly,” she said, referring to patriotic greetings among Ukrainians. that it became widespread during the war.
“We still know the truth is on our side,” she said.
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