A three-month-old baby was among six people killed on Saturday when Russia fired cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odessa, Ukrainian officials said. Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said in a Telegram post that two rocket attacks by Russian troops had hit a residential area in the city
“Nothing is sacred,” wrote Yermak. “Evil will be punished.”
Firefighters walk past an apartment building damaged by Russian shelling in Odessa, Ukraine, on Saturday April 23, 2022. Ukrainian officials reported that Russia fired at least six cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odessa, killing five people. Max Pshybyshevsky/AP
Meanwhile, Russian forces in Ukraine on Saturday attempted to storm a steel plant in the southern city of Mariupol that was housing soldiers and civilians, trying to crush the last resistance in a place of high symbolic and strategic value for Moscow, Ukrainian officials said Officer.
The reported attack on the eve of Orthodox Easter came after the Kremlin claimed its military had taken the entire devastated city except for the Azovstal plant, and as Russian troops bombed other cities and towns in southern and eastern Ukraine.
The fate of the Ukrainians in the sprawling seaside steelworks was not immediately clear; Earlier on Saturday, a Ukrainian military unit released video, reportedly taken two days earlier, of women and children, some for up to two months, holed up underground and said they longed to see the sun .
“We want to see peaceful skies, we want to breathe fresh air,” said one woman in the video. “They just have no idea what it means for us to just eat, drink some sweetened tea. For us it’s happiness.”
As the battle for the port continued, Russia claimed it took control of several villages in the eastern Donbass region and destroyed 11 military Ukrainian military targets overnight, including three artillery camps. Russian attacks also hit populated areas of Ukraine.
Associated Press journalists also observed shelling in residential areas of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city; Regional governor reported Oleh Sinehubov said three people were killed. In the Luhansk region of Donbass, Governor Serhiy Haidai said six people died in the shelling of the village of Gorskoy
In Sloviansk, a city in northern Donbass. The AP saw two soldiers arrive at the city’s hospital, one mortally wounded. Nearby, a small group of people gathered outside a church where a priest blessed them with water on Holy Saturday.
While British officials said the Russians had not gained significant new territory, Ukrainian officials announced a nationwide curfew ahead of Easter Sunday, a sign of the war’s disruption and threat to the entire country.
Mariupol, part of the industrial region of eastern Ukraine known as Donbass, has been a key Russian target since the invasion began on February 24 and has assumed outsized importance in the war. Complete conquest would give Russia its biggest victory yet, after a nearly two-month siege reduced much of the city to smoking ruins.
The occupation of Mariupol would deprive Ukrainians of a vital port, free up Russian troops to fight elsewhere, and allow Russia to create a land corridor with the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow captured from Ukraine in 2014. Russia-backed separatists control parts of Donbass.
Russian troops claimed victory in the city. But Russia’s recent defeats in and around Kyiv expose unresolved weaknesses, beginning with Russia’s armored vehicles. Russia has lost nearly 3,000 armored vehicles to date, Ukraine says – but only half in combat.
“It’s not good military leadership to lose so many men and so much equipment,” Ukrainian military expert Yuri Zbanatski told CBS News’ Chris Livesay.
“Haven’t seen the sky or the sun” since February 27th
An adviser to Ukraine’s Presidential Office, Oleksiy Arestovich, said during a briefing on Saturday that Russian forces had resumed airstrikes on the Azovstal plant and were trying to storm it. A direct attempt to take over the facility would constitute a reversal of an order given by Russian President Vladimir Putin two days earlier.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin on Thursday that all of Mariupol, with the exception of Azovstal, had been “liberated” by the Russians. At the time, Putin ordered him not to send Russian troops into the plant, but to cordon off the facility in an apparent attempt to starve the Ukrainians into surrendering.
Ukrainian officials have estimated that about 2,000 of their soldiers are at the facility, along with civilians taking shelter in the facility’s underground tunnels. Arestovic said Ukrainian forces were trying to counter the new attacks.
Earlier on Saturday, the Azov regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard, whose members are holed up in the facility, released footage of around two dozen women and children. The content could not be independently verified.
If authentic, it would be the first video testimony of what life was like for civilians still trapped in Mariupol’s underground bunkers. The video shows soldiers giving candy to children who respond with punches.
A young girl says she and her relatives “have not seen the sky or the sun” since they left home on February 27.
The regiment’s deputy commander, Sviatoslav Palamar, told The AP the video was shot on Thursday. The Azov Regiment has its roots in the Azov Battalion, formed in 2014 by far-right activists at the start of the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine and drawing criticism for some of its tactics.
According to Ukrainian authorities, who estimate that over 20,000 civilians were killed during the Russian blockade in the city, more than 100,000 people – less than a pre-war population of about 430,000 – are said to be trapped in Mariupol with little food, water or heat.
Satellite images released this week appeared to show a second mass grave near Mariupol, and local officials accused Russia of burying thousands of civilians to hide the slaughter taking place there.
The Kremlin did not respond to the satellite images.
Ukrainian officials said they would try again Saturday to evacuate women, children and older adults from Mariupol. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Telegram that efforts should start around noon.
Like previous plans to evacuate civilians from the city, this one failed. Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the Mariupol mayor, said Russian forces did not allow buses organized by Ukraine to take residents to Zaporizhia, a city 227 kilometers (141 miles) northwest.
“At 11 a.m., at least 200 residents of Mariupol gathered near the Port City shopping center and waited for evacuation,” Andryushchenko wrote on the messaging app Telegram. “The Russian military went to the residents of Mariupol and ordered them to disperse, because now there will be shelling.”
At the same time, he said, Russian buses were passing about 200 meters away. Residents who boarded were told they were being taken to separatist-held territory and were not allowed to disembark, Andryushchenko said. His account could not be independently verified.
During the attack on Odessa, the Russians fired at least six rockets, said Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister. Defense forces fought off some of the missiles, but at least one landed and exploded, he said.
“City residents heard explosions in different areas,” Gerashchenko wrote in a Telegram post. “Residential buildings were hit. One victim is already known. He burned to death in his car in a courtyard of one of the buildings.”
Ukrainian Presidential Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak later reported that the 3-month-old baby was among five people killed in the rocket attack.
In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced all victims of the war and noted that the Easter holiday commemorates Christ’s resurrection after his death by crucifixion.
“We believe in the victory of life over death,” he said. “No matter how fierce the fighting, there is no chance for death to conquer life. Everyone knows that. Every Christian knows that.”