Siege of Kiev He did not stop on the third day of the Russian offensive. The Ukrainian capital, in the crosshairs of the Russian President’s military strategy, Russian President Vladimir PutinIt was again targeted by shootings and bombings in the streets after a night when the bombings were continuous. The image of the terrible destruction of a six-storey apartment building that was hit by a shell in the upper part of the city symbolizes the violence of the Russian attack on the capital of the neighboring country in the last hours. The Ukrainian government confirmed that the attack, which was collected with images from home security cameras, was carried out by a Russian missile. It did not cause any deaths. Three days after the military incursion began, Ukraine’s health minister on Saturday offered a new casualty balance reporting 198 deaths since early Thursday morning. Among the victims were three children. More than 1,100 people were also injured. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated that his armed forces are resisting and repelling the attack, both in the capital and in the rest of the country. For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry ordered the forces on the ground to advance on all fronts, according to the Russian Information Agency.
Putin’s attack on what he called “the Nazi regime and drug addicts” continues as thousands of people in the capital of 2.8 million people continue to seek refuge, particularly in the city’s subway. In Kiev, the Ukrainian army blew up several bridges in an attempt to stop the advance of the troops sent by the head of the Kremlin. Small arms fire and explosions at various points in the capital on Saturday showed the effects of urban conflict, such as in the Shulyavka district or against Valsilkyiv airport in southern Kiev. According to the US Defense Department spokesperson, the Russian attack met with “very determined resistance”, especially in the north of the country, which prevented the Russian army from advancing as expected. Washington counted 250 missile launches, most of them short-range.
The army, with the help of armed civilians, is setting up tire barriers to cut off streets and establish control in the capital, which is Moscow’s main goal. And there were shooting incidents in different parts of the capital, which is trying to resist the attack. President Zelensky And he had warned at dawn on Saturday that a severe night of siege in the city was approaching. Despite the attack on Kiev, the United Kingdom reported that, according to its data, the bulk of the Russian forces would be about 30 kilometers from this city.
The bombings were repeated across the country. Russian forces launched a coordinated missile and artillery attack on several cities in Ukraine. Putin’s forces have also fired cruise missiles from the Black Sea at the Sea of Azov cities of Sumy, Poltava and the port city of Mariupol, where fierce fighting is taking place.
Russia asserts that it has captured Melitopol, a southeastern city of 150,000 people, after what would be a marine amphibious landing that would also facilitate the capture of Mariupol. However, the Mayor of Melitopol issued a statement confirming that the city was still under Ukrainian control. If the capture of Melitopol is confirmed, it will be a major advance for Putin, who on Thursday announced a “military operation against Donbass” that was in fact a large-scale offensive across the country.
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The Ukrainian army is currently resisting the ruthless Russian attack. The authorities raised their requests for the public to prepare for all scenarios, including coming out with Molotov cocktails. Some radio programs on Friday explained how to make these homemade explosives.
In the government-controlled part of Donbass since the outbreak of war in 2014, the Kremlin has seized territory claimed by the Kremlin to pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, who control a third of this mining region, and in the Dnipro region to the west, dozens of armored vehicles and military trucks some loaded Rockets roam the roads. Near Pavlograd, east of Dnipro, men in uniform were digging trenches on Saturday morning in the forest near the main road, where they were also preparing barricades.
The conflict caused tens of thousands of citizens to flee. About 150,000 people have crossed the border since Thursday, about half of them into Poland, the country with the largest community of Ukrainians outside Ukraine, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency. The rest will be shared between Romania, Moldova and Hungary. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that about 18 million people in Ukraine have already been affected by the bombings and estimates that 1.7 million citizens will leave the country in the coming days.
Zelensky refuses to leave the country
After another rough night and rumors of a US offer to help the president of Ukraine get out of the country, Zelenski posted another message through a video on his social networks In which he urged the public not to believe the “fake news” that he accepted surrender. “I’m here,” he said in an undated recording that showed him downtown in green military fatigues. “We will not lay down our arms, we will defend our state,” stressed the former comedian who swept the 2019 presidential election.
As the battle rages and the Ukrainian army struggles to resist the violent onslaught, a channel for diplomatic negotiation could advance. On Friday, as attacks on Kiev, the heart of the country, intensified, Zelensky repeated his call for Putin to sit down and negotiate a “stop death.” After a long refusal and with Ukraine on the brink, the Kremlin assured the Russian leader would be willing to return to Minsk, where peace agreements were signed in 2015 for Donbass, which did not bring peace to a conflict that has caused 14,000 deaths since, but have frozen the line The connection between the separatist-controlled area and the rest of the government-controlled area.
However, Belarus is no longer the barrier between Russia and the West as it was then. Belarusian autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko, a Moscow ally, is linked to Putin and increasingly dependent on the Kremlin. Late Friday night, Zelensky asked Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to organize and help mediate negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel told CNN. In any case, Putin does not believe in Zelensky’s legitimacy as president. Indeed, on Friday, he made a strong plea for the military to take power, oust the president and sit down to negotiate.
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