Russia’s massive bombardment of Ukraine continues

Ukraine – This Saturday, March 12, Russian forces shelled the port cities of Mykolayiv and Mariupol. Kiev It continued to prepare for “uninterrupted security” in the face of possible siege.

At the same time, the Ukrainian president welcomed the “fundamentally different approach” Moscow In recent talks with Kiev, he explained that Russia was no longer satisfied with “releasing the ultimatums.” He lamented that “Western partners (Ukraine) are not sufficiently involved” in this approach.

In the field, the Port city Mykolaiv (South), according to an AFP reporter, said the bombings were virtually non-stop from Friday night to Saturday, particularly affecting a cancer center and an eye clinic. “They opened fire on these civilian areas without any military motive,” said Dmitry Lakotsev, the hospital’s head of staff.

Another key target of the Russian strikes, Mariupol, a strategic port in the south-east, was besieged for twelve days, with food shortages and no water, gas, electricity or communications.

According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the situation is “almost hopeless.” On Friday, 1582, he calculated the number of civilians killed, according to Dmitry Kuleba, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, “the worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet.” For his part, Russian General Mikhail Mijintsev, quoted by Russian news agencies, accused Ukrainian “nationalists” of “hundreds of thousands of people, including foreigners,” in Mariupol.

Vasilkiv airport was destroyed

The Ukrainian government said on Saturday that a mosque had been bombed, in which about 80 civilians, including Turks, had sought refuge, but one of them denied the allegations.

According to Ismail Hacioglu, president of the Souleiman Mosque Association of Mariupol, which affiliates with the Turkish channel HaberTürk on Saturday afternoon, the mosque area was on fire, but the mosque itself was not touched.

On Saturday morning, local media reported that anti-bomb warning sirens were sounding throughout Ukraine, including in Kiev, Odessa, Dnipro and Kharkiv.

Russian strikes significantly destroyed the Vassylkiv airport, 40 kilometers south of Kiev, on Saturday morning, and set fire to an oil depot, according to local officials.

Ukrainian military intelligence said on Facebook on Saturday that seven people, including a child, had been killed when Russian soldiers opened fire on civilians using an evacuation route near Kiev.

In Kharkiv, northeast, doctors at a hospital expelled ashes from the stomach of an eight-year-old boy who had spent two days with the AFP, and were unable to remove all that was in his lungs. .

Putin’s “lies”

These attacks on civilians have sparked new allegations that Russia is committing war crimes. Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded by accusing Ukrainian forces of committing “blatant violations” of humanitarian law during a telephone conversation with his French president, Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholes.

According to the Kremlin, Putin specifically referred to “illegal killings of protesters”, “civilian hostages” or “the deployment of heavy weapons in residential areas, near hospitals, schools and kindergartens.” The “lies” confronted the French president at the end of their meeting, which centered on the demand for an “immediate ceasefire” in Paris and Berlin and a “beginning of a diplomatic solution”.

In this regard, Volodymyr Zelensky in his recent talks with Kyiv praised a new “fundamentally different” approach from Moscow. Asked about Vladimir Putin’s Friday statements referring to “progress” in the Russia-Ukraine talks, the Ukrainian head of state said he was “delighted to receive a signal from Russia”. Account of the President of Ukraine.

In the last talks, “we started talking”, and Moscow “no longer issue final warnings”, which is “fundamentally different approach,” Zhelensky added. The latter, however, regretted that this approach was “not sufficiently decisive by Western partners (Ukraine)”. As for security guarantees, he said, “Ukraine cannot trust Russia after this bloody war. Such security guarantees must be provided by other foreign leaders.

2.6 million deported

On the ground, Russian forces appeared to mark the time west and east in the suburbs of Kiev, which were opposed by Ukrainians, AFP reporters on the scene said. In Irbine, a western suburb of Kiev, a Ukrainian soldier on Saturday showed reporters a Russian tank destroyed by a British-brand anti-tank missile, which had been heavily bombed in previous days.

However, Russian forces have advanced enough to raise fears of an impending siege of the capital, where only the roads to the south are clear, and it is preparing for “severe security” under the Ukrainian president. The Russian military has also advanced to the front of the separatist area of ​​Donbass (east), claiming to have destroyed “a total of 3,491 Ukrainian military infrastructure”, including “123 unmanned aerial vehicles, 1,127 tanks and other armored war vehicles.”

During his press conference on Saturday, the Ukrainian president first gave the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed after the February 24 Russian invasion. “We have about 1,300 soldiers dead,” he said, adding that the Russian army had lost “about 12,000 soldiers.” These statements issued by both sides are not verifiable at this stage.

On the local economy side, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Simeikal on Sunday assessed, “According to the new realities, the restructuring of the economy must be the key to success.” He asked those who work in “areas where there are no active fights” to work. “We need to restore functionality. You are part of the economic front!”, He began a video broadcast on the Telegram.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says about 2.6 million people have fled Ukraine since February 24 and about 2 million have been internally displaced. The Russian Defense Ministry said the Russian military had provided more than 100 tons of humanitarian aid to “liberated settlements in the Kharkiv region.”

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