Kiev, Ukraine (AP) – Ukraine, preparing for a full -fledged Russian offensive in the east, has vowed to “fight to the end” in strategically crucial Mariupol, where the pocket of the last known resistance in the port city is located. in disrepair propagation. Steel mill equipped with tunnel.
Also fighting rockets and missiles in other parts of the country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russian soldiers of torturing and kidnapping them in areas they control.
The fall of Mariupol, which turned to rubble after a seven -week siege, would bring Moscow its greatest victory in the war. But several thousand fighters, according to Russian estimates, are clinging to the giant 11-square-kilometer (4-square-mile) Azovstal steel mill.
“We will fight to the end for victory in this war,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmihal promised Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”. He said Ukraine was ready to end the war diplomatically if possible, “but we have no intention of giving up.”
Many civilians in Mariupol, including children, are also fleeing the Azovstal plant, city patrol police chief Mikhail Vershinin told Mariupol TV. He said they were hiding from Russian bombing and Russian soldiers.
The capture of the city on the Sea of Azov would free up Russian troops for a new offensive to control the Donbas region in the industrial east of Ukraine. Russia will also fully protect the land corridor leading to the Crimean peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, capturing Ukraine’s main port and important industrial assets.
Russia aims to seize the Donbas, where Moscow -backed separatists already control some territory, after its failed attempt to seize the capital, Kiev.
“We are doing our best to ensure the protection of eastern Ukraine,” Zelensky said in his nightly speech to the country.
As for the besieged Mariupol, there appears to be little hope of military safety for Ukrainian forces in the foreseeable future. Foreign Minister Dimitro Kuleba told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday that Ukraine’s remaining troops and civilians were almost under siege. He said they were “constantly resisting,” but the city was virtually non -existent due to massive destruction.
According to Ukrainian estimates, at least 21,000 people were killed in the relentless bombing and street fighting in Mariupol. In the early weeks of the war, a deadly air attack followed a maternity hospital and about 300 people were killed in the bombing of a theater where civilians had taken refuge.
About 100,000 people remained in the city from 450,000 pre-war inhabitants who were trapped without food, water, heat or electricity.
Footage of the plane taken Sunday by Russian news agency RIA-Novosti shows collapsed buildings and a steel complex on the outskirts of the city where smoke towers have sprung up.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar called Mariupol “a shield protecting Ukraine”.
Meanwhile, Russian forces have launched airstrikes near Kiev and elsewhere in an apparent attempt to weaken Ukraine’s military capabilities due to an impending attack on the Donbas.
After the embarrassing sinking of the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet last week, which Ukrainians boasted was a missile strike, the Kremlin has vowed to step up attacks on the capital.
Russia said on Sunday it attacked an ammunition factory near Kiev using precision-guided missiles at night, the third such attack in so many days. Explosions were also reported in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, where rockets killed at least 57 people last month at a train station full of civilians trying to evacuate before the Russian attack.
At least five people were killed in Russia’s bombing of Kharkov, Ukraine’s second -largest city, on Sunday, regional officials said. The barrier crashed into apartment buildings. The streets were littered with broken glass and other debris.
Kharkov Mayor Igor Terekhov in a passionate speech on Orthodox Virgin Mary Day criticized Russian forces for not allowing the bombing campaign on such a holy day.
Zelensky called the Kharkov eruption “intentional fear”.
Zelensky also called on the country in his evening speech to suppress what he called the brutality of Russian troops in parts of southern Ukraine.
“Torture cameras were built there,” he said. “They kidnap local government officials and anyone the local communities see.
He once again called on the world to send more weapons and impose tougher sanctions against Moscow.
Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, said the Russians were attacking Mariupol via air strikes and could prepare for an amphibious landing to strengthen their ground troops.
An imminent attack on the east, if successful, would give Russian President Vladimir Putin the much-needed victory to sell to the Russian people amid growing war casualties and economic hardship caused by Western sanctions. .
Austrian Chancellor Carl Nehammer, who met with Putin in Moscow last week – the first European leader to do so since the Feb. 24 invasion – said Russia’s president was “within the logic of his own war. “against Ukraine. In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Nehammer said he thought Putin believed he had won the war and “we need to look him in the eye and compare what we see in Ukraine.”
Zelensky also celebrated Easter Sunday and wrote on Twitter: “The resurrection of the Lord is a testimony to the victory of life over death, the evil of good.”
Chernov reported from Kharkov. Journalists from Jessica Fish in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, and the Associated Press from around the world contributed to this report.
Source: Huffpost
