KYIV —
Russian forces upped the
pressure on Kyiv Saturday and pummeled civilian areas in other Ukrainian
cities, amid fresh efforts to get aid to the devastated port city of Mariupol.
اضافة اعلان
Russian strikes destroyed the airport in the town of
Vasylkiv, south of Kyiv, while an oil depot was also hit and caught fire, the
mayor said.
The northwest suburbs of the capital, including Irpin and
Bucha, have already endured days of heavy bombardment while Russian armored
vehicles are advancing on the northeastern edge.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the capital, described by
a senior Ukrainian official Friday as a "city under siege", was
reinforcing defenses and stockpiling food and medicine.
Buses were continuing to bring refugees into the city from
the hard-hit suburbs, Klitschko said in a video message, adding: "We will
not give up."
Other cities have already fallen or been surrounded since
Russia invaded its neighbor on February 24, with civilians targeted in what the
UN warned could amount to war crimes.
The southern port city Mariupol in particular is facing
what Ukraine says is a "humanitarian catastrophe", with than 1,500
civilians killed over 12 days of siege.
In a three-way phone call Saturday, the leaders of
France and
Germany, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, urged Russian counterpart
Vladimir Putin to end the deadly blockade, Paris said.
A humanitarian convoy loaded with 90 tonnes of food and
medicine left the town of Zaporizhzhia for Mariupol on Saturday, according to
local officials, with hopes that it will be able to evacuate civilians on the
way back.
Orthodox clergy had volunteered to accompany the convoy,
they said, after Ukraine's President
Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of
targeting previous similar efforts.
Ismail Hacioglu, president of the Suleiman Mosque
Association in Mariupol, said he was trying to evacuate almost 90 Turks in the
city, but four times had been stopped at Russian roadblocks.
He denied a claim by Ukraine's foreign ministry that
Russia had shelled the mosque where 80 civilians were sheltering, telling
Turkish TV the area was hit but not the mosque itself.
Some evacuation efforts have been successful. Ukraine's
emergency services said 487,000 people had been evacuated over the past 24
hours, including 102,000 children.
World War
III
The UN estimates that almost 2.6 million people have fled
Ukraine since the invasion, most of them to Poland, in
Europe's worst refugee
crisis since World War II.
As Russia widens its bombardment and talks between Moscow
and Kyiv seemingly go nowhere, Zelensky's pleas for
NATO to intervene have
grown increasingly desperate.
Washington and its EU allies have sent funds and military
aid to Ukraine, taken action against its economy and oligarchs, and a cultural
and sporting boycott has further isolated Moscow.
In Irpin on Saturday, a Ukrainian soldier who gave his
name just as "Viktor" showed off his British anti-tank missile system
and the twisted remains of a Russian vehicle it destroyed.
"This one was shot from this beautiful thing,"
he said. "And I want to say a big thank you to our British comrades
helping us."
Washington Friday added more layers of sanctions to those
already crippling Russia's economy, this time ending normal trade relations and
announcing a ban on signature Russian goods vodka, seafood, and diamonds.
But US President
Joe Biden again ruled out direct action
against nuclear-armed Russia, warning that it would lead to "World War
III".
'Cinders in
his lungs'
The situation in Mariupol remains "desperate",
according to Doctors Without Borders, with no water or heating — and food
supplies dwindling.
"Hundreds of thousands of people... are for all
intents and purposes besieged," Stephen Cornish, one of those heading the
medical charity's Ukraine operation, told AFP in an interview.
"Sieges are a medieval practice that have been
outlawed by the modern rules of war for good reason."
Meanwhile an AFP reporter in the southern city of
Mykolaiv said a hospital in the northern district of Ingulski came under fire, while
heating is out in the area, forcing many residents to flee.
Mykolaiv, which lies on the road to the strategic port
city of Odessa, has been under attack for days.
"They shot at the civilian areas, without any
military objective," said the hospital's head, Dmytro Lagochev, adding:
"There's a hospital here, an orphanage, and an ophthalmological
clinic."
In Kharkiv, in the east, doctors at a hospital described
spending two days pumping ash from the stomach of an eight-year-old child whose
home was struck by a Russian missile.
"He still has cinders in his lungs," Dima
Kasyanov's doctor told AFP.
Meanwhile, the central city of Dnipro, an industrial hub
of one million inhabitants, saw its reputation as a relatively safe haven
shattered when three missiles hit civilian buildings Friday.
The attacks on civilians prompted a new flurry of warnings
on Friday that Russia is committing war crimes.
1,300
Ukrainian troops
The Kremlin has denied it even attacked Ukraine, saying it
launched a "special military operation" to stop a direct threat.
Putin on Saturday slammed what he described as the
"flagrant violation" of international humanitarian law by Kyiv,
accusing Ukraine's army of executing dissenters and using civilians as
hostages.
The French presidency denounced his accusations, made
during the talks with
Macron and Scholz, as "lies".
In a constant stream of video messages, Zelensky has urged
Ukrainians to keep fighting and demanded his country's allies do more to help.
On Saturday, he said Moscow was suffering "enormous
losses", before giving Ukraine's first toll, saying around 1,300 troops
had been killed so far.
US estimates put the number of Russian fatalities at 2,000
to 4,000 while Moscow's only official toll, announced last week, said 498
Russian troops had been killed.
Foreign combatants have already entered the conflict on
both sides, and on Friday, the Kremlin ramped up efforts to bring in
reinforcements, particularly from Syria.
'Serious
diplomacy'
In the Russian-held city of Melitopol, Zelensky said 2,000
people protested against the kidnapping Friday of the mayor.
He called on the leaders of France and Germany to help
secure Ivan Fedorov's release, which he said opened a "new stage of
terror".
Numerous efforts are underway to find a diplomatic
solution to the crisis, with Turkey on Thursday hosting the first talks between
the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers since war erupted.
There was no breakthrough but
Putin said Friday there were
some "positive shifts" and that negotiations were being held
"almost daily".
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Saturday the talks
were continuing via videoconference, without giving details.
US Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday however that
Putin had shown "no sign of engaging in serious diplomacy".
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