Russia intensifies its offensive in eastern Ukraine, where it finally there will be no during Orthodox Easter. This is what the president has denounced Volodymyr Zelensky, who has lamented Moscow’s rejection of the United Nations proposal for a temporary ceasefire during this religious holiday, which is celebrated on April 24. “This shows very well how the leaders of this state really treat the Christian faith, one of the most joyous and important holidays,” said the Ukrainian leader in his evening address.
Russia has thus rejected the proposal of the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, to declare a four-day humanitarian ceasefire over Easter Orthodox to get civilians out of Mariupol and bring humanitarian aid to war-torn areas. The pope had joined this request on Wednesday, to which the European Union (EU) had also adhered.
On the other hand, Zelenski has assured that Mariupol resists the invasion of Russian troops – “despite everything the invaders say about it” – after the Kremlin will declare victory this Thursday on the port city, where, however, the steel mill still resists Azovstalconverted into the last stronghold of the resistance and that the Russian troops have been unable to conquer.
Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers and a thousand civilians remain in the metallurgical plant, including women, children and the elderly, according to the country’s authorities, who accuse Russia of not allowing the opening of a humanitarian corridor for their evacuation. Vladimir Putin has given up on taking over the infrastructure, opting instead to lock it down so no one can get in or out.
For his part, the mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko, has called for the “total evacuation” of the devastated Ukrainian city, where – he has indicated – some 100,000 people remain. Nearby, satellite images have located a mass grave with thousands of corpses:
On the other hand, President Zelensky has urged the residents of the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia to be “very attentive” to the information they provide about themselves to invaders.
Precisely in Kherson there have been new clashes between the Ukrainian and Russian troops, as reported by the Operational Command in the south of the country. “The enemy continues to search for ways to advance to the west of the occupied defensive lines. Our units were defeated by two attacks from the opponent in an attempt to advance to the administered border with the Mikolaiv region. During the fight, the opponent suffered losses and was withdrew”, he indicated in his latest report on Facebook.
In addition, they have emphasized that the humanitarian corridor planned from “the occupied villages” of the Kherson region to the Dnipropetrovsk region it hasn’t worked. “The occupiers did not follow the agreements, did not stop the bombardment and stopped the evacuation column in the blockade,” they added.
More than 1,000 civilians killed in kyiv
Zelensky figures in 1,126 civilians that Russian troops have killed in the region of Kyiv since the war broke out 58 days ago. Of these, at least 40 were minors. In a speech before the Portuguese Parliament, the president cited the example of Yahide, a town in the Chernigov region where Russian soldiers “took all the citizens to the basement of the school and kept them there for weeks.”
“It’s a small village school, a small basement in which about ten people died from suffocation alone. The youngest child in the basement was three months old and the oldest was 93 years old. In total, there were about 400 people there,” Zelensky explained, according to the Ukrinform agency.
Also before the Portuguese Parliament, the Ukrainian president has accused Russia of “deporting” more than 500,000 citizens of Ukraine to “remote” regions of the Eurasian country. “The Russian occupiers have already removed at least 500,000 of our citizens from the territory they have occupied,” he said. “this is deportationthis is what the worst totalitarian regimes of the past did,” he concluded.
Source: Lasexta
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
