President of Ukraine, Volodymyr ZelenskyHe said that the intensity of Russian forces’ fire towards Kharkiv, Donbass and Dnipro had “significantly increased”.A day after the Kremlin launched its long-awaited offensive in eastern Ukraine. Russian officials said a A total of 1,260 military targets were hit by missiles and artillery Along the 300-mile front line in the Donbass and Kharkiv regions.
Zelensky He said the situation in the besieged city of Mariupol was “as dangerous as possible.”. “The Russian army is obstructing any efforts to organize humanitarian corridors and save our people,” Zelensky said in his evening address. “The fate of at least tens of thousands of residents of Mariupol who were previously transferred to the territory controlled by Russia is unknown.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said it would offer a ceasefire in Mariupol on Wednesday To allow the Ukrainian defenders holed up in the steel mills at Azovstal to lay down their arms. Russian-backed fighters stormed the factory, According to a pro-Russian official quoted by the BBC,. Ukrainian authorities say so No less than 1,000 civilians They are hiding in the compound with Ukrainian fighters.
The region’s governor said that Russian forces had taken control of Kremena in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine and Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from the city. Kremena, a city of over 18,000 people, about 350 miles (560 km) southeast of Kyiv, It appears to be the first city to be captured in a Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine.
The mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekov, said that Russian forces are engaged in “continuous bombing of civilian neighborhoods” in Ukraine’s second city since Sunday. Terekhov said four people, including three emergency workers, were killed on Tuesday. separately , The Prosecutor’s Office of the Kharkiv region said the Russian missiles 14 people were injured In town on Tuesday.
Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov spoke out against the “crazy” war in Ukraine and called supporters of Moscow’s military actions “idiots”. In an Instagram post, Tinkoff, who was sanctioned by the UK government, “90% of Russians are against” the war, he said.
The UK said Russia had increased its offensive in the Donbass, but that its advance had been hampered by “environmental, logistical and technical challenges”. The British Ministry of Defense said late on Tuesday: “Russia’s inability to stamp out the resistance in Mariupol and its indiscriminate attacks, which have affected the resident civilian population, indicate their continued failure to achieve their goals as quickly as they would like.”
Russia has deployed up to 20,000 mercenaries from Syria, Libya and elsewhere in Ukraine’s Donbass region, according to a European official. said the official Mercenaries are sent into battle without heavy equipment or armored vehicles.
In his nightly speech, Zelensky claimed that Ukraine had access to all the weapons it needed, “And which can be compared with the weapons used by the Russian Federation, We had already finished this war. It is unfair that Ukraine is still forced to ask what its partners have been storing somewhere for years.”
US President Joe Biden will announce another military aid package for Ukraine Almost the same amount of $800 million that the US President announced last weekAccording to multiple sources told Reuters, which would lead to More than $3 billion total US aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
Russia is expelling 31 Dutch, Belgian and Austrian diplomats as Moscow faces growing international isolation. This comes after the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria announced the expulsion of some Russian diplomats.
The United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has called for a humanitarian Easter halt for four days in the fighting in Ukraine. Guterres said The United Nations was ready to send humanitarian aid convoys to Mariupol, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk It begins on Holy Thursday and lasts until Sunday, April 24, the date of Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated by most Ukrainians and Russians.
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