Kyiv: Russia has launched a major attack on East Ukraine, the authorities in Kyiv said, opening the new phase of the invasion after being thwarted in an effort to capture the capital.
In recent weeks, Moscow’s military campaign has focused back in the eastern region of Donbas, which is partly by Pro-Kremlin separatists partially controlled since 2014.
“We can now confirm that Russian troops have started the battle for Donbas, which they have prepared for a long time,” said President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said on the telegram Monday night.No matter how many Russian soldiers are brought here, we will fight. We will defend themselves.”
In front of advances that are widely anticipated, Ukrainian authorities urged people in Donbas to escape west.The second phase of the war has begun,” said President Chief of Staff Kyiv Andriy Yermak.Control Donbas will allow Moscow to make the southern corridor into the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
In the south of the region, Russia continued the urge to capture the port city of Mariupol, where the last remaining Ukrainian forces had taken the last stand.But despite the desperate situation in the city, a senior official of the US Department of Defense said Mariupol was “still contested”.
Russia has also added 11 tactical battalion groups – consisting of, among other things, artillery, helicopters, and logistical support – to its troops in East Ukraine, officially more, bringing a total of 76 in the country.Monday also saw the first shipment of new US military assistance packages arrived at the Ukrainian border to be handed over in his struggle against Russian invasion.
The United States on April 13 launched $ 800 million Tranche equipment for Ukraine, including helicopters, howitzers and armored personnel carriers.
Strikes across Ukraine
Moscow’s forces on Monday pounded targets across the country, killing at least seven people in the far western city of Lviv.Lviv has largely been spared bombardment since Russia invaded on February 24, and the city and its surroundings had become a haven for those seeking safety from the war zone.
But “today we understood clearly that we don’t have any safe places in Ukraine. It’s very dangerous,” a bank employee who gave her name as Natalia told AFP after the strikes.Russia’s defence ministry said Monday it had hit 16 military targets across Ukraine.Among the sites struck was a depot near Lviv that Moscow said held weapons recently delivered to Ukraine from the United States and Europe.
Shortly before Zelensky’s address, the regional governor of the Lugansk region Sergiy Gaiday also announced the beginning of Russia’s much-anticipated attack.”It’s hell. The offensive has begun, the one we’ve been talking about for weeks. There’s constant fighting in Rubizhne and Popasna, fighting in other peaceful cities,” he said on Facebook.Russian shelling killed at least eight civilians in eastern Ukraine, according to local authorities.
Gaiday said four people died as they tried to flee the city of Kreminna in Lugansk as Russian troops moved in The Russian army has already entered there, with a huge amount of military hardware… Our defenders have retreated to new positions,” Gaiday said in a statement on social media.But Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovich said Russian forces had not conquered the city.Ukrainian officials on Monday halted the evacuation of civilians from frontline towns and cities in the east for a second day, accusing Russian forces of having blocked and shelled escape routes.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged Moscow to open humanitarian corridors from Mariupol to Berdyansk and from the Azovstal metallurgical industrial zone — a holdout for Ukrainian fighters.”Your refusal to open these humanitarian corridors will, in the future, be grounds for prosecuting all those involved in war crimes,” she said on Telegram.
The Mariupol city council said Monday there are over 1,000 civilians trapped in shelters under the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian forces are waging a desperate last stand against the Russians.(They are) mostly women with children and the elderly,” they said on Telegram.
War crimes
President Vladimir Putin said he launched a military operation on February 24 to save Russian speakers in Ukraine from “genocide” carried out by the “Neo-Nazi” regime.He acknowledged the independence of two separatist republics proclaimed in Donetsk and Lugansk just before the invasion began.
On Monday, Putin praised the 64th motorbike rifle brigade – accused of doing atrocities near Kyiv – offset against their battle awards to “heroism and courage, tenacity and courage”.Ukraine has accused the brigade guilty of war crimes while occupying the outskirts of Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv, where the population was shot dead, some with bound hands.
The European Union condemned “indiscriminately” Russian from Ukrainian civilians after strikes in Lviv. The head of his foreign policy Josep Borrell pointed to the “very heavy attack” in East Ukraine and South and the attack on Kharkiv Second City, where officials said Russian shootings killed three people.
Attacks on Lviv and other cities in West Ukraine show that there is no part of the country that has been spared from an unreasonable Kremlin attack,” Borrell added.Looking to strengthen bonds and accelerate reception to block 27 countries, Zelensky said that Ukraine hoped to receive the status of the state of the EU candidate in a few weeks.On Monday, he handed over the EU messenger to Kyiv’s two-volume response to the membership questionnaire brought by the head of the European Commission Ursula Von Leyen in March.
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