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The biggest battle in the conflict has been raging for weeks as Russia seeks to take a city seen as vital to its attempts to connect the eastern Donbass region with Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow captured in 2014.
Author of the article:
Reuters
Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets
Publication date:
April 23, 2022 • 3 hours ago • 4 minutes reading • 20 comments A man walks near damaged buildings during the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine. Photo: ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO / Reuters
Content of the article
Russia used high-precision missiles on Saturday to destroy a logistics terminal in Odessa, which houses a large number of weapons shipped from the United States and European countries, the defense ministry said.
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An online publication also said Russian forces killed up to 200 Ukrainian soldiers on Saturday and destroyed more than 30 vehicles, some of them armored.
Russia has resumed its attack on the last Ukrainian defenders hiding in a giant steel mine in Mariupol on Saturday, days after Moscow declared victory in the southern city and said its forces should not take over the plant.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the country’s army was not ready to break through the siege of the port city by force. But he told an evening news conference that Kyiv had every right to do so.
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Zelensky also announced that the top US diplomat, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will visit Kyiv on Sunday and that he plans to discuss the types of weapons Ukraine needs to fight the Russian invasion, and expects concrete results.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has not yet confirmed travel plans for Blinken and Austin. The US State Department declined to comment. The Pentagon also declined to comment.
The attack on Mariupol, the conflict’s biggest battle, has been raging for weeks as Russia seeks to take a city seen as vital to its attempts to link the eastern Donbass region with Crimea, Moscow’s 2014 Black Sea peninsula.
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Moscow-backed separatists have held territory in Donbass for years.
At least eight people have been killed in the Black Sea port city of Odessa, Zelenski said. Two rockets hit a military facility and two residential buildings, and two more were destroyed on Saturday, the Ukrainian armed forces said.
View shows the Azovstal Iron and Steel Plant during the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in the southern port city of Mariupol. Photo: ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO / Reuters
The death toll cannot be confirmed independently. The last major strike in or near Odessa was in early April.
“The only target of Russian missile strikes on Odessa is terror,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter. Russia has denied targeting civilians in its “special military operation”, which began on February 24th.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it used high-precision missiles on Saturday to destroy a logistics terminal in Odessa, which houses a large number of weapons shipped from the United States and European countries.
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It also says Russian forces have killed up to 200 Ukrainian soldiers and destroyed more than 30 vehicles on Saturday.
Russian General Rustam Minekayev said on Friday that Moscow wants control of all of southern Ukraine, with comments from Ukraine showing that Russia has broader goals than its stated goal of demilitarizing and “denazifying” the country. Kyiv and the West call the invasion an unjustified aggressive war.
Pro-Russian troops, including fighters from the Chechen special forces unit, stand in front of the destroyed administrative building of the Azovstal metallurgical plant in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on April 21. Photo: Genghis Kondarov / Reuters
Russian forces have besieged and bombed Mariupol since the first days of the war, leaving in ruins a city that is usually home to more than 400,000 people. A new attempt to evacuate civilians failed on Saturday, an aide to the mayor of Mariupol said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Friday that the last fighters in Mariupol had been “probably blocked” at the steel plant. On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin declared the city “liberated”, saying troops would not storm Azovstal.
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Alexei Arestovich, Zelensky’s political adviser, said Ukrainian troops in the steel complex were holding out and trying to counterattack. More than 1,000 civilians are also at the plant, according to Ukrainian authorities.
“I WANT TO SEE THE SUN”
The Azov Battalion, a nationalist militia known for defending Mariupol, released a video showing it showing women and children sheltered in the complex. Reuters could not independently verify where and when the video was taken.
A woman holding a small child said the food was running out, while an unnamed boy in the video said she was desperate to get out of the bunker in two months.
“I want to see the sun because it’s dark here, not like outside. When our houses are restored, we can live in peace. “Let Ukraine win, because Ukraine is our home,” he said.
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Ukraine estimates that tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in Mariupol and says 100,000 civilians are still there. The United Nations and the Red Cross say there are at least thousands civilian casualties.
Russia’s current offensive is aimed at Donbass, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
A woman from Ukraine’s Kherson region is holding her child after arriving at an evacuation center for people fleeing Mariupol, Melitopol and surrounding Russian-controlled cities on Friday. Photo by Chris McGrath / Getty Images
Luhansk Governor Sergei Gaidai said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces were withdrawing from some settlements to new lines of defense to keep their forces in the face of growing shelling against all cities in the region.
Three people were killed and seven were injured in Russian shelling in the eastern part of Kharkiv on Saturday, the region’s governor said.
The governor of the Russian border region said on Saturday that Ukraine had fired on a checkpoint on Russian territory, causing a fire but no casualties. It was not possible to immediately confirm the details of the incident or determine who was responsible.
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Russia has said it shot down a Ukrainian fighter jet and destroyed three Ukrainian helicopters at Kharkiv airport.
People arrive by bus from Nikolaev, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Odessa, Ukraine, April 22. Photo: STRINGER / REUTERS
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on Russia’s claim. The Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had destroyed 177 Russian planes and 154 helicopters since the start of the war. Reuters could not verify the figures.
Russian forces have not been very successful in the last 24 hours, British military intelligence said early on Saturday.
Zelensky said Ukraine’s allies were finally delivering the weapons Kyiv requested. The United States, Canada and Britain have recently announced plans to supply new weapons.
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