The situation in the strategic port of Mariupol is “inhuman”, declared the Ukrainian president on Saturday evening, calling on Westerners to provide “immediately” the heavy weapons he demands. Russia claims to control almost all of the city.
“The situation in Mariupol remains as serious as it can be. Simply inhuman,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message. “That’s what the Russian Federation did. Did it deliberately. (…) Russia is deliberately trying to destroy anyone in Mariupol,” in southeastern Ukraine.
According to him, there are only “two options”: “Either the partners provide Ukraine with all the necessary heavy weapons, the planes and, without any exaggeration, immediately” to “reduce the pressure on Mariupol and lift the siege”. of this city inhabited by 441,000 people before the invasion on February 24.
“Either the path of negotiation, in which the role of partners should also be decisive”, continued the Ukrainian president, saying that the search for a “military or diplomatic” solution had been a “daily” activity since the beginning of the blockade but proved “extremely difficult”.
Call to lay down arms
Remarks published when the Russian Ministry of Defense asked the last Ukrainian fighters entrenched in the Azovstal metallurgical complex to cease fighting on Sunday at 06:00 Moscow time (05:00 Swiss), and to evacuate the premises before 13:00 (12:00 Swiss).
“All those who have given up their arms will be guaranteed to have their lives saved,” the ministry assured on Telegram. “It’s their only chance.” Apart from this pocket of resistance, “the entire territory of the city of Mariupol has been cleared of militants from the Nazi Azov formation, foreign mercenaries and Ukrainian soldiers”, he said.
In the early morning of Sunday, the Ukrainian general staff indicated that airstrikes had been carried out on the city by the Russians from the regions of Donestk and Tavriya. “They also carried out assault operations near the port,” he said in a statement, without however mentioning the call to lay down their arms or the Russian claim to take most of the city.
The capture of this city would be an important victory for the Russians because it would allow them to consolidate their coastal territorial gains along the Sea of Azov by linking the Donbass region, partly controlled by their supporters, to the Crimea that Moscow has annexed in 2014.
Hungry Mariupol
Earlier, the Ukrainian president had threatened to halt peace talks with Moscow if the last Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol were “eliminated”. “There is no food, no water, no medicine,” he got carried away with the media, accusing the Russians of “refusing” the establishment of humanitarian corridors.
According to the executive director of the World Food Program David Beasley, more than 100,000 civilians are on the verge of starvation in Mariupol, also lacking water and a source of heating.
In terms of human toll, “Marioupol, it can be ten times Borodianka”, a locality located not far from kyiv destroyed after being pounded and the scene of alleged abuses during its occupation, hammered the Ukrainian president.
Russian reprisals
The Russian army again aimed its missiles at kyiv, which had enjoyed a bit of a break lately. Motivated by revenge after the loss of her flagship in the Black Sea, the cruiser Moskva.
A Russian strike on Friday hit a complex in the kyiv region producing Neptune missiles. And on Saturday one person was killed and “several” had to be hospitalized following a strike against an industrial complex in the Darnytsky district, on the outskirts of kyiv, which notably manufactures tanks, announced the mayor of the capital. Vitali Klitschko.
A large number of soldiers and police were present after the attack, preventing access to these facilities, from which smoke was billowing, said an AFP journalist. Russia for its part claimed that “production buildings of an arms factory in kyiv” had been destroyed.
Russian forces also shelled an oil refinery in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, four kilometers from Lysychansk, very close to the front line, local authorities said. From the road along the site, AFP journalists were able to see tanks still on fire at the end of the afternoon and a long plume of black smoke pushed by the wind.
Need weapons
Ukraine also claimed to have destroyed four cruise missiles fired by Russian planes that took off from neighboring Belarus on the Lviv region in the west on Saturday morning.
In the southern Ukrainian region of Odessa, “the Russian anti-aircraft defense shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane, delivering a large batch of weapons supplied to Ukraine by Western countries”, for its part affirmed on Saturday the Russian Defense Ministry.
Volodymyr Zelensky again called on the world on Saturday to “prepare” for Russia’s possible use of its nuclear weapons. “We need medicine (against radiation), air-raid shelters,” he said. According to him, around 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died and around 10,000 have been injured since the start of the war.
Nearly five million people have fled Ukraine since February 24, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said, adding that 40,200 more people had left their country in the past 24 hours.
This article has been published automatically. Sources: ats / afp