Released:
Saturday, April 23, 2022 10:59 am
Barely two months after the start of the Russian invasion, the horror continues Ukrainewhere the war is now concentrated and intensifying in the east of the country Mariupol. Russian troops resumed operations there this Saturday airstrikes against the metallurgical works of Azovstalthe last stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance in the port city, an infrastructure in which hundreds of soldiers have holed up, but civilians also seek refuge.
This is what Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to the Office of the Ukrainian Presidency, indicated: “The enemy tries to finally suppress the resistance the defender of Mariupol in the Azovstal region. They continued air strikes on the plant’s territory, on the defense zone of our troops and They try to perform offensive actions“, he explained.
However, he also assured that the Ukrainian armed forces are resisting and even conducting counterattacks. “The enemy continues to block us and launch airstrikes against the city,” confirmed the spokesman of the Ukrainian General Staff, Olekandr Shputun.
Own Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the ukrainian army is not ready to try to break the violent siege of Mariupol, but that he had every right to try. He did so during a press conference in Kyiv, where he stressed the importance of meeting with his Russian counterpart. Wladimir Putinto end the war through diplomacy, although he has warned that if Moscow destroys the Ukrainian people in Mariupol or conducts “pseudo-referendums” to create “pseudo-republics” in the occupied territories, it would break off talks”.
Failed evacuation attempt
The new attacks on the steel mill come after Thursday Moscow will sing victory in the city and gave Mariúpol for conquered, despite resistance in Azovstal. It is estimated that some 120,000 civilians remain in besieged Mariupolwhere a new mass grave this Saturday with more than a thousand corpses.
The Ukrainian government planned to try again evacuation of “women, children and the elderly” in the city, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced in the morning. A attempt that failedaccording to local authorities, who have indicated that 200 residents who had gathered to leave the city were driven away by the Russian military, which had warned them of possible bombings.
Petro Andryushchenko, the mayor’s adviser, has explained that the squatters are “cleaning” bodies from the rubble of the Russian-bombed City Theater to take them to the city of Mangush, where they would be thrown into a ditch. In addition, he denounced that the invading forces deported from Mariupol to Vladivostokin the Russian Far East, to 308 inhabitants, including 90 children.
Zelenskyy warns: “Who’s next?”
In his speech on Friday evening Zelenskyy warned that Ukraine is only “a start”. and claimed that Moscow was planning to “conquer other countries”. “All nations that, like us, believe in the victory of life over death must fight with us. They must help us because we are first in line. And who comes after?” said the Ukrainian president.
The President spoke so after a high Russian military command confirmed it Moscow plans to gain full control of Donbass and southern Ukraine in order to gain access to the pro-Russian region Transnistria, in Moldova.
A declaration of intent to which Ukraine’s defense ministry was quick to respond, claiming that with these declarations Russia had acknowledged that its goal in the “second phase” of the war was not an alleged “denazification” of the country, “but simply Occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine“. A claim he calls “imperialism”.
Zelenskyi also insisted that supplying Ukrainian troops with the necessary weapons is the state’s top priority and thanked his partners for their support. As he defended, “the Ukrainian armed forces continue to hold back the attacks of the Russian invaders in the east and south of the country”: “Towards Izyum, Donbass, Azov region, Mariupol, Chersonese region: these are the places where the fate of this war will be decided and the future of our state,” he asserted.
New Russian attacks
meanwhile in Lugansk Cities controlled by the Ukrainian authorities are under constant attack Bombing increases, as reported by the governor of the region, Serhiy Haidai. There, Russian artillery killed two civilians and wounded two others in Zolote. In addition, a rocket attack has hit the port city Odesaat least five people were killed and 18 others injured, according to Ukrainian authorities.
For their part, Kremlin forces announced that they had destroyed a fighter jet and three helicopters in the area Kharkiv. The governor of the latter region has reported that three people were killed and seven injured in Saturday’s bombings there.
However, British intelligence hinted early on Russian forces had not won any major victories in the last 24 hours, despite the increase in activity and that although Moscow claims the capture of Mariupol, intense fighting continues to thwart its attempts to capture the city, thus slowing its advance in the Donbass.