Violent explosions were heard overnight from Friday to Saturday in Kharkiv, the country’s second city, which was battered by Russian artillery for weeks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that the situation in this region is difficult. But our military has achieved tactical victoriesHe added.

In the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, 14 attacks launched by Russian forces have been repelled in the past 24 hours, the general staff of the Ukrainian forces said on Saturday.

According to a senior Pentagon official, Russian forces is far from having a connection troops entering the Kharkiv region, north of Donbass, along with those coming from the south of the country, one of the goals of the Russian army was to seize in a pincer movement the Ukrainian forces deployed on the front line around the separatist areas of Donetsk and Lugansk.

But we believe they continue to create conditions for a longer, larger and longer offensivehe pointed out.

For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that special military operations launched on February 24 by Russia proceeds according to plan, in an interview with China’s official agency Xinhua (New China) on Saturday. All his goals will be achieved despite the blocking of our opponentshe detailed.

One million Ukrainians have been deported, according to Moscow

He also said that about one million people have been evacuated from Ukraine to Russia since February 24 and a total of 2.8 million people have applied for it. This number includes 120,000 foreigners and people evacuated from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. His statements to Xinhua were posted on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Separately, kyiv police said on Saturday that the bodies of three seen tortured and shot by men were found on Friday in a pit near Boutcha, with their hands tied and blindfolded.

” According to preliminary data, the occupiers tried to hide traces of their violence […] they threw the corpses into a pit and covered them with earth. “

The bodies of these three men were found in Myrotske, a village near Boutcha – which became a symbol of the brutality of the war and where nearly 1,000 bodies of civilians were discovered, according to kyiv.

At the same time, the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Iryna Venediktova revealed that 10 Russian soldiers have been charged for alleged war crimes in Boutcha. At more than 8000 cases that suspected war crimes as a whole were detected in Ukraine, the prosecutor confirmed.

Getting from Ukraine

Military assistance provided to kyiv has been strongly boosted since the start of the fighting and the effects are beginning to be seen on the ground, where Russian forces sometimes struggle.

This was particularly the case in Lozova, a village taken by Ukrainians north of Kharkiv, from where Russian forces stormed the city. More than 600 residents were evacuated from the village, which was occupied for two months, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

We stayed in the basements without food for two months, we ate what we hadexplains Svyatoslav, 40, his eyes red with fatigue.

Oleksandr Skachko, a resident of Slatyne, near Lozova, which was also taken by Ukrainian troops, said 15 people from the village were killed. Whatever they say, whatever Putin says, this is where our people dielaunched the man.

Meanwhile, the United Nations (UN) continues to negotiate the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol. Mayor Vadym Boichenko said on Friday that the citizens beg to be saved of an ironwork that became the last bastion of the city’s defense. It’s not a matter of days. It’s a matter of timehe said.