Attempts to evacuate hundreds of thousands of civilians have repeatedly failed. “Mariupol is still surrounded, what they cannot have with war, (the Russians) want to have with hunger and despair. Since they cannot bring down the Ukrainian army, they are targeting the population,” a French military source analyzes. Moscow admits that the situation “in some cities” has assumed “catastrophic proportions,” according to General Mikhail Mizintsev.
Military base bombing
Russian forces also on Sunday bombed a military base in the Lviv region, located in western Ukraine close to the Polish border and still relatively safe from conflict. At least 35 people were killed in the blast, according to a new report from Ukraine’s local authorities.
Nine people have died in Russian strikes on the port city of Mykolaiv near Odessa in southern Ukraine, the region’s governor said on Telegram on Sunday.
To the south, the Odessa metropolis continues to prepare for the offensive of Russian troops, which are currently concentrated about a hundred kilometers to the east in the city of Nikolaev. As a result of massive shelling, the oncology center and the ophthalmological hospital were especially damaged. Victims litter the streets of some cities, and the amount of tolls cannot be verified. “About 1,300” Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Feb. 24, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday as part of the first official count provided by Ukrainian authorities since the invasion began.
ARIS MESSINIS/AFP
The Russian army lost “about 12,000 men,” the head of state says. Russia, for its part, announced on March 2 its only death toll of 498 soldiers. At least 579 civilians have been killed, according to Saturday’s United Nations tally, which underlines casualties are likely much lower than they actually are. Almost 2.6 million people have left Ukraine since February 24, in addition to about two million internally displaced persons, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Kyiv, whose roads to the south remain clear, is increasingly surrounded by Russian soldiers who Ukrainians say destroyed the nearby Vasilkov airport on Saturday. According to the British Ministry of Defense, Russian troops were on Saturday 25 kilometers from the capital and the convoy north of the city dispersed, reinforcing the idea of a desire to encircle.
“Different” approach to Moscow
However, they encounter resistance from the Ukrainian army both to the west and east of the capital. The Ukrainian presidency promises “ruthless defense” of Kyiv. Ukrainian soldiers make sure that their morale does not suffer. And what about their enemies? “They are forced to camp in the villages where temperatures approach -10°C at night. They lack supplies and are forced to loot houses,” Ukrainian soldier Ilya Berezenko said. Vladimir Putin also always shows determination.
DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP
On Saturday, the Russian president accused Ukrainian forces of “egregious violations” of humanitarian law during a telephone interview with French leaders Emmanuel Macron and German Olaf Scholz. “Lies,” the French presidency responded. And calls from MM. Macron and Scholz for an “immediate ceasefire” remained a dead letter. But there may have been a shift on the diplomatic front this weekend, with Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailing Moscow’s “fundamentally different approach” in his recent talks with Kiev, noting that Russia is more content with “just issuing ultimatums.”