The Ukrainian army managed to recover certain cities on Tuesday by repelling the Russian invader despite the incessant bombardments.
« [Les militaires ukrainiens] are now, in certain situations, on the offensive,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told CNN, saying they are “chasing Russians out of areas.”
Almost a month into the invasion of Ukraine, Russia controls neither the capital Kyiv nor the major strategic port city of Mariupol in the south.
But following intense fighting, Ukrainian forces have taken control of Makariv, a small town west of Kyiv, CNN reported on Tuesday.
In the south, near the captured city of Kherson, the Ukrainians also “tried to regain territory”, the Pentagon added.
Photo AFP
Ukrainian police inspect one of the downed drones.
The urgency is felt: several cities have only three or four days of food left, the aid agency Mercy Corps said on Tuesday, citing a humanitarian system “entirely broken down”.
The Russian soldiers, on the other hand, seem to be having difficulty communicating with each other and are running out of fuel and food, Kirby noted.
But Belarus might “soon” join its force in combat, a NATO official told CNN on Tuesday.
Even more disturbing: the spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov, refused to rule out the possibility of using nuclear weapons if Moscow perceived an “existential threat”.
Because Russia has nuclear weapons much less destructive than those of Hiroshima and therefore more conceivable to use, according to the New York Times.
Vladimir Putin is also “considering” chemical and biological weapons, his American counterpart, Joe Biden, said he feared on Monday evening.
Meanwhile, major cities in Ukraine are still facing intense strikes.
Mariupol, where 100,000 people are still stuck, was hit by two “superpowered bombs”, said the municipality without being able to give an assessment.
In the capital, at least one person dressed in military uniform was killed in a drone attack on a building on Tuesday.
A Russian tank is also said to have decimated a family fleeing near Kharkiv, in the northeast of the country. The passengers shouted that they were civilians while waving a white flag, in vain, wrote Liudmila Denisova, person in charge of the human rights at the Ukrainian Parliament.
The parents and their 9-year-old daughter died and a 17-year-old was injured, she added.
The West must announce new sanctions once morest Russia tomorrow, according to the White House.
– With Roxane Trudel
