Kharkiv, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian forces have fought to thwart Russia’s attempts to advance south and east as the Kremlin seeks to seize the country’s industrial Donbass region, a senior U.S. defense official said. attacks on Moscow were slower than expected.
Before hearing artillery fire, sirens and explosions in some cities on Friday, the United Nations tried to intervene in the evacuation of civilians from the growing hellish ruins of Mariupol, where the mayor said the situation at the steel mill had become south end. port city. The fort is heavy.
Citizens “need safety,” Mayor Vadim Boichenko said. “Well, not in those days. Just a few hours. “
A former U.S. Marine killed In fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, his family said the first known death of Americans during the war was in combat. The United States does not confirm the information.
– The mayor of the city of Popasna, in eastern Ukraine, Nikolai Khanatov, said that two buses bound for the evacuation of residents caught fire and lost contact with the drivers.
– There are Ukrainian Raid forces accused to assist Russian troops. In the Kharkiv region alone, about 400 people were detained under anti-cooperation laws passed after the February 24 attack on Moscow.
– International sanctions against the Kremlin for war are rising in the country. The Russian central bank said Russia’s economy is expected to be at least 10% this year and the outlook is “extremely uncertain”.
It is difficult to get a complete picture of the fighting taking place in the east, as airstrikes and artillery have become extremely dangerous for journalists to move. Both Ukraine and the Moscow -backed rebels fighting in the east have also imposed severe restrictions on relations in the war zone.
But so far, it appears that Russian troops and separatist forces have had little success in the Donbas a month after Moscow declared it would focus its military presence in eastern Ukraine.
Partly because of the strength of Ukraine’s resistance, the U.S. believes the Russians are “at least a few days behind where they want to be” as they seek to encircle Ukrainian troops in the east, a senior said. who spoke on condition of anonymity. .
When Russian troops tried to move north of the bombed city of Mariupol to allow Ukrainian forces to advance south, their advance was “slow and erratic and certainly indecisive,” the official said.
The UK Ministry of Defense has offered a similar analysis, saying it believes Russia’s forces in Ukraine could suffer from “poor morale”, lack of unit-level skills and “unequal support. in the air “.
Russian forces have been “forced to merge and deploy exhausted and disbanded units due to failed advances in northeastern Ukraine,” the British Foreign Office said in a statement on Twitter on Saturday. He did not say what the basis of his assessment was.
In Mariupol, about 100,000 people were stranded with little food, water and medicine. About 2,000 Ukrainian defenders and 1,000 civilians were imprisoned at the Azovstal steel plant.
The Soviet-era steel mill had an extensive underground network of bunkers capable of withstanding air strikes. But the situation worsened after the Russians dropped “bunker busters” and other bombs.
“The locals who manage to get out of Mariupol say it’s hell, but when they get out of jail they say it’s worse,” the mayor said.
UN spokesman Farhan Haq said the organization was in talks with authorities in Moscow and Kiev to create conditions for a safe transition.
This time, “hopefully there’s a little bit of humanity’s hold on the enemy,” the mayor said. Ukraine has blamed the failure of many previous evacuation attempts due to continued Russian bombing.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Saudi Arabia-based Al-Arabiya TV that the real problem was “Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists are ignoring humanitarian corridors.” Moscow has repeatedly claimed that right-wing Ukrainians are obstructing evacuation attempts and using them as animal shields for civilians.
In comments published on Saturday by the official Chinese news agency Xinhua, Lavrov said Russia had evacuated more than 1 million people from Ukraine since the war, including more than 300 Chinese civilians.
The foreign minister provided no evidence in the interview. Ukraine has accused Moscow of forcing Ukrainians to leave the country.
Lavrov also claimed that Russia-Ukrainian talks speak “almost daily”, but blamed “the rhetoric of war and the actions that inflame Western supporters of the Kiev regime” for disruption of discussions.
However, Russia’s state television night had guests offering Moscow the use of nuclear weapons in combat.
Fighting was heard from Kramatorsk to Slovyansk, two towns about 18 kilometers from Donbass. Columns of smoke rose from the Slovyansk area and nearby towns. At least one person was reportedly injured in the attack.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky accused Russia of destroying the Donbass and all its inhabitants in an overnight video.
The ongoing attacks “show that Russia wants everyone to evacuate to this territory,” he said.
If the Russian occupiers partially realized their plans, then they had enough artillery and aircraft to turn the whole Donbass into rocks, as they did in Mariupol.
Ukrainian troops repulsed the attack by Russian air forces in the Luhansk region of the Donbas and killed a large part of their unit, the governor said.
“Only seven of the occupiers survived,” Governor Serhi Haidai told the Telegram on Friday. The request could not be confirmed immediately.
He did not say where the attack took place, but said Russian forces were preparing for an attack on Severodonetsk.
In an area outside Kharkov, which is regularly bombed by Russian forces, some residents remained in their apartments even though the buildings were full of carbon. There is no water or electricity, so they gather outside to eat by an open fire.
Ukrainian reservists living in a basement in the neighborhood claim the Russians fired rockets, artillery and tanks at the buildings.
“The tank can enter from a short distance and burn all its ammunition in dwellings. It doesn’t matter where. And it’s impossible to know where he was thrown,” said Vladislav, who, like the divisions, was named only himself.
Another reservist, nicknamed Malish, expressed frustration at nothing more could be done to stop Russia from advancing.
“I picked up the weapon, but unfortunately I didn’t catch the flying missiles with my hands and I would have thrown it back,” he said.
The regional governor said hundreds of people had been evacuated to the nearby village of Ruska Lozava after Ukrainian forces recaptured the city from Russian occupiers. Refugees in Kharkov spoke about the poor conditions of Russia’s administration, the lack of water, food and electricity.
“We were hiding in the basement. It was horrible. The basement was shaking because of the explosions. “We cried, cried and prayed to God,” said Ludmila Bocharnikova, a resident.
On Saturday morning, Russian air forces found a Ukrainian military plane over Russia’s Bryank region and two bullets fell on the village to repel the plane, the region’s governor Alexander Bogomaz said.
Bogomaz said no one was injured in the explosions, but the oil terminal was damaged.
Associated Press reporters John Gambrel and Yura Karmanau in Lviv, Mstislav Chernov in Kharkov, Jessica Fish in Slovyansk, Lolita Baldor in Washington, and AP staff from around the world contributed to this report.
Source: Huffpost
