“God willing” there will be one, wrote the head of the Ukrainian delegation, David Arachamija, on Facebook that night. Evacuations from Mariupol failed on Saturday, and Russia continued the attacks following a short pause in fire. According to Ukrainian sources, during the night there were violent attacks around Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv.
Arakhamiya responded on Facebook to a woman from Kharkiv – who said she had experienced “10 days of hell” – and urged a ceasefire agreement with Russia. Representatives of Ukraine and Russia last met in western Belarus on Thursday and agreed on humanitarian corridors. According to both sides, new negotiations are planned for next Monday.
New attempt in Mariupol
On Saturday, an evacuation from the port city of Mariupol, which had been under fire for six days, failed. Both sides accused each other of violating the agreed ceasefire. At 4:00 p.m., the Russian army, according to its own statements, resumed attacks on the city and on the town of Volnowakha.
Mariupol Mayor Wadym Boitschenko spoke of a “humanitarian blockade” in a TV program on Saturday evening. Russian units had switched off all 15 power lines in the city and had been without power for five days. The main water supply had already been cut off before the war began, and following five days of war the reserve water supply was also lost. The Russian side acted very methodically in order to cut off the city from any supply and thus create internal pressure.
On Sunday there will be another attempt to get people out of the city. According to the local city council, civilians are to be taken away from midday.
Humanitarian situation “catastrophic”
The humanitarian situation in Mariupol is “catastrophic”, also reported the aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The situation is getting worse every day and it is “essential” that the civilian population is evacuated, Ukraine’s emergency coordinator, Laurent Ligozat, told AFP.
Russia wants to take power plant
According to the Ukrainian army, Russia is now planning to seize the dam of the Kaniv hydroelectric power station. This was announced by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in a report on Sunday night. The dam is around 150 kilometers south of Kyiv on the Dnipro River. So far, Russian troops have destroyed, attacked or captured several energy infrastructure facilities, including Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia.
In addition, Russian units made no attempt to penetrate the south-western outskirts of the capital Kyiv, the report said. Flight alarms were raised several times in the city on Sunday night. Russian troops also attempted to approach the highway from the Kiev suburb of Brovary to Boryspil, where Kiev International Airport is located. In the direction of Koselets, which is around 70 kilometers northeast of Kyiv, the movement of 100 units of weapons and other military equipment, including rocket launchers in particular, was observed.
Cities are to be surrounded
The main focus of the Russian troops continues to be the encirclement of the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv in the east and Mykolaiv in the south. The Ukrainian agency Unian reported on Saturday that 194 people had been killed in the Kharkiv region since the war began, including 126 civilians. This information might not be independently verified.
According to a local official, Russian troops fired on the cities of Sumy and Lebedin in the Sumy region in north-eastern Ukraine on Saturday. This was announced by the head of the Sumy regional administration, Dmytro Schywytskyi, on his Telegram channel on Sunday night. The Russian air force also destroyed a warehouse for food, building materials and a parking lot in the small town of Ochtyrka, heating and sometimes water and electricity failed. A combined heat and power plant was destroyed on Friday, killing five employees. The information might not be independently verified.
Conversely, the separatists in Luhansk accused the Ukrainian army of shelling four settlements in the self-proclaimed People’s Republic eight times within 24 hours. At least two civilians were injured and 23 residential buildings, a gas line and a high-voltage line were damaged, the Russian agency Tass reported, citing representatives of the LNR. The information might not be independently verified.
Israel wants to mediate
Meanwhile, international efforts to end Russia’s attack on Ukraine continue. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made a surprise trip to Moscow on Saturday and, according to government sources in Jerusalem, spoke there for three hours with President Vladimir Putin. He reported the results of this conversation to the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in a conversation at the finish. Israel and Germany want to continue to “work with all their might” to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible, the German side said followingwards.
Mastercard and Visa have joined the sanctions once morest Russia and suspended their business in Russia. Russian credit cards would no longer be supported and would no longer work abroad, the US companies said in separate statements on Saturday evening.
