Situation on the ground, international reactions, sanctions: the point on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
© REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
Ukraine confirmed on Saturday that Russian forces were carrying out a “rapid withdrawal” from the regions of kyiv and Cherniguiv, in the north of the country, in order to better “maintain control” of the “vast territories” they occupy in the east and south, where further evacuations of civilians were planned during the day.
After a night of bombing in the center and east of the country, the Red Cross wanted to try on Saturday to get civilians out of Mariupol (southeast), a strategic and besieged port on the Sea of Azov where the humanitarian situation is catastrophic.
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While Russian troops are withdrawing from the regions of kyiv and Cherniguiv (north), Ukrainian forces have been able to retake “more than 30 localities” there and seize “a large number of abandoned military vehicles without fuel”, affirmed a Ukrainian presidential adviser, Oleksiï Arestovitch, in a video released on Saturday by the Ukrainian presidency.
Among these localities, Boutcha, northwest of kyiv, where an AFP journalist saw the corpses of at least twenty men in civilian clothes on Saturday. One of them with his hands tied behind his back, next to an open Ukrainian passport lying on the ground.
The cause of their death might not be determined immediately, but one person had a large head wound. Gaping holes caused by shells in apartment buildings, downed power lines: the city, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, is devastated.
Another Russian tactic
Ukrainian forces were only able to fully penetrate it a day or two ago, it had been inaccessible for almost a month.
With this “rapid withdrawal” from the north of the country, “it is quite clear that Russia has chosen another priority tactic”, wrote the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaïlo Podoliak, on the Telegram messenger: “to withdraw towards the east and the south” to “keep control of vast occupied territories” and “hardly dictate its conditions”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had already claimed that the Russians were preparing for “powerful attacks” in the east, in particular on Mariupol where some 160,000 people would still be blocked and of which at least 5,000 inhabitants were killed, according to local authorities.
For the Russians, control of Mariupol would ensure territorial continuity from Crimea to the two pro-Russian separatist republics of Donbass (Donetsk and Lugansk).
Unable for weeks, evacuations began on a small scale. On Friday, “humanitarian corridors operated in three regions: Donetsk, Lugansk and Zaporozhye. We managed to save 6,266 people, including 3,071 from Mariupol,” President Zelensky said overnight from Friday to Saturday.
Thirty evacuation buses in Mariupol
AFP witnessed the arrival of around 30 evacuation buses in the city of Zaporozhye on Friday evening. “We cried when we saw soldiers at the checkpoint with Ukrainian patches on their arms,” said Olena, her baby girl in her arms. “My house was destroyed. I saw it in photos. Our town no longer exists.”
Several people told AFP they had to walk 15 kilometers or more to leave Mariupol, before finding private vehicles and then ending their journey with a 12-hour bus ride through a series of checkpoints, instead three hours before the war.
These residents of Mariupol had managed to reach the city of Berdiansk, occupied by Russian forces, where they were taken care of by the convoy, according to testimonies to AFP and official officials.
On Saturday, seven humanitarian corridors were planned in the East and Southeast, according to Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar on Saturday offered “maritime support, especially for the evacuation from Mariupol of civilians and wounded Turkish or other nationalities”, according to the official Anadolu news agency.
After having had to give up on Friday trying to reach the port city, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced that it would try once more on Saturday “to facilitate the safe passage of civilians from Mariupol”.
But “for the operation to succeed, it is essential that the parties respect the agreements and provide the necessary conditions and security guarantees”, underlined the ICRC.
The abandoned Chernobyl power plant
Conditions weakened by the continued fighting. Russia on Friday accused Ukraine of carrying out a helicopter strike on its soil and threatening to toughen negotiations.
The attack hit energy giant Rosneft’s fuel storage facilities in Belgorod, a Russian town regarding 40 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
For the British Ministry of Defence, the destruction of oil tanks in Belgorod as well as explosions in an ammunition depot near the city will “probably add additional pressure in the short term on the already stretched Russian supply chains”.
Ukraine, for its part, warned that Russian soldiers who left the Chernobyl nuclear power plant – the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986 – following weeks of occupation might have been exposed to radiation, judging that “Russia behaved irresponsibly at Chernobyl” by digging trenches in contaminated areas and preventing plant personnel from carrying out their duties.
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Since the night of Friday to Saturday, several bombings have taken place, according to various Ukrainian sources: residential neighborhoods in Kharkiv (east), infrastructure in Dnipro (center), localities in the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk (east) and Kherson ( South).
Infrastructure was also hit in Kremenchuk (center, Poltava region), headquarters of the largest Ukrainian oil refinery, said the country’s presidency, while the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Saturday morning that it had destroyed with “weapons precision” of the refinery’s gasoline and diesel fuel depots.
These depots were used to supply fuel to Ukrainian forces in the center and east of the country, according to a ministry statement. “Russian missiles” also disabled two military airfields in the Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk regions (center), according to the same source.
The pope wants to go to kyiv
“Give us missiles. Give us planes,” President Zelensky pleaded on the American channel Fox News. “Can’t you give us F-18s or F-19s or whatever you have? Give us the old Soviet planes…Give me something to defend my country.”
The United States announced up to $300 million more in military aid to Ukraine, on top of that allocated since the invasion, amounting to more than $1.6 billion.
Peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials resumed on Friday via video, but the Kremlin warned that the attack in Belgorod might not “be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for further negotiations”.
A demonstration by civilians in Energodar, a town in southern Ukraine occupied by Russian forces, was dispersed on Saturday by the firing of stun grenades, according to a Ukrainian official and videos posted on the internet.
And in Russia, more than 170 people were arrested for protesting once morest the war, indicated the specialized NGO OVD-Info.
On Sunday, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths will be in Moscow to try to secure a “humanitarian ceasefire”, UN chief Antonio Guterres announced.
Pope Francis on Saturday castigated in Malta the acts of “a powerful few” locked up in “nationalist interests” , in a clear allusion to Russian President Vladimir Putin, without however naming him. He added that he plans to visit Ukraine soon, at the invitation of President Zelensky. “Yes, it’s on the table,” he said when asked regarding the possibility of a trip.
