Ukraine on Saturday accused Russian forces of killing seven civilians in attacks on women and children trying to flee fighting near Kyiv, and France said Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown it is ready to make peace. are not.
With Russia’s invasion in its third week, the Ukrainian intelligence service said that seven were killed, including a child, as they fled the village of Peremoha and “the occupiers forced the remains of the column to return.”
Ukrainian officials later said the convoy was not traveling along the “Green Corridor” agreed with Russia when it struck on Friday, correcting their earlier claim that it was on such a designated route. .
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Reuters was unable to immediately verify the report and Russia did not immediately comment.
Moscow has denied targeting civilians since its attack on Ukraine on 24 February. It blames Ukraine for unsuccessful attempts to evacuate civilians from besieged cities, a charge strongly rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies.
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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow was sending new troops as Ukrainian forces put 31 of Russia’s battalion tactical groups out of action, which he described as Russia’s largest military loss in decades. It was not possible to confirm his statements.
“We still need to stop. We still have to fight,” Zelensky said in a video address for his second day late Saturday.
He had earlier said that around 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed so far and urged the West to be more involved in peace talks. The president suggested that they face a fight to the death if Russian forces wanted to enter the capital.
Read also: The situation in Mariupol turned critical: here’s everything we know so far
“If they decide to carpet bomb (Kyiv), and simply erase the history of the region … and destroy us all, they will enter Kyiv. If that is their goal, they should Let in, but they have to live on this land by themselves,” he said.
Zelensky discussed the war with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Emmanuel Macron, and German and French leaders then spoke to Putin on the phone, urging him to order an immediate ceasefire.
A Kremlin statement on the 75-minute call made no mention of a ceasefire and a French presidential official said: “We have not detected Putin’s desire to end the war”.
Read also: Siege of Kyiv, Mariupol as Russian invasion of Ukraine enters Day-17. top point
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov accused the United States of escalating tensions and said the situation was complicated by a Western arms convoy to Ukraine that the Russian military considered a “legitimate target”.
In comments reported by the Tass news agency, Ryabkov did not pose any particular threat, but any attack on such a convoy before reaching Ukraine would risk widening the war.
Crisis talks between Moscow and Kyiv are continuing via a video link, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russia’s RIA news agency. He gave no details but Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba said Kyiv would not surrender or accept an ultimatum.
Zelensky said later on Saturday that he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett about the prospects for peace talks. Bennett met with Putin and first spoke with Zelensky on the phone, but diplomatic efforts so far appeared fruitless.
human corridor
Interfax Ukraine quoted its mayor as saying that Russian rocket attacks destroyed a Ukrainian airbase and hit an ammunition depot near the city of Vasilkiv in the Kyiv region.
The weary governor of Chernihiv, about 150 km (100 miles) northeast of Kiev, gave a video update in front of the ruins of the city’s Ukraine Hotel.
“There is no such hotel now,” said Viacheslav Chaus, wiping tears from his eyes. “But Ukraine still exists, and it will prevail.”
Read also: What are human corridors?
Britain’s defense ministry said fighting was continuing northwest of the capital, with the bulk of Russian ground forces 25 km (16 miles) from the center of Kyiv, which it said could strike within days.
It said Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol were surrounded by heavy Russian shelling.
But the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said later on Saturday that Russia had slowed down its offensive and that its forces were blocked in several places. The army’s Facebook post did not give details.
Russia’s invasion has been condemned almost universally around the world and Moscow has imposed stringent Western sanctions.
Russian bombing has trapped thousands of people in besieged cities and sent 2.5 million Ukrainians to neighboring countries. Zelensky said the conflict meant that some small Ukrainian towns no longer existed.
The United States said it would accelerate up to $200 million in additional small arms, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons in Ukraine, where officials have requested more military aid.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation”, which it says is designed not to capture the region but to destroy its neighbor’s military capabilities and “de-Nazify” the country.
Read also: Humanitarian corridors to pass through 2 Ukrainian cities to be reopened today, says Russia
Ukrainian authorities on Saturday planned to use humanitarian corridors from Mariupol as well as towns and villages in Kyiv, Sumy and some other regions.
But Russian shelling threatened efforts to evacuate the trapped civilians, he said.
Nevertheless, about 13,000 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities on Saturday, Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said. This was almost double the number of dismissals the previous day but much less than the two days before that.
A senior Russian Defense Ministry official said the humanitarian situation in Ukraine continued to deteriorate sharply and accused Ukrainian fighters of mining neighborhoods and destroying bridges and roads, the RIA news agency reported.
Russian officials have accused Ukrainian forces of first shelling their own men and then trying to shift the blame to Moscow, charges that Kyiv and Western countries dismissed as lies.
Kyiv region governor Oleksiy Kuleba said fighting and threats of Russian air strikes continued on Saturday morning, although some evacuations were continuing.
The governor of the Donetsk region said continued shelling was making it difficult to bring aid to the southern city of Mariupol.
Images taken on Saturday by private US satellite firm Maxar show fires burning in the western section of Mariupol and causing heavy damage to dozens of apartment buildings. read more
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said: “There are reports of looting and violent clashes between civilians in the city over low basic supplies.”
temporary funeral
A staff member of the Médecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in Mariupol said people were boiling groundwater for drinking, using wood for cooking and burying their dead near them.
The city council said on Friday that at least 1,582 civilians have been killed in Mariupol as a result of Russian shelling and a 12-day blockade. It was not possible to confirm the casualty figures.
Efforts to isolate Russia have intensified, with the United States on Friday imposing new sanctions on senior Kremlin officials and Russian oligarchs.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Saturday that the European Union will suspend Moscow’s privileged trade and economic treatment, crack down on the use of crypto-assets, and ban imports of iron and steel goods from Russia , as well as ban the export of luxuries. goods in the other direction.
Read also: Russia ready to provide humanitarian corridors for Ukrainians to escape from battered cities