On Saturday, the country’s military said another Russian general had been killed in Ukraine, the fifth senior leader to die since the invasion began 23 days ago.
Lieutenant General Andrey Mordvichevcommander of the 8th Army of the Southern Military District, died when the armed forces destroyed a command post at an airfield in Kherson, a port city in southern Ukraine, officials said.
His death came as thousands of civilians tried to flee another port city, Mariupol, which has been bombed for weeks now, with the Ukrainian president saying Russia is trying to starve his country’s cities.
A continuation of the invasion would damage Russia “for several generations,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video released the day before.
The comments were in part a response to a massive rally held by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday. Although they were allegedly detained to support Russian troops, reports suggested that many of the tens of thousands of people who filled the Luzhini Stadium said they were “forced” to attend.
President Zelenskiy addressed the nation from Kyiv early Saturday morning. Press Service of the President of Ukraine
Zelensky in the video accused the Kremlin of deliberately creating a “humanitarian catastrophe” and again urged Putin to meet with him to prevent further bloodshed.
Zelensky said that Russian troops blocked the largest cities in order to create such beggarly conditions that the Ukrainians would surrender. But he warned that Russia would pay the ultimate price.
“The time has come to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise, the costs to Russia will be so high that you will not be able to rise again for several generations,” he said.
Zelensky pointed out that the 200,000 people reportedly at the rally in Moscow are about the same number of Russian troops who took part in the invasion.
“Imagine that there are 14,000 dead and tens of thousands more wounded and maimed in that stadium in Moscow,” Zelenskiy said in a video filmed outside the president’s office in the capital, Kyiv. “Such are the costs of Russia during the invasion.”
The map shows areas of Ukraine threatened by Russian invasion.
Ukrainian and Russian officials have agreed to set up 10 humanitarian corridors for the delivery of aid and the removal of residents – one from Mariupol and several around Kyiv and in the east of the Luhansk region, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk said on Saturday.
She also announced plans to deliver humanitarian aid to Kherson, which was captured by Russian troops.
Volodymyr Medinsky, who led Russian negotiators in several rounds of talks with Ukraine, said the two sides were moving closer to an agreement on Ukraine’s abandoning its NATO bid and adopting neutral status. In comments published by Russian media, he said that the parties are now “halfway” on the demilitarization of Ukraine.
But Mykhailo Podolyak, Zelenskiy’s adviser, said the assessment was meant to “provoke tension in the media.” He tweeted: “Our position remains unchanged. Ceasefire, withdrawal of troops and reliable security guarantees with concrete formulas.”
Another tweet from Podolyak admonished those who ranted about the negotiations.
“I would like to gently recommend the ‘active commentators on the negotiation process’ who are NOT inside,” he said. “Don’t spread your lies in a country that is at war. Negotiations are difficult. The positions of the parties differ. For us, fundamental issues are inviolable.”
Putin at a concert dedicated to the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, March 18. SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images
On Saturday, fighting continued on several fronts across the country.
Early in the morning, artillery shelling hit the Kyiv region, killing at least one person and injuring 19 others.
Major General Oleksandr Pavliuk, who leads the defense of the area around the Ukrainian capital, said his forces were well positioned to defend the city and vowed: “We will never surrender. We will fight to the end. Until the last breath and until the last bullet.
Oleksandr Starukh, the governor of the Zaporozhye region in eastern and central Ukraine, has declared a 38-hour curfew in the southeastern city of the same name after nine people were killed in two rocket attacks on its suburbs on Friday.
In the besieged port city of Mariupol, the site of the worst suffering of the war, street fighting has prevented rescuers from reaching hundreds of survivors trapped in a theatre, the mayor of Mariupol told the BBC.
Residential building in Mariupol, damaged by shelling. Alexander Yermochenko/REUTERS
Mayor Vadym Boychenko said Ukrainian forces are “doing their best” to hold their ground, but “the enemy forces are larger than ours.”
Ukrainian and Russian troops have entered the fray for the Azovstal steel plant, one of the largest in Europe, Vadym Denisenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said Saturday.
Photos posted on social media showed the factory was destroyed after several days of shelling. “Civilians hid in the plant’s bomb shelters, their fate is unknown,” a Toronto television report said.
“I can say that we have lost this economic giant,” Vadym Denisenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said in a televised address on Saturday. “In fact, one of the largest metallurgical plants in Europe is actually being destroyed.”
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin denounced the Russian invasion as “reckless and ruthless” during a visit to NATO ally Bulgaria on Saturday. He said the US has yet to see Russia mobilize additional forces to make up for its heavy losses on the battlefield.
A local resident walks past a tank of pro-Russian troops in Mariupol. Alexander Yermochenko/REUTERS
“Due to the fact that they are deadlocked on multiple fronts, it makes sense that [Putin] I would like to increase my opportunities in the future,” Austin said. “We just haven’t seen it yet.