An ICRC team led a convoy of buses and private cars to the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia after civilians fled Mariupol on their own, the aid organization said. However, thousands of civilians stranded in Mariupol still need safe passage and assistance, said the head of the ICRC delegation in Ukraine, Pascal Hundt.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in the besieged Mariupol region continues to deteriorate, the British Defense Ministry said. Most of Mariupol’s remaining residents are without power, communications, medical care, heat or water, the British Defense Ministry said. Russian forces reportedly blocked access to humanitarian aid, which would likely increase pressure on defenders to surrender.
The city of Kharkiv was also the target of numerous attacks during the night. There were 27 attacks with different weapons, wrote the governor of the region of the same name, Oleh Synyehubov, on Telegram. “The enemy wants to demoralize us and continues to launch chaotic attacks on civilian infrastructure.” The country’s second-largest city has been under near-constant fire since the war began on February 24.
According to Ukrainian sources, the Russian army also fired on an oil deposit near the industrial city of Dnipro. “It was a difficult night,” the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Valentin Resnichenko, said on Telegram on Wednesday. “The enemy attacked from the air and hit an oil depot and a factory.” The warehouse was destroyed and the factory caught fire. “Fortunately there were no injuries,” the governor added later. After more than eight hours, firefighters put out the fire at the factory.
A total of an Osa anti-aircraft missile system, five ammunition and fuel depots and eleven Ukrainian army military bases were destroyed in the air strikes, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday. A total of 24 military targets were hit in the neighboring country.
Units from the self-proclaimed “People’s Republic” of Luhansk also continued their attacks in eastern Ukraine. About 50 Ukrainian fighters were killed, Konashenko said. A command post, a fuel depot and an armored vehicle repair factory were also destroyed with rockets. The information cannot be independently verified.
Meanwhile, cleanup work continued in Butscha. During a visit to the site, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky said there were still “dozens of bodies” in the apartments and in the forest. Ukraine accuses Russia of a brutal war of aggression and numerous war crimes in Mariupol.
The war in Ukraine was also an issue in the European Parliament on Wednesday. EU Council President Charles Michel made a direct appeal to Russian soldiers in Ukraine. “If you don’t want to participate in the murder of your Ukrainian brothers and sisters, if you don’t want to be a criminal, drop your weapons, stop fighting, get off the battlefield,” said the Belgian. At the same time, he was open to granting asylum to defectors in the EU.
Michel recalled that some MEPs had proposed granting asylum to soldiers who disobeyed orders. “In my opinion, this is a valuable idea that should be pursued.”
Michel reiterated that crimes against humanity and against innocent civilians are being committed in Bucha, Ukraine and other cities. This is further proof that Russian brutality against the people of Ukraine knows no bounds. There is more evidence of war crimes, summary executions, bodies strewn in the streets and mass graves. “This is not a ‘special operation’, this is war crimes,” Michel said, referring to the Kremlin’s official narrative. There must be serious consequences for all those responsible.