Oleksiy Arestovich, advisor to the head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, assured in a television speech this Saturday (April 23, 2022) that the invading Russian troops are attacking the Azovstal steel plant, the last stronghold of the Ukrainian armed forces in the strategic port city of Mariúpol in the south of the country.
The official said during the course that the intruders had resumed airstrikes and were attempting to storm the compound. “The enemy is trying to completely suppress the resistance of the Mariupol defenders in the Azov valley,” Arestovich said.
The statement comes two days after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed Russian leader Vladimir Putin that regime forces were in control of the entire city except for Azovstal. Putin then ordered his fighters not to storm the plant, but instead to impose a blockade in an apparent attempt to quell resistance.
Curfew in Lviv
Ukrainian authorities estimate that about 2,000 of their soldiers are at the facility, along with about 1,000 civilians who have taken refuge in the facility’s underground tunnels to flee indiscriminate Russian attacks on residential areas. Arestovich assured that the Ukrainian armed forces continue to resist and try to counter the Russian offensive.
Meanwhile, Lviv (west) regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy announced a curfew from the Orthodox Easter Vigil and regretted that Russia had not accepted the proposal for a religious truce. Citing intelligence information, the official said the curfew would begin at 11pm on Saturday and last until 5am on Sunday.
This measure, which was coordinated with the religious authorities, goes hand in hand with the suspension of church services. “Unfortunately, the enemy does not know the concept of a religious holiday, they are such animals that they do not understand what Easter is,” wrote Kozytskyy.
DZC (AP, Reuters)
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Ukraine: The war continues and the destruction increases
The longer the war, the greater the poverty
As this elderly woman looks out the window of her damaged home in Kyiv, the people of Ukraine are increasingly feeling the ravages of war. According to UN estimates, around 90 percent of the population could be affected by poverty if the invasion continued over the next twelve months. The country could fall behind economically in almost two decades.
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Ukraine: The war continues and the destruction increases
Anything but starving
In Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city, the hungry population looted a shopping center in the Saltivka district. The situation in the cities of Kharkov, Chernihiv, Sumy and Oktirka in the northeast and east of the country is precarious. The population is exposed to constant rocket launcher fire and airstrikes.
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Ukraine: The war continues and the destruction increases
comfort under the rubble
In the capital, Kyiv, a firefighter tries to comfort a resident outside her home in Kyiv, which was destroyed by a Russian bombing raid. It’s a fate shared by other Ukrainians. According to official Russian statements, the invaders are attacking only military targets, but reports and images of civilian casualties and the destruction of residential buildings are confirmed daily.
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Ukraine: The war continues and the destruction increases
born in the dark
A mother and her newborn in the basement of a maternity ward in Kharkov: Anyone giving birth in Ukraine these days may have to do it in makeshift basements. Numerous hospitals have already been bombed by the Russian army. Many were particularly shocked by the attack on a maternity and children’s hospital in Mariupol a week ago.
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Ukraine: The war continues and the destruction increases
Hall of Despair
In Mariupol in south-eastern Ukraine, people injured by shell fire lie in a hospital corridor. The situation in the port city, which has been under siege for days, is said to be catastrophic. The same applies to Izium in the northeast, which is also besieged by the Russian army. The Ukrainian government has said it is looking into ways to deliver food and medicines to occupied cities.
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Ukraine: The war continues and the destruction increases
finally something to eat
Local residents are receiving humanitarian aid in the pro-Russian separatist-controlled town of Volnovakha in the Donetsk region. The eastern regions of Ukraine, Lugansk and Donetsk, remain a major theater of war. Reports from the separatists and the Russian Ministry of Defense tell of villages being taken every day.
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Ukraine: The war continues and the destruction increases
silence and sadness
Relatives mourn the funeral of fallen Ukrainian soldiers in western Lemberg (Lviv). Many civilians also died. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the number of documented deaths since Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24 is 726. Among them were 42 children and adolescents.
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Ukraine: The war continues and the destruction increases
Everything destroyed, now what?
It seems pointless for this clerk to clean up the remains of his shop that was damaged by a Russian shelling in Kyiv. When can you reopen the store? When will everyday life return? For the time being, the future for the Ukrainians is absolutely uncertain. (rml)
