Russian troops arrive in Kharkiv and announce they control Kherson in southern Ukraine

Russian troops landed on Wednesday in Kharkiv (east), the second largest Ukrainian city, and announced that they had taken control of Kherson (south), on the seventh day of the invasion ordered by Vladimir Putin, who was called by Joe Biden a “dictator”. ” and sees his country as the target of strong sanctions from the West.

“Russian air troops landed in Kharkiv and attacked a hospital,” the Ukrainian army said in a statement posted on Telegram.

“There is an ongoing battle between the invaders and the Ukrainians,” the note adds.

The eastern city of 1.4 million, close to the border and with a large Russian-speaking population, was the target of bombings on Tuesday that left civilian casualties in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described as ” war crimes”.

“There are practically no areas left in Kharkiv that have not been hit by artillery shells,” said an adviser to the interior ministry, Anton Gerashchenko.

In the south, the Russian army claimed the capture of Kherson, a city of 290,000 at the mouth of the Dnieper River on the Black Sea, which was already besieged.

The offensive, which since its inception seven days ago has caused hundreds of civilian casualties, provoked a wave of sanctions against Russia on all fronts – financial, sports, cultural or business -, which shook the country’s economy but did not cause a retreat. of President Vladimir Putin.

“A Russian dictator, who invades a foreign country, costs the whole world,” US President Joe Biden said in his first State of the Union address, which addressed the conflict in Ukraine.

The Democratic president said Putin was wrong to underestimate the West’s response to his invasion and that he is now “more isolated than he has ever been.”

He also announced that he would ban Russian planes from American airspace and create a special unit to investigate Russian oligarchs, who he said “will be without their yachts, luxury apartments and private planes”.

Despite his criticism of what he called “premeditated and totally unprovoked” aggression, Biden insisted he would not send troops to Ukraine.

– Fear in Kiev –

In the Ukrainian capital Kiev, an attack on Tuesday hit the television tower and left five dead and five injured. Local authorities fear a major offensive after the release of satellite images of a Russian convoy more than 60 kilometers long north of the city.

President Zelensky accused Moscow of wanting to “erase” his country and its history.

“They have the order to erase our history, erase our country, erase us all,” he said in a video, in which he urged countries not to remain neutral in the conflict.

He also urged the world’s Jews to “not remain silent” following Tuesday’s Russian attack on Kiev’s television tower, built on the site of a Holocaust massacre.

“I am now speaking to Jews all over the world. Don’t you see what’s going on? This is why it is very important that Jews all over the world do not remain silent now,” Zelensky said.

The Ukrainian president complained that during the Soviet era, the authorities built the television tower and a sports complex in a “special place in Europe, a place of prayer and memory”.

In the ravine of Babi Yar, 30,000 Jews were massacred during the Second World War.

“Nazism is born of silence. So go out and scream about the killings of civilians. Scream about the killings of Ukrainians,” Zelensky said.

Ukrainian media reported further explosions overnight in the capital and in Bila Tserkva, 80 km to the south. In addition, the emergency service reported a bombing in residential areas of Yitomir (population 266,000), west of Kiev, with two dead and three wounded.

In the south, in addition to claiming control of Kherson, the Russian army said that on Tuesday it managed to establish contact between troops advancing from the annexed Crimean peninsula and militias of pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region, information that was not it was possible to confirm, but that it would represent a strategic achievement for their forces.

In the middle of the two territories resists the port city of Mariupol, which was without electricity after bombings that, according to the mayor, left more than 100 injured.

For Kiev, a new danger looms from the north, in Belarus, an ally of Moscow, which has ordered the deployment of additional troops on the border with Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, these troops could “support the Russian invaders in the future”.

Ukraine has denounced Russia at the International Court of Justice, which convened hearings on March 7 and 8 to study Kiev’s allegations of alleged war crimes. According to Ukrainian authorities, more than 350 civilians died in the conflict, including 14 children.

More than 670,000 people have fled and a million residents have become displaced within Ukraine, according to the UN, which urgently called for the collection of US$1.7 billion as it considers that in the coming months 16 million people will need help in Ukraine and in neighboring countries.

– Sanctions of all kinds –

Subjected to sporting events vetoes, boycotts and sanctions of all kinds, Russia defends its offensive as a move to protect the population of pro-Moscow rebel territories in eastern Ukraine and topple Kiev’s pro-Western government.

The European Union, the United States and allied countries adopted an unprecedented arsenal of measures against Moscow: closing airspace to its aircraft, exclusion from the Swift international financial system, asset freezing, trade restrictions, among others.

Due to the measures, the main Russian bank, Sberbank, announced its exit from the European market and stated that its branches face “irregular outflows of funds and threats to the safety of its employees and branches”.

Sanctions also affect the world of sport, culture and business.

Among the latest companies to announce their departure from the Russian market are Apple, oil companies ExxonMobil and Eni and aviation giant Boeing, which has suspended support services for Russian airlines.

But President Zelensky asked Western countries for more. In a call to Biden, he stressed the need to stop the invasion as quickly as possible and again called on the European Union to accept Ukraine’s immediate accession.

The crisis caused a sharp devaluation of the ruble and drops in Russian stock markets, as well as a soaring in oil prices, with Brent and WTI barrels above 110 dollars.

burs-dbh/mar/fp