The situation in the besieged city of Mariupol is becoming increasingly dramatic, where Ukrainian forces are now on the precipice and the Russians have stepped up their attacks, while the lack of agreement between the two parties has blocked humanitarian corridors for evacuation The number of civilians and the Bombing raids by the Russian army on the country’s main cities, including the capital Kyiv, continue.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has announced that she will close safe routes for civilians to leave eastern Ukraine, but has launched a call for the opening of a space that will allow “the evacuation of civilians, especially women and children,” from Mariupol. , but also of wounded soldiers. In the city, which has been described as an “inhumane situation” by Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, the fighting is mainly concentrated in the Azovstal steelworks area, where, according to Moscow, “up to 400 foreign mercenaries fighting alongside the Ukrainian armed forces were surrounded”. .
Russian forces had offered the defenders an opportunity to cease hostilities and lay down their arms by 6 a.m. today, in exchange for the assurance that their lives would be spared, but the ultimatum passed to no avail.
So much so that Moscow’s Defense Ministry has sent a new message to the besieged: “If they continue to resist, they will all be eliminated.” Kyiv also argued that Russian forces may currently be “preparing” for a sea landing. But “Mariupol maintains the armed forces are defending it strongly because now it is actually a shield defending Ukraine,” said Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Hanna Malyar.
The attacks continue unabated in the rest of the country. In Kyiv, a munitions factory was destroyed in Brovary, where electricity and water supplies are threatened. Irpin Mayor Oleksandr Markushin said instead that 71% of the city had been damaged by Russian bombing so far. Kharkiv has been bombed 23 times in the past 24 hours and Russian soldiers are roaming the affected areas with trucks to rob homes abandoned by fleeing civilians, according to a complaint from the Borova Municipality. In Borodyanka near Kyiv, the bodies of 41 people were dug out from under the rubble, and more than a thousand bodies were found across the region after the Russian retreat: “These are civilians killed, most of them with small arms,” said the local denomination Police chief Andriy Nebytov, adding that among the victims were “children, even small ones, and teenagers”.
Meanwhile, updated accounts of casualties and damage inflicted on opposing forces during the fighting are arriving from both sides. The Kiev Army reported killing at least 20,300 Russian soldiers since the invasion began.
After 53 days of conflict, 165 warplanes were also shot down, as well as 146 helicopters and 148 drones. In addition, the Ukrainian military claims to have destroyed 773 Russian tanks, 376 artillery pieces, 2,002 armored personnel carriers, four shortrange ballistic missile systems, 127 missile systems and eight ships, among others. According to CNN, another Russian general was among the victims of the clashes: Major General Vladimir Frolov, deputy commander of the 8th Army. For their part, Russian forces claim to have eliminated a total of 1,035 foreign mercenaries in Ukraine since the start of the war.
On the arms front, British intelligence revealed that Moscow continues to move combat and support equipment from Belarus to eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, according to the White House, the first weapons in the latest $800 million package of US military aid to Kyiv “have started to arrive in Ukraine.” And the fear of using unconventional weapons remains. Trostianets mayor said authorities found remains of chemical weapons containing “sarin and other toxic substances” in the village of Bilka, which had been occupied by the Russians.
Finally, on the sanctions front, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Bild am Sonntag that the sixth European package of measures against Moscow would target oil and banks. And even Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, interviewed by Corriere della Sera, after recalling his unsuccessful attempts to press Putin to meet Zelenskyy for a ceasefire, reiterated that sanctions “are essential to weaken the aggressor , but they fail to stop the troops in the short term. To do that, we need to help the Ukrainians directly, and we are doing that.”
On Easter day, a new appeal from the Pope in favor of peace arrived in his Urbi et Orbi message: “Peace be upon the tormented Ukraine, so severely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which she has been drawn . . In this terrible night of suffering and death, a new glimmer of hope will soon dawn! Choose peace. Stop flexing your muscles while people suffer. Peace is possible, peace is a duty, peace is everyone’s primary responsibility!”. Ste