KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Austria’s chancellor
on Monday will become the first European leader to visit Moscow since Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine, as Kyiv steels itself for a huge Russian offensive in the
country’s east.
اضافة اعلان
Karl Nehammer said he would meet with
Russian President Vladimir Putin, and is expected to raise alleged war crimes in
devastated areas around Kyiv that were under Russian occupation, including the
town of Bucha.
Ukrainian authorities say over 1,200 bodies have
been found in the area so far and that they are weighing cases against “500
suspects”, including Putin and other top Russian officials.
Russian forces are now turning their focus to the
Donbas region in the east, where
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said
Russian troops were preparing “even larger operations”.
Russia is believed to be working towards linking
occupied Crimea with Moscow-backed separatist territories Donetsk and Lugansk
in the Donbas.
“They can use even more missiles against us ... But
we are preparing for their actions. We will answer,” Zelensky said.
Lugansk governor
Sergiy Gaiday warned that the
region could suffer as badly as Mariupol, a besieged port city that even
pro-Russian authorities say has been 70 percent ruined by fighting.
Marines in Mariupol warned on Monday that Ukrainian
forces were preparing for a final stand to control the southern port.
“Today will probably be the last battle, as the
ammunition is running out,” the 36th marine brigade of the
Ukrainian armed forces said on Facebook.
“It’s death for some of us, and captivity for the
rest,” it added, saying it had been “pushed back” and “surrounded” by the
Russian army.
‘War on civilians’
Over the weekend, ongoing
strikes hampered evacuations in and around Kharkiv in the northeast, and 11
people were killed, including a seven-year-old child, regional governor Oleg
Synegubov said.
“The Russian army continues to wage war on civilians
due to a lack of victories at the front,” he said on Telegram.
In Dnipro, an industrial city of around one million
inhabitants, Russian missiles rained down on the local airport, nearly
destroying the facility and causing an unknown number of casualties, local
authorities said.
The Russian defense ministry said it had destroyed a
Ukrainian S-300 anti-aircraft system supplied by “a European country” in a
hangar south of Dnipro, as well as 10 Ukrainian tanks, five self-propelled
guns, and five rocket launchers in the Donetsk region.
Gaiday said a missile strike on a railway station in
the city of
Kramatorsk on Friday, which killed 57 people, had left many afraid
to flee. Russia has denied involvement in the strike.
Gaiday again urged people to leave the region, with
five humanitarian corridors agreed for Monday.
“You are alive because a Russian shell has not yet
hit your house or basement — evacuate, buses are waiting, our military routes
are as secure as possible,” he wrote on Telegram.
Over the weekend, nearly 50 wounded and elderly
patients were transported from the east in a hospital train by medical charity
Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the first such evacuation since the Kramatorsk
attack.
Electrician Evhen Perepelytsia was rescued after he
lost his leg in shelling in his hometown of Hirske.
“We hope that the worst is over — that after what
I’ve been through, it will be better,” said the 30-year-old after arriving in
the western city of Lviv.
On Monday, the Chairman of the Board of
Ukrainian Railways, Alexander Kamyshin, said another railway station in the east had been
attacked overnight.
“They continue to aim at the railway
infrastructure,” he wrote.
EU talks sanctions
On the diplomatic front, EU
foreign ministers were meeting Monday to discuss a sixth round of sanctions,
with concerns that divisions over a ban on Russia gas and oil imports could
blunt their impact.
Austria is an EU member, but does not belong to
NATO, and Nehammer’s spokesman said Brussels, Berlin, and Kyiv had been
informed about the Moscow visit.
The talks with Putin are expected to take place
behind closed doors, without a joint media appearance.
“We are militarily neutral, but have a clear stance
on the
Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,” Nehammer tweeted, calling
for humanitarian corridors, a ceasefire, and a full investigation of war
crimes.
US President Joe Biden meanwhile will hold virtual
talks on Monday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, just weeks after
saying India had been “shaky” in its response to the invasion.
A US spokeswoman said the two leaders would consult
on ways to offset the “destabilizing impact (of the war) on global food supply
and commodity markets”.
The
World Bank warned Sunday that Ukraine’s economy
would collapse by 45 percent this year — a much bleaker outlook than it
predicted even a month ago — while Russia would see an 11 percent decline in
GDP.
‘Atrocious cruelty’
Ukraine’s allies have sought
to pile pressure on Moscow over allegations its troops carried out war crimes
in areas around Kyiv, and there has been little sign that intermittent peace
talks are progressing.
The pope has urged an Easter ceasefire, denouncing a
war where “defenseless civilians” suffered “heinous massacres and atrocious
cruelty.”
At least 183 children have died and 342 were injured
in Ukraine in 46 days of the Russian invasion, the prosecutor general’s office
said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister
Dmytro Kuleba on Sunday
told NBC’s “Meet the Press” he was still open to negotiating with the Russians.
“If sitting down with the Russians will help me to
prevent at least one massacre like in Bucha, or at least another attack like in
Kramatorsk, I have to take that opportunity,” he said.
Bucha — where authorities
say hundreds were killed, some with their hands bound — has become a byword for
the brutality allegedly inflicted under Russian occupation.
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