A Ukrainian attempt to evacuate civilians from the devastated city of Mariupol, where many remain trapped, was “frustrated” by Russian forces on Saturday, a city official said.
“The evacuation was foiled,” Mariupol city official Petro Andryushchenko said on Telegram, adding that about 200 residents had gathered at the evacuation meeting point announced by Kyiv, but Russian forces “dispersed” them.
He claimed others were told to board buses bound for Dukuchayevsk, some 50 miles north, which is controlled by Russia.
“People had no right to get off the bus,” he said. Russian forces blamed “shots by (Ukrainian) nationalists on the evacuation point” for changing the target, he added.
“Once again, the Russians disrupted an evacuation,” he said.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk earlier announced that Ukraine would make a new attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol on Saturday, warning that Russian forces could try to organize a parallel evacuation route to Russia.
A view shows graves of civilians killed during the Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, April 19, 2022. ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO / REUTERS
The evacuation attempt came a day after a senior Russian military officer said “the second phase of the special operation” — as Moscow is calling its invasion of Ukraine — had begun, with the aim of controlling a vast, strategic chunk of Ukrainian territory.
“One of the tasks of the Russian army is to gain complete control over the Donbass and southern Ukraine,” Major General Rustam Minnekayev said on Friday.
The announcement marks far broader war goals than what Moscow has previously stated.
Russian forces, which have withdrawn from around Kyiv and northern Ukraine after failing in their attempts to take over the capital, are already occupying much of the eastern Donbass region and south.
Minnekayev said her focus is now on “providing a land corridor to Crimea,” which Russia annexed in 2014, and to a breakaway pro-Russian region of Moldova, Transnistria, where the general claimed Russian speakers were “oppressed.”
The Moldovan government has been shaken by the Russian attack on its neighbor as Moldovans fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin may move further west.
Moldova has taken in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees since war broke out on February 24. His government has condemned Russia’s war and submitted a bid to join the European Union along with Georgia and Ukraine. She is also seeking EU support in dealing with the influx of refugees and is calling on the bloc to step up support for the country.
Ukrainian authorities have vowed to keep fighting and drive Russian troops from their country, but they have also sought an Easter break.
“Unfortunately, Russia rejected the proposal to conclude an Easter ceasefire,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this week.
In his regular address on Friday evening, Zelenskyy said the Russian general’s comments were a clear articulation of Moscow’s goals.
“This only confirms what I have said on numerous occasions: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was only intended as a start,” he said.
Ukraine’s government, emboldened by an influx of Western arms, said its beleaguered forces were still holding out at a sprawling steel mill in the devastated port city of Mariupol.
The Kremlin has called for the “liberation” of Mariupol, central to its war plans nearly two months after President Vladimir Putin ordered the shock invasion of Russia’s western-leaning neighbor.
Armed forces “who laid down their arms are guaranteed life”
In a phone call with Putin, EU chief Charles Michel called for humanitarian access to Mariupol, which has been largely destroyed by weeks of intense Russian bombardment.
“Immediate humanitarian access and safe passage from Mariupol and other besieged cities are being strongly urged on the occasion of Orthodox Easter,” Michel tweeted.
Telephone call with President Putin @ KremlinRussia_E
Urgently requested for immediate humanitarian access and safe exit #Mariupol and other besieged cities especially on the occasion of the Orthodox Easter.
— Charles Michel (@CharlesMichel) April 22, 2022
However, Putin accused Kyiv of refusing to surrender its troops in Mariupol.
“All soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, militants of the national battalions and foreign mercenaries who have laid down their arms are guaranteed life,” Putin Michel said, the Kremlin said.
CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata reported Friday that thousands of Ukrainians remained trapped at a steel plant in Mariupol, surrounded by troops loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who previously claimed victory in the city had. Ukrainian officials said 100,000 people may still be stranded in Mariupol, where some of the worst fighting of the war took place.
Russia’s defense ministry earlier said it was ready to launch a humanitarian pause if Kiev’s troops surrender.
“The enemy’s offensive operation in the south depends on Mariupol. The enemy is trying to focus all its efforts on it,” Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the eastern Donetsk region, told AFP.
Near the front lines in eastern Ukraine, a few residents still held out amid frequent shelling.
After two months of sustained Russian artillery barrage, the hamlet of Lysychansk, just 9 miles from Russian ground forces, has largely turned into a ghost town.
Only a small sheltered market in the center of the city is still operational, offering food and other supplies after the city’s other market was bombed.
“Everyone, this is going to end badly,” said an elderly woman in line for vegetables, fearing a targeted attack by Russian forces similar to a deadly rocket attack on a train station in the nearby town of Kramatorsk on April 8 that killed at least 52 people were killed .
In Severodonetsk, just 6 miles from Russian positions, the city’s volunteers and medical staff continue to hold the fort at a local hospital, which is littered with broken windows and several floors plunged in darkness.
Shelling has recently resumed and the city is likely to soon be surrounded by advancing Russian troops.
“We stay here until the last patient,” says Roman Vodianik, the head of the hospital, whose office is decorated with Orthodox Christian icons.
Russia’s shift in strategic focus to southern and eastern Ukraine meant that invading forces left a trail of indiscriminate destruction and civilian corpses around Kyiv, including the commuter town of Bucha.
A United Nations mission in Bucha “documented the unlawful killing of about 50 civilians there, including by summary execution,” the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said.
Its spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said Russian forces “fired and bombed indiscriminately populated areas, killing civilians and destroying hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure, actions that could amount to war crimes”.
Ukrainian officials say the bodies of more than 1,000 civilians have been recovered from areas around Kyiv.
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