ZAPORIZHE, Ukraine (AP) – Russia plans to annex much of eastern Ukraine later this month, a senior US official has warned, and the Mariupol Steel Factory, the city’s last stronghold of resistance, came under new attack the day after the first evacuation. of civilians from the plant.
Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said Monday that the United States believes the Kremlin will also recognize the southern city of Kherson as an independent republic. No move will be recognized by the United States or its allies, he said.
Russia plans to hold fictitious referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which “will try to give the appearance of democratic or electoral legitimacy” and attach the subjects to Russia, Carpenter said. He also said there were signs that Russia would hold an independence vote in Kherson.
Mayors and local lawmakers were abducted, the Internet and mobile phones were cut off, and a Russian school program will soon be imposed, Carpenter said. The Ukrainian government claims that Russia has introduced its ruble as a currency there.
More than 100 people – including elderly women and mothers with young children – left the ruined Azovstal plant in Mariupol on Sunday and took buses and ambulances to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporozhye, about 140 miles (230 kilometers) northwest. Mariupol Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov told the BBC that the evacuees were making slow progress.
Authorities did not provide an explanation for the delay.
At least some of the civilians were apparently taken to a village controlled by Russian-backed separatists. The Russian military has said some have chosen to stay in separatist areas, while dozens have left for Ukrainian territory.
In the past, Ukraine has accused Moscow troops of taking civilians against their will to Russia or Russian-controlled areas. The Kremlin denied it.
Russia’s bombing of the sprawling factory by air, tank and ship has resumed following a partial evacuation, Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, which is helping protect the plant, said in a statement to Telegram.
Orlov said high-level talks were under way between Ukraine, Russia and international organizations to evacuate more people.
The evacuation of the steel plant, if successful, would be a rare step forward in alleviating the human costs of the nearly 10-week war, which has caused particular suffering in Mariupol. Previous attempts to open safe corridors from the southern port city and elsewhere have failed, with Ukrainian authorities accusing Russian forces of firing and shelling on agreed evacuation routes.
Prior to the weekend evacuation, monitored by the United Nations and the Red Cross, it was estimated that there were about 1,000 civilians in the plant, along with about 2,000 Ukrainian defenders who refused to surrender.
In total, about 100,000 people may still be in Mariupol, which had a pre-war population of more than 400,000. Russian forces smashed much of the city in ruins, trapping civilians with little food, water, heat or medicine.
Some Mariupol residents left alone, often with damaged personal cars.
As the sunset approached, Mariupol resident Yaroslav Dmitrishin climbed to the Zaporozhye reception center in a car with a full rear seat with young people and two signs affixed to the rear window: “Children” and “Small”.
“I can’t believe we survived,” he said, looking tired but in a good mood after two days on the road.
“There is no Mariupol,” he said. “Someone has to restore it, and it will take millions of tons of gold.” He said they live directly across the railroad tracks from the steel plant. “Destroyed,” he said. “The factory is completely gone.”
Anastasia Dembitska, who is taking advantage of the ceasefire to leave with her daughter, nephew and dog, said she saw the steel structure from her window when she dared to look.
“We could see the flying missiles” and clouds of smoke over the plant, she said.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky told Greek state television that other civilians at the steel plant were afraid to board buses, fearing they would be taken to Russia. He said the UN had assured him that they could go to areas controlled by his government.
Mariupol is located in Donbass, Ukraine’s eastern industrial center, and is key to Russia’s eastward campaign. Its takeover will deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to build a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which it took from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops for battles elsewhere.
More than 1 million people, including nearly 200,000 children, have been taken from Ukraine to Russia, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday, according to the state news agency TASS.
Defense Ministry spokesman Mikhail Mizintsev said the figure included 11,550 people, including 1,847 children, in the previous 24 hours, “without the involvement of Ukrainian authorities.”
These civilians “were evacuated to the territory of the Russian Federation from the dangerous regions of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics” and other parts of Ukraine, according to the report. No details were provided.
Zelensky said on Monday that at least 220 Ukrainian children have been killed by the Russian army since the start of the war, and 1,570 educational institutions have been destroyed or damaged.
Failing to take Kyiv, the capital, Russian President Vladimir Putin turned his attention to Donbass, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.
Russia has said it has struck dozens of military targets in the region, including troop and arms concentrations and an ammunition depot near Chervone in the Zaporozhye region west of Donbass.
Ukrainian and Western officials say Moscow’s troops are firing indiscriminately, killing many civilians as they progress slowly.
The governor of the Odessa region on the Black Sea coast, Maxim Marchenko, told the Telegram that a Russian missile strike on Monday caused deaths and injuries. He did not give details. Zelenski said the attack destroyed a dormitory and killed a 14-year-old boy.
Ukraine said Russia had also struck a strategic road and railway bridge west of Odessa. The bridge was badly damaged in previous Russian strikes, and its demolition would cut off supplies of weapons and other cargo from neighboring Romania.
However, a satellite image taken by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by the Associated Press shows that the bridge is still standing until noon on Monday.
Another image taken Monday shows nearly 50 Russian military helicopters in Stary Oskol, a Russian base near the Ukrainian border and about 175 kilometers (110 miles) northeast of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
The helicopters were stationed on the runway, runway and grass of the otherwise civilian airport, with military equipment nearby.
During the war in Ukraine, Russia flew military helicopters to attack low to the ground to try to avoid anti-aircraft missiles.
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Varenitsa reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Associated Press journalists Jessica Fish of Slavyansk, John Gambrel and Juras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstislav Chernov in Kharkov, Lolita Baldor in Washington and PA officials around the world contributed to the report.
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