The Russian military offensive reached the Ukrainian city of Lviv, located in the west of the country. Russian troops also bombed another weapons factory near kyiv in line with the Kremlin’s plan to increase attacks on the capital. of the former Soviet republic after the attack on a Russian ship. Bombing in Mariupol intensified this weekend and Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky warned that military casualties in the port city could end negotiations with Moscow.
Attacks in Kiev
A weapons industrial complex was covered under an intense cloud of smoke after the Russian attack on the weapons factory located in the town of Darnytsky, located a few kilometers from the capital. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the attack on Saturday.. “Long-range, high-precision air-to-ground weapons destroyed buildings of an armament production plant in kyiv“, reported the ministry in a statement. The spokesman for the Defense portfolio, Igor Konashenkov, specified that “missile and artillery troops destroyed 811 installations”between them an armored vehicle plant in kyiv, as well as a military equipment repair shop and two rocket depots in the southern city of Mikolaiv. Besides, the Ukrainian Air Force assured that intercepted four cruise missiles launched by Russian fighters over the Lviv areain the west of the country, a city that hosts thousands of internally displaced persons and that until now was not at the center of Moscow’s attacks.
For his part, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital, former boxer Vitali Klitschko, reported at least one death and several injuries during the attack. “Our forces do their best to protect us, but the enemy is insidious and ruthless,” he said. A similar attack on an arms factory occurred the day before, which the Ukrainian authorities say is a retaliation by the Kremlin for the sinking of the Moskva, its flagship. According to the spokesman for the military administration of the strategic port of Odessa, Serguei Brachuk, the Russian ship “ensured air cover from other ships during its operations, especially for the bombardment of the coast and landing maneuvers.”
Versions about the Moskva
This Saturday the Russian Ministry of Defense published a video in which they point out that the meeting between the head of the Moscow navy and soldiers who were supposedly rescued from the Moskva is recorded. The recording lasts about 30 seconds and the images show men in navy uniforms lined up in front of their boss Nikolai Yevmenov. “The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, and the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet met with the crew of the ship ‘Moskva’ in Sevastopol,” in Crimea, the ministry said in a brief statement. Nevertheless, Ukraine and its ally the United States maintain that kyiv forces sunk the ship with missiles. While the Kremlin ensures that the crew of more than 500 men was evacuated in its entirety before the ship sank.
Bombings in Donetsk and Luhansk
The Russian army also maintained its offensive in the east of the country where bombed an oil refinery located about four kilometers from the city of Lisichansk located in the Luhansk region. According to the Ukrainian authority in that area, the attack occurred during the morning and caused a major fire.“The Russians aim it systematically to exhaust the rescuers. There is no fuel there. Only the oil residues are burned”, said Sergii Gaidai, the Ukrainian governor of the Lugansk region. Lisichansk, has a population of just over 100,000 people and is on the border of the territory controlled by Russia in the Donbass and together with the town of Severodonetsk, are targets of constant Russian bombardment.
In the city of Kherson, the Ukrainian army denounced the appearance of more than 800 graves in the area that Russian troops have occupied since March 3. The southern city is located on the banks of the Dnieper River near its mouth in the Black Sea. According to the Ombudsman, Liudmila Denisova, 106 settlements are without electricity and the inhabitants have problems with the supply of food and other essential goods.
While the Last Ukrainian resistance points in Mariupol were attacked by Russia. The port city is located in the Donetsk region. Denis Pushilin, the pro-Russian leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) -which together with the Lugansk People’s Republic self-proclaimed their independence from Kiev-, He assured that the Ukrainian marines who were ready to surrender have already done so. In turn, he specified that the members of the nationalist battalions that follow Mariupol “they have no intention of surrendering and therefore must be annihilated”. According to the Ukrainian authorities, about 20,000 civilians could have died in the port located on the shores of the Sea of Azov, where some 100,000 people remain under precarious conditions.
stalled dialogue
Faced with the renewed attacks in Mariupol, the president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, warned that the casualties of the Ukrainian military would mean the end of the dialogue between the parties in conflict. “The elimination of our military, of our men (in Mariupol) will put an end to any negotiations”said the president interviewed by a local media.
“Mariupol can be ten times Borodianka,” Zelensky compared, referring to a town near kyiv that was besieged by Kremlin troops. “The more (cases like) Borodianka arise, the more difficult it will be” to negotiate, he said. “To be honest, we have no confidence in the negotiations on Mariupol,” the head of state of the former Soviet republic remarked “Our soldiers are surrounded and, despite everything, they continue to defend themselves,” Zelensky said.
Negotiations between Moscow and kyiv made no progress this week, however, with the Ukrainian president saying he wants to sign a peace treaty with Russia and that it will be made up of two separate documents. “One of them will refer to security guarantees for Ukraine, the other (will refer) directly to its relations with Russia,” he said. In the first document Zelensky states that Ukraine’s security would be guaranteed by countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy and Turkey. “Russia wants everything to be in one document, and people say: ‘Excuse me, we saw what happened in Bucha.’ Circumstances are changing, the formats of future agreements are changing, the percentage of possibilities of agreements from such steps is changing, for those violations, ”he added.