Russia continued to bombard southern Ukraine’s largest port city, Odessa, on Monday, launching a missile that resulted in at least one death. .
After failing to capture the capital, Kiev, in the first weeks of the war, Russian forces are intensifying their efforts in the southern and eastern parts of the country, especially in the Donbass region and Odessa, on the Black Sea coast.
The Odessa town hall was reported by Telegram that a Russian bomb struck a residential building with five people, resulting in the death of a 15-year-old teenager. He was taken to a small hospital.
The state said on Monday it was concentrated, particularly around Izium, Lyman and Rubizhne, in positions the Russians were trying to take to “prepare the attack on Severodonetsk”, one of Donbass’ main cities still under Kiev’s control.
“The situation in the Lugansk region can be described in a few words: fierce fighting still continues,” warned the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
As Russia approaches May 9, when Russia celebrates its victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, the governor of the Lugansk region announced that he expects “intense bombing”.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov seems to reject the idea. “Our military will not artificially adjust its actions to any date,” he said in an interview with Italian television channel Mediaset on Sunday. Said.
annexation plans
In addition to Russia’s military decisions, the United States warned that Moscow plans to hold a referendum “in mid-May” to “try to annex” the “pro-Russian separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in the east”.
“Moscow envisions a similar plan for Kherson,” said Michael Carpenter, the American ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a Ukrainian coastal city that has been controlled by Russia since the invasion began on February 24.
According to the ambassador, “These fake referendums, edited votes, like other attempts to annex Ukrainian territory will not be considered legitimate.”
Earlier, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine also considered the possibility of Russia taking the opportunity to “present the problem” of integrating the “republics” proclaimed by pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass to the Russian Federation after Moscow recognized its independence. on the eve of the invasion.
evacuations
Throughout Monday, Ukrainian authorities had hoped to resume the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol, which began over the weekend when a hundred people left the large Azovstal facility, the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in the southern port city of Donbass. by Russian forces.
Since the start of the Russian occupation on February 24, thousands of civilians have fled Mariupol, where Ukrainian authorities believe there are still between 100,000 and 120,000 people left.
In this city, which had a population of half a million before the war, Kyiv authorities fear that 20,000 people have been killed since the start of the siege by Russian troops, which had turned the port city into rubble.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk announced that “hundreds of civilians remain in prison”.
AFP noted that in Zaporizhzhia, about 200 km northwest of Mariupol, vehicles from UNICEF and international NGOs were sent to pick up the evacuees, turning a parking lot into a refugee reception point.
However, no convoy arrived at the scene on Monday. At night, the Azov battalion, participating in the defense of the metallurgical complex, continues to fire on the territory of the plant, including after the partial evacuation of civilians from the territory of Azovstal, in the statement of Telegram, “the buildings in which they are hiding. civilians”.
In a video broadcast on the channel of the Mariupol Azov battalion, the deputy commander of the battalion, Sviatoslav Palamar, announced that the ceasefire was delayed on Monday and that the vehicles tasked with evacuating civilians arrived in the afternoon.
Operations coordinated by Ukraine, Russia, the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Saturday made the evacuation possible for the first time after two months of harassment and bombings of the city. According to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, more than 100 civilians are keeping refugees at the factory”.
However, it sparked controversy when the Russian chancellor was asked about allegations that his country wanted to “denetize” Ukraine because the Ukrainian president is Jewish. Lavrov claimed in his reply that Hitler had “Jewish blood”.
The Israeli chancellor also described the comments as “scandalous” and summoned the Russian ambassador to ask for “clarifications”.
Return of diplomats to Kiev
Meanwhile, Western powers have increased shipments of heavy weapons to Ukraine, and they are slowly returning to establish diplomatic missions in Kiev, as large numbers of delegations are transferred to Lviv in the west of the country.
Charge d’affaires Kristina Kvien in Washington said today that the United States, following the trend of many European countries, hopes to return to the Ukrainian capital “before the end of this month”.
The European Union, on the other hand, is trying to increase the pressure on Russia by tightening sanctions.
The bloc’s energy ministers will meet in Brussels this Monday afternoon to set a timetable for the issue. According to these sources, the European Commission, representing the EU, is currently preparing the text that can be submitted to member states on Wednesday.
Likewise, the EU reiterated its refusal to pay in rubles for Russian gas purchases.
Another setback against Moscow came from UEFA, which announced on Monday that Russian clubs will be kicked out of European competitions next season, including the lucrative Champions League.
Russia was already expelled from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and banned from all international competitions “until further notice”.
source: Noticias
