Ukraine hopes for Mariupol evacuations to resume, Johnson addresses Ukrainian MPs

Ukraine hopes for Mariupol evacuations to resume, Johnson addresses Ukrainian MPs

Ukraine hopes to resume the evacuation of civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol on Tuesday, while British Prime Minister Boris Johnson addresses the Ukrainian parliament via video conference, a first for a Western leader since the start of the war. .

Evacuations should resume Tuesday morning with the support of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Mariupol, a martyr city almost conquered by the Russians following weeks of siege, announced the municipal council of this strategic port of South East.

This weekend saw the release, for the first time in two months of siege and bombing of the city, of a hundred civilians holed up in the cellars of the huge Azovstal steelworks, the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in this strategic port in southern Donbass.

But on Monday, in Zaporijjia, 200 km to the northwest, a car park transformed into a reception point for refugees, with two armored 4×4 vehicles from Unicef ​​and other vehicles from international NGOs, did not see arrive no convoy from Mariupol.

In the evening, the Azov regiment, which participates in the defense of the steel plant, explained “that following the partial evacuation of civilians from the territory of Azovstal, the enemy continues to fire on the territory of the plant, including buildings where civilians are hiding”.

According to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, “hundreds of civilians” remain “stranded in Azovstal”.

– “Hour of glory” –

Inside the city, where AFP visited on Friday as part of a trip organized by the Russian army, no signs of confrontation appear, apart from the muffled roar of explosions regularly coming from ‘Azovstal.

After living for weeks in underground shelters or cloistered in their homes, the inhabitants emerged to discover their once bustling port city in ruins.

In the south-west of Ukraine, the port of Odessa is once more the target of Russian missiles, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky having denounced Monday evening a Russian strike on a “dormitory”, killing a teenager and injuring a girl of 17 years. “How did these children and the dormitory threaten the Russian state? That’s how they fight,” said Mr. Zelensky.

Ukrainians fear that the city is one of Russia’s targets, especially since a Russian general claimed that the Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine was aimed at establishing a corridor from Russia to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria, which would pass through Odessa.

Western allies are increasing their pressure on Moscow and their support for kyiv with, on Tuesday, a speech by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson by videoconference to the Ukrainian Parliament, a first for a Western leader since the start of the Russian invasion.

“This is your hour of glory,” he must tell Ukrainian MPs according to a Downing Street press release published Monday evening, drawing a parallel with the unity displayed by the Parliament and the British people during the Second World War. “We remember our time of great peril as our hour of glory,” he said in his scheduled speech around 10:00 a.m. (UK time, 0900 GMT).

He must announce on this occasion a new component of military aid worth 300 million pounds (357 million euros), including in particular defensive armament equipment. So far, the UK has supplied Ukraine with 5,000 anti-tank missiles, five anti-aircraft missile systems with over 100 missiles and 4.5 tonnes of explosives.

– “Jewish blood” –

The Europeans are working on their side to toughen their economic sanctions once morest Moscow. The European Commission is expected to propose a sixth sanctions package on Tuesday that would include a timetable for phasing out Russian oil imports, which account for 30% of European Union oil imports.

If the 27 Member States agree on this measure, the cessation of purchases of petroleum and petroleum products from Russia will be gradual, over six to eight months, but with measures with immediate effect, in particular a tax on transport by tankers, said a European official.

The new sanctions will also concern “the banking sector, there will be other Russian banks that will come out of Swift”, said the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, in Panama on Monday.

The approach of May 9, the date when Russia celebrates victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, is fueling speculation regarding how Moscow might announce gains in Ukraine.

On Monday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense considered it possible that Moscow would take advantage of these celebrations to “raise the question” of the integration into the Russian Federation of the separatist and pro-Russian “republics” of Donbass, whose independence Moscow has recognized as just. before invading Ukraine.

In Washington, the American ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Michael Carpenter, reported “very credible” information that Russia intends to organize “around mid-May” referendums to “attempt to annex” the pro-Russian separatist “republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk, in Donbass (eastern Ukraine).

The governor of the Luhansk region said he expected “an intensification of the shelling” as May 9 approached.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, however, denied any particular Russian military action on this occasion, in an interview with the Italian television channel Mediaset broadcast on Sunday.

This interview caused a stir for other remarks made by Mr. Lavrov, according to whom “Hitler also had Jewish blood”, causing diplomatic tensions with Israel.

“Minister Lavrov’s remarks are at the same time scandalous, unforgivable and a horrible historical error,” condemned his Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid on Monday in a brief statement. He said the Russian ambassador to Israel had been summoned for “clarifications”.

On the ground, in the Donbass, the Russian forces continue their offensive, with particularly intense fighting around Izium, Lyman and Rubizhne, which the Russians are trying to “take control to prepare their attack on Severodonetsk”, the one of the major cities of Donbass still controlled by kyiv, the Ukrainian general staff said on Monday.

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