Intense fighting also continues in the port city of Mariupol, besieged by Russian troops. The British Defense Ministry said the city continued to face intense and indiscriminate attacks, but Ukrainian forces stubbornly resisted and maintained control of the central areas.
Mariupol is “probably” one of the main targets of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to British military intelligence. By taking the city, which is still hotly contested, a direct land connection could be established between Russia and the occupied Crimea peninsula, according to an update from the British Defense Ministry late Monday, citing intelligence information. Russia’s only connection from the mainland to the peninsula is a bridge across the Kerch Strait.
Russian troops are said to have begun to withdraw from the eastern Ukrainian region of Sumy. However, it is still too early to talk about a liberation of the region, said the head of the regional administration of Sumy, Dmytro Schywyzkyj, according to the Unian agency in a video message late on Monday.
Last week, more Russian troops were found in the region and there were many attacks on civilians. Russian military vehicles were brought back to Russia through a corridor from Kiev and Chernihiv. Now you saw a lot of destroyed Russian tanks and other military equipment there.
According to Ukrainian information, more than 2,600 people were rescued on Sunday from particularly harsh Ukrainian cities. Of the 2,694 people, nearly 1,500 were rescued from the Luhansk region, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Sunday, according to the Ukrajinska Pravda newspaper. She accused the Russian side of violating the agreed ceasefire.
On Sunday, nearly 500 people fled to Zaporizhia in their own vehicles from the port city of Mariupol and Berdyansk. According to Wereshchuk, seven buses accompanied by the Red Cross were also able to travel from Mariupol to Mangush. The Red Cross had to abort an evacuation attempt on Friday.
Russia has once again accused Ukraine of not cooperating in the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol. Moscow and Kiev have accused each other for weeks of sabotaging the flight of Mariupol residents.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fears that “even more terrible things could happen” than is known so far about the crimes in the city of Bucha. Other regions of the country are still under Russian control. “More killing and abuse” could become known there, Selenskyj said in a video message late on Sunday.
“Because that’s the nature of the Russian military who arrived in our country. They are monsters who don’t know how to do otherwise,” Zelenskyy said. He wants all mothers of Russian soldiers to see the bodies of people killed in Bucha and other cities.
“What did they do? Why were they killed? What did a man riding a bicycle on the street do?” asked Zelenskyy. “Why were ordinary civilians tortured to death in an ordinary peaceful town? Why were women strangled after ripping their earrings out of their ears? How could they rape women and kill them in front of children? with tanks? What has the Ukrainian city of Bucha done with its Russia?”
He also said that Ukraine really shouldn’t have asked for weapons abroad. “All the weapons we needed should have been made available to us – unsolicited. Because they knew full well that evil was imminent and what that would entail.”
Images from the small town of Bucha, on the outskirts of Kiev, where several bodies of residents were found in the streets after the withdrawal of Russian troops, caused international horror on Sunday. Ukraine blames Russian troops, who until recently occupied the city, for the massacre. Moscow denies this.
After the withdrawal of Russian troops, Ukraine said it had recovered the bodies of a total of 410 residents from the region around the capital Kiev. “This is a hell that must be documented so the monsters who created it can be punished,” Ukrainian Attorney General Iryna Venediktova wrote on Facebook late Sunday. 140 of the bodies have been examined since Friday. Forensic pathologists and other experts are on the job.
Venediktova wrote that the area was divided into squares, each of which houses teams of prosecutors, investigators and members of the National Police. Forensic technicians are also on duty because there’s a lot of live ammunition there.
More than 50 officials from the Public Ministry and the national police launched investigations into the crimes in the Bucha area that became known after the withdrawal of Russian troops. There are also investigations elsewhere around Kiev and Chernihiv. “The Attorney General’s Office will continue to increase the number of investigative officers to ensure faster and more efficient collection of evidence of war crimes,” wrote Venediktova. Special attention is also given to the areas around Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy, Luhansk and Donetsk. Venediktova stressed that only professionals should work at crime scenes and instructed volunteers not to interfere with the work.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar previously announced that the army had regained full military control over the Kiev region more than five weeks after the Russian invasion. Photos from the suburb of Butscha, where the bodies of residents were lying in the street, caused international horror on Sunday. Ukraine attributes the massacre to Russian troops who until recently occupied the small town. Moscow denies this.