This Sunday is exactly two months and 60 days since Russia started the war in Ukraine beyond the Donbass. And even though it’s an Orthodox Easter Sunday, the guns didn’t go silent.
Fighting continued on Sunday in the east and south of the country. In Kharkiv (northeast), Ukraine’s second largest city, it is still “partially blocked” by the Russians, according to the Ukrainian General Staff, who continue to bomb it.
For its part, the Russian army said it carried out rocket attacks on nine Ukrainian military targets, including four ammunition depots south of the Kharkiv region. Moscow also said it conducted airstrikes against 26 targets and 423 artillery strikes.
Many residents had to spend the Orthodox Easter in seclusion at home. Our special correspondents, Josephine Turli, Garry Wantiez and Sébastien Georis approached the front line. In the Zaporizhia region. Exactly in Orikhiv. Last town before the territories occupied by the Russian army.
The UN, in a press release from its coordinator in Ukraine, called for an “immediate” ceasefire in Mariupol to allow the evacuation of some 100,000 civilians still stuck in this Ukrainian port, which is almost entirely controlled by the Russian army.
Ukraine has offered Russia talks next to the huge Azovstal metallurgical complex in Mariupol (southeast), where Ukrainian militants and civilians are still holed up in a devastated city mostly under Russian control, the Ukrainian presidency announced on Sunday.
Foreign Minister Antony Blinken and Defense Minister Llyod Austin will arrive in Kyiv on Sunday, the Orthodox Easter, to discuss US arms sales to Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Saturday. This is the first US visit to Ukraine after exactly two months of a war still raging in the east and south.