Lviv, Ukraine
Reuters
Russian and Ukrainian forces fought for control of the port city of Mariupol on Sunday, local authorities said, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to Israel for help in pushing back the Russian assault on his country.
In the latest in a series of appeals he has made for help from abroad, Zelenskiy addressed the Israeli parliament by video link and questioned Israel’s reluctance to sell its Iron Dome missile defence system to Ukraine.
“Everybody knows that your missile defence systems are the best…and that you can definitely help our people, save the lives of Ukrainians, of Ukrainian Jews,” said Zelenskiy, who is of Jewish heritage.
A man walks near a block of flats, which was destroyed during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on 17th March. PICTURE: Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has held numerous calls with both Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to end the conflict.
Mariupol has suffered some of the heaviest bombardment since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Many of its 400,000 residents remain trapped in the city with little if any food, water and power.
“WHAT I SAW, I HOPE NO ONE WILL EVER SEE” SAYS GREEK DIPLOMAT RETURNING FROM MARIUPOL
Greece’s consul general in Mariupol, the last EU diplomat to evacuate the besieged Ukrainian port, said on Sunday the city was joining the ranks of places known for having been destroyed in wars of the past.
Manolis Androulakis has assisted dozens of Greek nationals and ethnic Greeks to evacuate the ruined city since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He left Mariupol on Tuesday and after a four-day trip through Ukraine he crossed to Romania through Moldavia, along with 10 other Greek nationals.
“What I saw, I hope no one will ever see,” Androulakis said as he arrived on Sunday at Athens International Airport and was reunited with his family.
“Mariupol will become part of a list of cities that were completely destroyed by war; I don’t need to name them- they are Guernica, Coventry, Aleppo, Grozny, Leningrad,” Androulakis said.
According to the Greek Foreign Ministry, Androulakis was the last EU diplomat to leave Mariupol, where many residents have been trapped under heavy bombardment for more than two weeks as Russian forces seeks to take control.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Russia’s siege of Mariupol was “a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come”.
At least 10 ethnic Greeks have been killed and several have been injured since Russia started attacking Mariupol. More than 150 Greek citizens, vessel crews and ethnic Greeks have been evacuated from the region, the Greek Foreign Ministry says.
Mariupol, a city of more than 400,000 before the war, has historically had a sizeable population of ethnic Greeks who have been active in trade and shipping in the region since the Byzantine period.
– LEFTERIS PAPADIMAS and VASSILIS TRIANDAFYLLOU/Reuters
Fighting continued inside the city on Sunday, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said, without elaborating.
The Russian governor of Sevastopol, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, said on Sunday that Post Captain Andrei Paliy, deputy commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, had been killed during fighting in Mariupol.
Capturing Mariupol would help Russian forces secure a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The city council said on its Telegram channel late on Saturday that several thousand residents had been “deported” to Russia over the past week. Russian news agencies said buses had carried hundreds of people Moscow calls refugees from Mariupol to Russia in recent days.
Speaking to CNN, US ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield called the deportation accounts “disturbing” and “unconscionable” if true, but said Washington had not yet confirmed them.
Russian forces bombed an art school on Saturday in which 400 residents were sheltering, but the number of casualties was not yet known, Mariupol’s council said.
Reuters could not independently verify the claims.
Russia denies targeting civilians.
Zelenskiy said the siege of Mariupol was a war crime.
“To do this to a peaceful city…is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come,” he said late on Saturday.
Putin says Russia’s “special operation” is aimed at disarming Ukraine and rooting out dangerous nationalists. Western nations call it an aggressive war of choice and have imposed punishing sanctions aimed at crippling Russia’s economy.
Ukraine and its Western backers say Russian ground forces have made few advances in the last week, concentrating instead on artillery and missile strikes.
Zelenskiy’s adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said there had been a relative lull over the past 24 hours, with “practically no rocket strikes on [Ukrainian] cities”. He said front lines were “practically frozen”.
The UN refugee agency said 10 million people had now been displaced across Ukraine, including some 3.4 million who have fled to neighbouring countries such as Poland. Officials in the region said they were reaching capacity to comfortably house refugees.
A general view of market Barabashovo after a fire caused by shelling, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on 19th March, 2022. PICTURE: Reuters/Oleksandr Lapshyn.
“What are they doing here?”
The UN human rights office said at least 902 Ukrainian civilians had been killed as of midnight Saturday, though it says the real toll is probably much higher. Ukrainian prosecutors said 112 children had been killed.
“I want the war to be over, I want them [Russian forces] to leave Ukraine in peace,” said Margarita Morozova, 87, who survived Nazi Germany’s siege of Leningrad in World War II and has lived in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, for the past 60 years.
“Ukraine is an independent country. What are they doing here?”
Russia’s defence ministry said cruise missiles were launched from ships in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, as well as hypersonic missiles from Crimean airspace.
Hypersonic missiles travel faster than five times the speed of sound and their speed, manoeuvrability and altitude make them difficult to track and intercept.
Russia deployed them for the first time in Ukraine on Saturday, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported, in a strike which Moscow said destroyed an underground depot for missiles and aircraft ammunition.
In the southern city of Kherson, a video clip obtained by Reuters showed dozens of protesters, some wrapped in Ukraine’s blue and yellow national flag, chanting “Go home” in Russian at two military vehicles bearing Russian markings. The vehicles turned and left the area.
A man walks near destroyed cars in a residential district that was damaged by shelling, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on 18th March, 2022. PICTURE: Reuters/Marko Djurica.
“Critical issues”
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu of Turkey, which like Israel has tried to mediate, said Russia and Ukraine were getting closer to agreement on “critical” issues.
Kyiv and Moscow reported some progress last week toward a political formula that would guarantee Ukraine’s security, while keeping it outside NATO – a key Russian demand – though each side accused the other of dragging things out.
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Russian forces have also taken heavy losses, and long columns of troops that bore down on the capital Kyiv have been halted in the suburbs. Ukraine’s military said on Sunday Moscow’s combat losses included 14,700 personnel and 476 tanks.
Russia last acknowledged on 2nd March that nearly 500 of its soldiers had been killed. Reuters has not been able to independently verify the death count.
In an interview with CNN, Zelenskiy reiterated that he was ready for talks with Putin and that the war would not end without negotiations.
“So, I think that we have to use any format, any chance in order to have the possibility of negotiating, the possibility of talking to Putin,” he said. “But if these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a Third World War.”
– With reporting by Reuters bureaux
