The last:
- At least seven people were killed in rocket attacks in the western city of Liiv, Ukrainian authorities said.
- At least three people were killed in a shelling in the eastern city of Kharkiv, journalists said on the spot.
- Ukrainian forces detain Mariupol steel plant despite Russian demands.
- Ukraine says Russian attacks have halted the evacuation of civilians for a second day.
- What questions do you have about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Send ask@cbc.ca an email.
Russian forces launched rocket attacks on the western city of Lviv and struck a number of other targets in Ukraine on Monday in what appeared to be an intensified attempt to crush the country’s defenses before a comprehensive attack in the east.
At least seven people were reportedly killed in Lviv, where streams of thick black smoke rose over a city that had seen only sporadic attacks during nearly two months of war and had become a refuge for large numbers of civilians fleeing. intense battles elsewhere. To the Kremlin’s growing anger, Lviv has also become a major channel for NATO-supplied weapons and foreign fighters joining the Ukrainian cause.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmihal has vowed to fight “to the end” in strategically vital Mariupol, where the last known pocket of resistance in the seven-week siege consisted of Ukrainian fighters hiding in a sprawling steel plant. Proponents ignored the capitulation ultimatum or died on Sunday.
People hug as they watch the demolition of a civilian building in Lviv, Ukraine, on Monday. At least seven people have been killed in Russian missile strikes on the city, Ukrainian authorities said. (Joe Redl / Getty Images)
Lviv Oblast Governor Maxim Kozitsky said Russian missile strikes had hit three military infrastructure and a car repair shop. He said a child was among the injured, and emergency services were battling the fires caused by the attack.
Lviv is the largest city and major transport hub in western Ukraine. It is located about 80 kilometers from Poland, a member of NATO.
Russia has strongly complained about the growing flow of Western weapons to Ukraine, and last week its foreign ministry issued an official note of protest to the United States and its allies. In the Russian state media, some presenters accused the supply of a direct Western commitment to the fight against Russia.
“The nightmare of war has overtaken us”
Lviv is also seen as a relatively safe place for the elderly, mothers and children trying to escape the war. But a hotel that houses Ukrainians fleeing fighting in other parts of the country is among the heavily damaged buildings, Mayor Andriy Sadovy said.
“The nightmare of the war has caught up with us even in Lviv,” said Lyudmila Turchak, 47, who fled the eastern city of Kharkiv with her two children. “There is no place in Ukraine where we can feel safe.”
Firefighters are battling the blaze after a civilian building was destroyed in Lviv, Ukraine, on Monday. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images) Smoke is visible on the horizon after Russian missiles hit an area in Lviv on Monday. (Joe Redl / Getty Images)
A powerful explosion also shook Vasilkov, a city south of the capital Kyiv, where a military air base is located, according to residents. It was not immediately clear what was hit.
Military analysts say Russia is stepping up strikes on arms factories, railways and other infrastructure in Ukraine to reduce the country’s ability to withstand a major ground offensive in Donbass, Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern industrial center.
The Russian military said missiles had hit more than 20 military targets in eastern and central Ukraine in the past day, including ammunition depots, command headquarters and groups of troops and vehicles.
She claims that her artillery has hit an additional 315 Ukrainian targets, and that military planes have struck 108 strikes on Ukrainian troops and military equipment. Allegations cannot be verified independently.
Over the weekend, Russia also claimed to have destroyed Ukrainian air defense radar equipment.
People are taking shelter after an air raid siren sounded in Lviv on Monday, following earlier air strikes in the area. (Joe Redl / Getty Images)
Russia seeks to take Donbass
General Richard Danat, a former British army chief, told Sky News that the strikes were part of a campaign to “soften” Russia ahead of a planned ground offensive in Donbass.
The Ukrainian government halted the evacuation of civilians for a second day on Monday, saying Russian forces were shelling and blocking humanitarian corridors.
Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said Ukraine was negotiating the transition from cities in eastern and southeastern Ukraine, including Mariupol and other regions of Donbass. The Luhansk Oblast government in Donbas says four civilians trying to escape have been shot dead by Russian forces.
Vereshchuk said Russia could be tried for war crimes for refusing to allow civilians to leave Mariupol.
“Your refusal to open these humanitarian corridors in the future will lead to the prosecution of all those involved in war crimes,” she wrote on social media.
The Russians, for their part, accused “neo-Nazi nationalists” in Mariupol of obstructing the evacuation.
Russia is seeking to take over Donbass, where Moscow-backed separatists already control part of the territory after its attempt to take over the capital failed.
A woman makes the sign of the cross while attending an Orthodox service on Palm Sunday at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Petros Janakouris / Associated Press)
“We are doing everything we can to ensure the defense of eastern Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an evening address to the nation on Sunday.
The impending offensive in the east, if successful, will give Russian President Vladimir Putin a much-needed victory to sell to the Russian people amid growing casualties in the war and economic hardship caused by Western sanctions.
Mariupol is a “shield defending Ukraine”
The capture of Mariupol is seen as a key step in preparing for any eastern offensive, as it would liberate Russian troops. The fall of the city on the Sea of Azov will give Russia the greatest military victory in the war, giving it full control of the land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which it took from Ukraine in 2014, and deprive Ukraine of a major port and valuable industrial assets. .
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hana Malyar described Mariupol as a “shield defending Ukraine”.
The city was reduced to rubble during the siege, but several thousand fighters are estimated by Russia to hold the giant 11-square-kilometer Azovstal steel plant.
WATCH Ukraine’s resilience in Mariupol is gaining time, says the retired general from the US Army:
Ukraine’s stubbornness in Mariupol is gaining time, says the retired US Army general
The longer Ukrainian soldiers can last in Mariupol, the more time they buy for Donbass, says retired US Army General Peter Zwak. 10:07
“We will fight absolutely to the end, to victory, in this war,” Shmihal, Ukraine’s prime minister, promised on Sunday’s ABC this week. He said Ukraine was ready to end the war through diplomacy if possible, “but we have no intention of surrendering.”
Many civilians from Mariupol, including children, are also sheltered at the Azovstal plant, Mikhail Vershinin, the city’s patrol police chief, told Mariupol TV.
Approximately 100,000 people remain in the city from a pre-war population of 450,000 trapped without food, water, heat or electricity.
The relentless bombing of Mariupol – including against a maternity hospital and a theater where civilians were sheltered – along with street fighting killed at least 21,000 people, according to Ukrainian estimates.
People pass by the tower of a destroyed tank in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters)
A pro-Russian Ukrainian politician who was arrested last week on charges of treason has appeared in a video offering himself in exchange for evacuating civilians trapped in Mariupol. Ukraine’s state security services have released a video of Viktor Medvedchuk, a former leader of a pro-Russian opposition party with personal ties to Putin.
It was not clear whether Medvedchuk was speaking under duress.
Putin said the sanctions had failed
Kharkov, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was also hit by Monday’s shelling that killed at least three people, according to the Associated Press.
One of the dead was a woman who seemed to be going out to collect water in the rain. She was found lying bloodied with a can of water and an umbrella next to her.
A man is investigating the damage after Russian artillery struck a residential building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Monday. (Chris McGrath / Getty Images)
The day before, at least five people were killed in a Russian shelling in Kharkov, regional authorities said. Zelensky called Sunday’s attack in Kharkiv “nothing but deliberate terror.”
On Monday, Putin reiterated his insistence that Western sanctions against Russia had failed.
The Russian leader said the West had failed to “upset the financial and economic situation, cause panic in the markets, collapse of the banking system and shortages in shops”, although he acknowledged the sharp rise in consumer prices in Russia, saying it had risen 17.5% as of April.
Meanwhile, Zelensky submitted a completed questionnaire as the first step towards accelerated membership in the European Union – a desire that has irritated Russia for years. However, Zelenski offered to abandon all efforts to join NATO, one of the Kremlin’s key demands.
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