ZAPORIZHYA, Ukraine –
Fear of dozens of Ukrainians were killed Sunday after a Russian bomb destroyed a school that housed about 90 people in the basement as Moscow’s invading forces continued to tour cities, towns and villages in eastern and southern Ukraine.
The governor of Luhansk province, one of the two districts that make up the eastern industrial center known as Donbass, said a school in the village of Bilogorovka caught fire after Saturday’s bombing. Emergency crews found two bodies and rescued 30 people, he said.
“Most likely, all 60 people left under the rubble are already dead,” Governor Sergei Haidai wrote in the Telegram news app. Two 11- and 14-year-old boys were also killed in the Russian shelling in the nearby town of Privilege, he said.
After failing to capture Ukraine’s capital, Russia has concentrated its offensive in the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting since 2014 and occupying some territory. The biggest European conflict since World War II has become a punitive war of attrition due to the unexpectedly effective defense of the Ukrainian military.
To demonstrate success, the Russian military is working to complete the conquest of the besieged port city of Mariupol, which has been under relentless attack since the start of the war, in time for Monday’s Victory Day celebrations. The sprawling seaside steel plant is the only part of the city that is not under Russian control.
All other women, children and elderly civilians who took refuge with Ukrainian fighters at the Azovstal plant were evacuated on Saturday. The troops still inside refused to surrender; hundreds are thought to have been injured.
After rescuers evacuated the last civilians on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an evening address that the focus would be on retrieving the wounded and medics. Zelenski said in his evening address that work would continue on Sunday to provide humanitarian corridors for the departure of residents of Mariupol and surrounding cities.
The Ukrainian government is turning to international organizations to try to ensure safe passage for the approximately 2,000 fighters left in the plant’s underground tunnels and bunkers. Zelenski acknowledged the difficulty, but said: “We do not lose hope, we do not stop. “Every day we look for a diplomatic option that can work.”
The Ukrainian leader was expected to hold online talks Sunday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, US President Joe Biden and leaders of other Group of Seven countries. The meeting is partly aimed at showing unity among Western allies on Europe’s Victory Day, which marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany in 1945.
Elsewhere on Ukraine’s coast, explosions erupted again Sunday in the large Black Sea port of Odessa, which Russia hit with six cruise missiles on Saturday. Authorities did not provide immediate reports of damage.
The Odessa City Council said four of the rockets fired on Saturday hit a furniture company, with shockwaves and debris damaging very high-rise apartment buildings. The other two hit Odessa airport, where a previous Russian attack destroyed the runway.
Ukrainian leaders have warned that the attacks will only get worse on the eve of Victory Day, May 9, when Russia celebrates the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 with military parades. Russian President Vladimir Putin is believed to want to declare some kind of triumph in Ukraine when he addresses Red Square troops on Monday.
In neighboring Moldova, Russian and separatist troops are on “full alert,” the Ukrainian military warned. The region is increasingly becoming a center of concern that the conflict could spread beyond Ukraine’s borders.
Pro-Russian forces seceded the Transnistrian section of Moldova in 1992, and Russian troops have been stationed there ever since, ostensibly as peacekeepers. These forces are in “full combat readiness”, Ukraine said, without giving details of how the assessment came about.
Moscow is seeking to encompass southern Ukraine in order to cut off the Black Sea country and create a corridor to Transnistria. But he is struggling to achieve these goals.
In a sign of stubborn resistance to the 11th week of fighting, the Ukrainian military is attacking Russian positions on a Black Sea island that was captured in the early days of the war and has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Satellite images analyzed by the Associated Press show that Ukraine is targeting Russia-held Snake Island in an attempt to thwart Russia’s efforts to control the sea.
A satellite image taken Sunday morning by Planet Labs PBC shows smoke rising from two parts of the island. At the southern end of the island, a fire was smoking to the rubble. This corresponds to a video posted by the Ukrainian military showing a Russian helicopter crash that flew to the island.
A photo of Planet Labs from Saturday showed most of the island’s buildings, as well as what looked like a Serna-class landing destroyed by Ukrainian drone attacks.
The most intense battles in recent days are being fought in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian counter-offensive near Kharkov, the country’s northeastern city, is “making significant progress and is likely to advance to the Russian border in the coming days or weeks,” according to the Institute for War Studies.
The Washington-based think tank added that “Ukraine’s counter-offensive demonstrates promising Ukrainian capabilities.”
However, the Ukrainian army has withdrawn from the war-torn city of Popasna in Luhansk province, regional governor Haidai said on Sunday.
In a video interview published on his Telegram channel, Haidai said Kyiv’s troops had “moved to stronger positions they had prepared in advance”.
Russian-backed rebels have created a breakaway region in Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk, which together make up Donbass. Russia is targeting areas that are still under Ukrainian control.
“All vacant settlements in the Luhansk region are hotspots,” Haidai said. “Currently, shootings are taking place in (the villages of) Belohorivka, Voyvodovka and Popasna.
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Gambrell reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Jessica Fish in Bakhmut, David Keaton in Kyiv, Juras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstislav Chernov in Kharkov, Lolita S. Baldor in Washington and PA officials around the world contributed to this report.
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