Status: 04/22/2022 03:47
According to local reports, up to 9,000 people were buried in mass graves in the Ukrainian city of Manhush. The mayor speaks of a “new Bayn Jar”.
In the town of Manhush, near Mariupol, Russian soldiers reportedly buried thousands of residents of the town, which had been disputed for weeks, in mass graves, according to Ukrainian sources.
Mayor Vadym Boychenko has accused the Russians of genocide and called on the international community to act, Mariupol City Council said on Telegram. Up to 9,000 civilians could be buried there, he said.
New satellite images from Maxar Technologies also showed what appeared to be a cemetery near Manhusch. Maxar said there were more than 200 mass graves. Based on previous satellite images, it is clear that the first ones were excavated in late March and that new ones were constantly being added.
conflicting parties as source
Information on the course of the war, bombing and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian parties to the conflict cannot be directly verified by an independent body in the current situation.
Mayor talks about “new Babyn Jar”
Referring to the site of the massacre of some 34,000 Jews in Kiev during World War II, Mayor Boychenko spoke of a “new Babyn Jar”. “At that time, Hitler killed Jews, Gypsies and Slavs. And now Putin is killing Ukrainians. He has already killed tens of thousands of civilians in Mariupol,” Boychenko told the city council. “This requires a determined response from around the world. We must stop this genocide by any means possible.”
Shaded in white: Russian army advance. Shaded in green: Russian-backed separatist areas. Crimea: annexed by Russia. Image: ISW/04/19/2022
Satellite images show a long row of graves adjacent to an existing cemetery in Manhush, about 20 kilometers west of Mariupol. Ukrainian media compared the graves there with those at Bucha, near Kiev, where hundreds of bodies were found after Russian soldiers withdrew. The Ukrainian information could not be independently verified.
In another statement, Mayor Boychenko said the bodies had gradually disappeared from the streets of Mariupol, were transported in trucks and dumped in trenches dug near Manhush. He accused Russian soldiers of wanting to cover up their crimes.
More than 100,000 people are still resisting in the Mariupol enclosure
Jochen Leufgens, ARD Warsaw, daily topics 22:15, 21 April 2022
Mariupol Mayor: Civilians’ lives are in Putin’s hands
According to the mayor, only Russian President Vladimir Putin can decide the fate of the approximately 100,000 civilians still trapped in Mariupol. “It’s important to understand that the lives of the people who are still there are in the hands of one person – Vladimir Putin. And all the deaths that are yet to come are also his,” says Boychenko.
According to information from Kiev, the resistance in Mariupol continues. The city continues to resist Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message. “Despite what the squatters say about them.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the city conquered on Thursday morning. However, according to Russian sources, more than 2,000 Ukrainian fighters and foreign mercenaries are hiding at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. So far, they have not responded to Putin’s demands to lay down their arms.
Ina Ruck, ARD Moscow, on the dramatic situation at the Azov steelworks in Mariupol
Topics for the day 22:15, April 21, 2022
Killed and wounded after shelling in several Ukrainian regions
Zelenskyi said Russia is moving troops to Ukraine for the war. “They are gathering forces and bringing new tactical battalions into our country.” In the east and south of the country, Russian units would do “everything” to at least speak of “some” victories.
According to Ukrainian sources, several people were injured or killed by shelling in different regions of the east and south of the country. In the Kharkiv region, two people died after a shell hit a car, Governor Oleh Synyehubov said in the evening. Two other people were injured in two separate incidents. A total of about 50 Russian artillery strikes and several rocket launchers were recorded in the Kharkov region on Thursday, Synyehubov said.
There is active combat near the small town of Isjum. From the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia, eight people were said to have been injured when the city was bombed twice on Thursday afternoon. The announcement was made by the region’s governor, Olexander Staruch, on Telegram in the evening.
A rocket landed near a bridge on the island of Khortytsia. At that time, an evacuation train heading towards Lviv passed over the bridge’s tracks. As a result of the explosion from the explosion, the windows of four carriages were broken, as were the windows of the cars that were currently on the bridge. In a second impact, the buildings of a sanatorium were damaged.
From the Dnipropetrovsk region, it was said that on Thursday night the railway infrastructure was attacked in the Novomoskovsk district, northeast of the regional capital Dnipro. As a result of three rocket attacks, five people were injured and the railway tracks were completely destroyed, regional administration chief Valentyn Resnichenko wrote on Telegram.
An explosion was reported in the southern city of Mykolaiv at night. “Recently, another explosion thundered over the city,” wrote the city’s mayor, Olexander Senkevych, on Telegram in the evening. He urged the city’s citizens to observe the nightly curfew. One person was killed in the city on Thursday night and two others were injured in the bombing. All three were out on the street despite the curfew. The information could not be independently verified.
Ukraine: Russian troops captured 42 sites in Donetsk
According to information from Kiev, Russian troops have already occupied 42 cities in the eastern Donetsk region in 24 hours. The announcement was made by an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office, Olena Simonenko, on Ukrainian national television, as reported by the Unian agency. In total, Russian units currently control over 3,500 sites across Ukraine. There are hostilities in 11,550 locations across the country, Simonenko said.
On Thursday, the Ukrainian side said that 80% of Donetsk’s neighboring Luhansk region, which also borders Russia, is now under Russian control.