Ukrainian forces said on Monday that they fear the fall of Mariupol, a strategic port city in the southeast of the country that has been besieged for more than 40 days by the Russian army, while they continued to reinforce positions in the east in the face of an imminent offensive by Moscow.
(Read here: Ukrainian soldier rescued an abandoned dog after Russian attacks)
On the diplomatic front, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, the first European leader to visit Moscow since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, A meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin began on Monday. to try to obtain humanitarian corridors, according to a spokesman for the Austrian government. (Interesting: UN confirms 1,842 civilian deaths during the war in Ukraine)
Nehammer’s visit must serve “to put an end to the humanitarian hell in Ukraine”Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said before a meeting with his European Union counterparts in Luxembourg.
The Russians have been besieging Mariupol for weeks, the capture of which would allow them to consolidate their territorial gains in the coastal strip along the Sea of Azov, thus connecting the Donbas regions with the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.
“Today is probably going to be the final battle [en Mariúpol] as our ammunition runs out“, the 36th Marine Brigade, which is part of the Ukrainian armed forces, wrote on Facebook on Monday.
“This means death for some of us and captivity for others (…) We don’t know what will happen, but we ask you to remember [de nosotros] with a kind word,” the brigade asked “the Ukrainians”.
“For more than a month we have been fighting without ammunition, without food, without water,” doing “the possible and the impossible,” the unit said, explaining that approximately “half” of its members are wounded.
For his part, Oleksii Arestovich, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky, admitted on YouTube on Sunday that “it is now militarily impossible” to liberate Mariupol.
(It may interest you: World Bank expects Ukraine’s economy to fall by up to 45% this year)
The ‘humanitarian hell’
It was a city of half a million inhabitants […] The Russians totally destroyed Mariupol and burned it to the ground.
Zelensky said in a video message to the South Korean National Assembly on Monday that Russia had “completely destroyed” the city and he feared “tens of thousands of people” had perished there.
Ukrainian forces continued this weekend to strengthen their positions in the east, around Donbas, a region that since 2014 has been partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
“According to our information, the enemy has almost finished its preparation for an assault in the east. The attack will start very soon,” Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said on Monday.
After revising its plans and withdrawing its troops from the kyiv region and northern Ukraine, Moscow is now aiming for total conquest of Donbas. Analysts believe that Putin, faced with fierce Ukrainian resistance, wants to secure a victory in this region before the May 9 military parade in Red Square, which marks the Soviet victory over the Nazis.
“The battle for Donbas will last several days, and during these days our cities could be completely destroyed.”For his part, Sergei Gaidai, governor of the Lugansk region in Donbas, predicted on Facebook, once again calling on civilians to leave the area.
According to him, “the Mariupol scenario can be repeated in the Luhansk region.” On Friday, a Russian missile attack outside the Kramatorsk station in the east killed 57 people, including at least five children.
While the population tries to flee this region, air strikes and bombings continue elsewhere, such as those on Sunday in Kharkiv (east), Ukraine’s second largest city, and its suburbs, which left at least 11 dead, including a 7-year-old boy, and 14 injured, according to regional authorities.
more western support
Volodimir Zelensky called on Westerners to “follow the example of the United Kingdom“, whose prime minister, Boris Johnson, paid a surprise visit to Ukraine on Saturday, asking them to impose “a total embargo on Russian hydrocarbons”.
Meeting in Luxembourg, the foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) studied on Monday a sixth package of sanctions against Moscow, which, however, will not affect purchases of oil and gas. The exodus of Western companies from Russia continues.
This Monday, the French bank Societe Generale joined the list of companies that announced the cessation of their activities in the country since the invasion of Ukraine.
A few hours later, the Swedish telecommunications equipment manufacturer Ericsson announced that it was suspending its activities in Russia, where it supplies two of the main mobile phone operators.
Russia and Ukraine represent less than 2% of its turnover.
Pro-Russian separatists claim to have conquered the port
The head of pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, said on Monday that his forces had completely conquered the port of the strategic city. of Mariupol, in the southeast, besieged for more than a month.
“As for the port of Mariupol, it is already under our control,” said Denis Pushilin, on the Russian channel Pervy Kanal.
For his part, the representative of the separatist army, Eduard Basurin, quoted by the Ria-Novosti news agency, stated that the last Ukrainian defenders are now concentrated in the Azovstal and Azovmach factories.
Basurin had said in the morning that 80% of the port area had been conquered. Forces from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics in eastern Ukraine are taking part in the Kremlin’s offensive launched on February 24.
For more than a month, the Russian army and the Donetsk separatists have besieged Mariupol, a city on the shore of the Sea of Azov, where they have met fierce resistance despite heavy shelling and a catastrophic humanitarian situation.
AFP
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