Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – The United Nations on Friday stubbornly tried to broker an evacuation of civilians from the increasingly hellish ruins of Mariupol, while Ukraine accused Russia of showing its contempt for the world body by bombing Kyiv as the UN leaders visited the capital.
The mayor of Mariupol said the situation at the steel mill, which has become the southern port city’s last stronghold, is dire, and citizens are “begging to be rescued.” Mayor Vadym Boichenko added: “It’s not a matter of days. It’s a matter of hours.”
Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, struggled to fend off Russian attempts to advance south and east, where the Kremlin is attempting to seize the country’s industrial Donbass region. Artillery fire, sirens and explosions could be heard in some towns. And a senior US defense official said the Russian offensive is proceeding much more slowly than planned, partly because of the strength of Ukrainian resistance.
For other developments:
– A former US Marine was killed while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, his family said, in what would be the first known combat death of an American in the war. The US has not confirmed the report.
— Ukrainian forces are cracking down on people accused of helping Russian troops. In the Kharkiv region alone, nearly 400 people have been arrested under anti-collaboration laws enacted after the February 24 invasion of Moscow.
— The international sanctions imposed because of the war against the Kremlin are putting the country under pressure. The Central Bank of Russia said Russia’s economy is expected to contract by up to 10% this year and the outlook is “extremely uncertain”.
On Thursday, Moscow’s forces launched a missile attack on a high-rise apartment building and another building in Kyiv, shaking weeks of relative calm in the capital following Russia’s withdrawal from the region earlier this month.
US-funded radio station Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said one of its journalists, Vira Hyrych, was killed in the bombing. Ten people were injured, one of whom lost a leg, authorities said.
The rocket attack came less than an hour after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a press conference with UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
“That says a lot about Russia’s true attitude towards global institutions, about attempts by the Russian leadership to humiliate the UN and everything that represents the organization,” Zelenskyy said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s way of showing “his middle finger” to Guterres.
In an apparent reference to the Kyiv bombing, the Russian military said it destroyed “production buildings” at the Artem defense factory.
The rocket attack came as life in Kyiv seemed to be getting a little closer to normality, cafes and other shops were beginning to reopen and growing numbers of people went out to enjoy the arrival of spring.
Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political scientist and head of the Kyiv-based think tank Penta Center, said the attack had a message: “Russia is sending a clear signal of its intention to continue the war despite international pressure.”
It has been difficult to get a full picture of the unfolding battle to the east, as airstrikes and artillery fire have made it extremely dangerous for reporters to move about. Both Ukraine and Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east have also imposed severe restrictions on reporting from the combat zone.
But so far, Russia’s troops and the separatists appear to have made little gains.
The US believes the Russians are “at least a few days behind where they wanted to be” as they try to encircle Ukrainian troops in the east, said the senior US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to understand the assessment American military to discuss.
While Russian troops are attempting to advance north from Mariupol to counter Ukrainian forces from the south, their advances are “slow and uneven and certainly not decisive,” the official said.
In the bombed city of Mariupol, around 100,000 people are said to have been trapped with little food, water or medicine. An estimated 2,000 Ukrainian defenders and 1,000 civilians were holed up at the Azovstal Steel Plant.
The Soviet-era steel mill has a vast network of underground bunkers that can withstand air raids. But the situation has gotten worse after the Russians dropped “bunker busters” and other bombs.
“Locals who manage to leave Mariupol say it’s hell, but when they leave this fortress they say it’s even worse,” Mayor Boichenko said.
UN spokesman Farhan Haq said the organization is negotiating with authorities in Moscow and Kyiv to secure safe passage.
This time, “let’s hope the enemy has a touch of humanity,” the mayor said. Ukraine has blamed the failure of numerous previous evacuation attempts on continued Russian shelling.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV that the real problem is that “humanitarian corridors are being ignored by Ukrainian ultranationalists.” Moscow has repeatedly claimed that right-wing Ukrainians are thwarting evacuation efforts and using civilians as human shields.
Also on Friday, two cities in central Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk region were hit by Russian missiles, the regional governor said. There was no immediate information about casualties or damage.
Fighting was heard from Kramatorsk to Sloviansk, two cities in the Donbass about 18 kilometers apart. Columns of smoke rose from the Sloviansk region and neighboring cities. At least one person was injured in the shelling.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy accused Russia of destroying the Donbass and everyone who lives there.
The constant attacks “show that Russia wants to clear this territory of all people,” he said.
“If the Russian invaders can even partially realize their plans, then they will have enough artillery and aircraft to turn the entire Donbass to stones, as they did with Mariupol.”
The governor of Russia’s Kursk region said a border post was mortared by Ukraine and Russian border guards returned fire. He said there were no casualties on the Russian side.
In the village of Ruska Lozava near Kharkiv, hundreds of people were evacuated after Ukrainian troops recaptured the town from the Russian occupiers, according to the regional governor. Those who fled to Kharkiv spoke of dire conditions under the Russians, with little water, food and no electricity.
“We hid in the basement. It was horror. The basement shook from the explosions. We screamed, we cried and we prayed to God,” said Ludmila Bocharnikova.
A video posted by Ukraine’s Azov Battalion showed troops hoisting the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag over the government building in the center of the village, although fighting continued on the outskirts.
Former US Marine Willy Joseph Cancel, 22, was killed Monday while working for a military company that sent him to Ukraine, his mother Rebecca Cabrera told CNN.
“He wanted to go over because he believed in what Ukraine was fighting for,” she said, “and he wanted to be a part of that, to contain it there, so it wouldn’t come here, and that maybe our American soldiers would.” You don’t have to be involved in that.”
The Marine Corps said Cancel served four years but was fired for misconduct and sentenced to five months for violating orders. Details of the crime were not given.
At least two other foreigners fighting on the Ukrainian side, one from Britain and the other from Denmark, were also killed.
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Associated Press journalists Jon Gambrell and Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, Yesica Fisch in Sloviansk, Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, and AP staffers around the world contributed to this report.
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