The Russian Ministry of Defense had previously reported the capture of several districts of Mariupol. The humanitarian situation is dramatic, tens of thousands of people lack food, water and medicine. Planned evacuations had recently failed once more.
According to the Interfax news agency, 50 buses might not have left because of shelling, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev from the Ministry of Defense in Moscow said when the evacuation from Mariupol failed once more. Several Orthodox clergymen have agreed to accompany residents as they leave the city. Russia accused Ukrainian “nationalists”. That mightn’t be checked.
A Russian offensive is also imminent in the city of Sievjerodonetsk with 100,000 inhabitants in the Luhansk region, the general staff report said. Moscow earlier announced on Saturday that the pro-Russian separatists had reached the city. In the Donetsk region, Russian units were also preparing an offensive on the small town of Wuhledar. According to Ukrainian information, around 200 people were evacuated from this on Saturday.
In the south of the country, Russia is also not giving up attempts to launch an offensive once morest the industrial city and hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kryvyi Rih, the report continues. The attempts have so far been unsuccessful. However, the Russian troops are looking for weak points in the defense of the Ukrainian security forces and are building up forces for the operation once morest the city with over 600,000 inhabitants. This information was not independently verifiable.
Seven people were apparently killed during the evacuation of a village east of Kyiv. This was reported by the Ukrainian military intelligence service. The villagers wanted to leave Peremoha when there was a shelling, the secret service said on Saturday evening. Ukraine blamed Russian troops for it. Contrary to the original information provided by the Ukrainian secret service, the women and children from the town of Peremoha were not in an evacuation corridor agreed with Russia, the Defense Ministry said. The people tried to flee alone. The intelligence service initially reported that they were in a “green corridor” agreed with Russia when they were attacked by Russian forces. A new attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol failed once more.
On the 17th day of the war, the Russian Ministry of Defense spoke of attacks on a “broad front”. For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that the attackers had suffered considerable losses and that the “biggest blow to the Russian army in decades”. In the meantime, 12,000 Russian soldiers have been killed. He gave the losses in his own ranks since the beginning of the war as around 1,300 soldiers. The figures cannot be independently verified.
According to both sides, however, evacuations took place in other corridors. According to the regional administration, more than 10,000 people were taken to safety via the “Green Corridor” in buses and private cars from the Sumy region with the towns of Sumy, Lebedyn, Konotop, Trostjanets and several villages. According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, around 200 people were evacuated from the small town of Wuhledar in the Donetsk region. At least 60 minibuses also brought people to safety from the north-western suburbs of Kyiv. According to the Kiev regional administration, there were around 4,000 people. Vice Prime Minister Wereshchuk put the total number of those evacuated on Saturday at around 13,000. That’s almost twice as many as on Friday.
From the south, the governor of the Mykolaiv region, Vitaly Kim, wrote: “The occupiers shelled hospitals and boarding schools at night with indiscriminate, chaotic fire.” The attackers changed their tactics and hid in villages between civilian buildings. Mykolaiv is located at the mouth of the Southern Bug into the Black Sea. Should Russian troops capture or bypass the city, they would be able to travel overland to Odessa.
According to Ukrainian sources, regarding half of the embattled small town of Izyum on the border with the Donetsk region in the east of the beleaguered country is already under Russian control. The attacking troops had entrenched themselves in the northern part of the city. Independent confirmation of this was not possible.
According to Kiev sources, Russian troops tried to launch an offensive around the city of Volnowacha in the Donbass that had been captured by the Russians. There was also heavy fighting around the village of Rubishne in the Luhansk region. According to Russian information, the attackers also took numerous towns in eastern Ukraine. According to the governor of the Donetsk region, Volnovakha is completely destroyed; the struggle for the city’s territory continues, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko.
According to Ukrainian military information, Russian troops are also trying to blockade the north-east Ukrainian city of Chernihiv from the south-west. President Selenskyj said the city with almost 280,000 inhabitants was without water supply.
NATO expects a further intensification of fighting and the humanitarian emergency. “We are horrified to see the increasing number of civilian casualties and the senseless destruction by Russian forces. The coming days will probably bring even greater hardship,” Secretary General of the military alliance Jens Stoltenberg told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
Stoltenberg said his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin was clear: “End this war, withdraw all forces and commit to diplomacy.” Stoltenberg dismissed as absurd claims by the Russian government that the US had secretly operated laboratories for the development of biological weapons in Ukraine. “Now that these false claims have been made, we must remain vigilant because it is possible that Russia itself might plan chemical weapons operations under this fabrication of lies,” he said. That would be a war crime.
Stoltenberg once more rejected calls for NATO to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine. That would mean that Russian forces would have to be attacked. “And that would risk a direct confrontation and an uncontrollable escalation. We must end this war and not escalate it.” NATO is a defensive alliance. “We are not looking for a conflict with Russia,” he said. The military alliance founded in 1949 now includes 30 countries.
Zelenskyy threatened possible “collaborators and supporters of Russia” in Ukraine. Anyone who is tempted by offers from the Russian occupiers is signing their own verdict, he said in a video message published on Sunday night. “The verdict is to follow more than 12,000 occupiers who might not understand in time why Ukraine should not be attacked,” said the president, referring to the number of 12,000 Russian soldiers killed, which he said.
