Ukrainian authorities on Wednesday accused Russia of having bombed the city of Cherniguiv in the north of the country all night, despite Moscow’s announcement the day before of a “reduction” of its military activity “, a promise greeted with skepticism by kyiv and its Western allies. »
The number of Ukrainian refugees who have fled their country since the invasion by the Russian army on February 24, mainly women and children, crossed the 4 million mark on Wednesday, the High Commission announced for its part. to refugees in Geneva.
“The situation is not changing, Cherniguiv is the subject of artillery and aerial bombardments”, affirmed the regional governor Viatcheslav Tchaous, specifying that the inhabitants were deprived of water and electricity.
This locality, which had 280,000 inhabitants before the war, is also “without communications and we can no longer repair them”, he added, also referring to strikes on Nijyne, in the same region.
After Mariupol in the south, Cherniguiv has been the city hardest hit by bombardments since the start of the war launched by Russia on February 24.
In and around kyiv, warning sirens were heard several times during the night.
“In the past 24 hours, the Russians have shelled residential areas and civilian infrastructure in the Kyiv region 30 times,” regional governor Olaxandre Pavlyuk said on Telegram, noting that areas north of Kyiv were the most affected (Boutcha, Irpin, Vyshgorod, Brovary).
Frequent explosions could still be heard Wednesday morning from the town of Irpin, which the Ukrainians announced on Monday had “liberated” from Russian forces, AFP found.
“Since the evening and throughout the night, numerous anti-aircraft alerts have taken place throughout the territory of Ukraine. However, the night was calm in most areas,” the presidency said in a statement.
Judge on exhibit
Russia pledged on Tuesday after peace talks in Istanbul to “radically” reduce its military activity around kyiv and Cherniguiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had mentioned “positive signals” even if they “do not make us forget the explosions or the Russian shells”.
The Ukrainian general staff, for its part, was very skeptical. “The so-called ‘withdrawal of troops’ is probably a rotation of individual units which aims to deceive the military command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”.
“For the moment, we unfortunately cannot see that the Russians are lowering the intensity of hostilities in the direction of kyiv and Cherniguiv,” added Vadym Denysenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Minister of the Interior, on Wednesday.
For the spokesman for the US Department of Defense, John Kirby, it would only be a “repositioning” and not a “real withdrawal”.
“It is very likely that Russia will seek to transfer its strike power from the north to the (separatist) regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in the east,” said the British Ministry of Defense on its Twitter account. .
This was confirmed by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Russia has achieved its “goal”: “the military potential of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been significantly reduced, which makes it possible to focus attention and efforts on the main goal, the liberation of Donbass”.
For kyiv’s Western allies, it will above all be necessary to judge on the spot.
“We’ll see if they keep their word,” US President Joe Biden told reporters on Tuesday, shortly after meeting with French, British, German and Italian leaders. “There seems to be a consensus that you have to see what they have to offer,” he added.
In London, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not say otherwise. London will judge “Putin and his regime by his deeds, not his words,” he said. The UK will hold a donors’ conference on Thursday to mobilize more lethal weapons for Ukraine.
Earlier, these Western leaders had warned against any “slackening” in the face of the Russian invasion, and expressed “their determination to continue to increase the cost paid by Russia for its brutal attack on Ukraine”.
The US Department in fact warned American citizens on Tuesday that they risked being arbitrarily arrested in Russia, urging them not to go there or to leave the country immediately.
Maternity evacuated to Mariupol
In Mariupol, the town hall on Wednesday denounced the forced evacuation to Russia of a maternity hospital. “More than 70 people, women and medical personnel were forcibly taken away by the occupants of the number 2 maternity hospital in the Left Bank district,” she said on Telegram.
In total, more than 20,000 residents of Mariupol were evacuated “against their will” to Russia, according to the municipality, which claims that the Russians confiscated their papers and redirected them “to distant Russian towns”.
This information is unverifiable from an independent source, Mariupol being besieged since the end of February with failing communications.
President Zelensky said on Tuesday that the Russian attacks on Mariupol were “a crime against humanity”.
According to the UN, two of the six civilian hospitals in Mariupol have been destroyed and three damaged, while the other sites continue with limited activity and are understaffed and without water, electricity and equipment. The shelling destroyed at least 65 buildings and damaged 126, according to the same source.
The conditions for launching a humanitarian operation in the coming days to help the inhabitants of Mariupol “are not met at this stage”, the French presidency also announced on Tuesday evening after a meeting between French Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The French head of state had presented this evacuation operation – proposed at the end of last week by France, Turkey and Greece – to his Russian counterpart who said “he was going to think about it” before giving a response, added the French presidency.
Around 160,000 civilians are still stuck in Mariupol, shelled and in the throes of fierce fighting and facing “a humanitarian catastrophe”, living holed up in shelters without electricity and lacking food and water, according to testimonies collected by the AFP with people who fled Mariupol.
“Socks and Underwear”
The situation also remains very difficult around kyiv where the population is fleeing the villages east of the capital, where the inhabitants assure that the Russian forces continue to carry out a brutal occupation there.
“The Russian soldiers came and asked if they could ‘host’ five or six people for the night,” said resident Valerii Koriachenko. “They lifted the safety catch on the gun and ‘politely asked’ us to go anywhere, saying they were living there now,” he said, adding that they even took “socks” from them. and underwear.
North-west of kyiv, the main checkpoint towards Irpin, was closed and access prohibited to civilians, the city being still considered too dangerous because it was still within range of mortar fire.
“First we will do a reconnaissance and then we will remove the bodies and secure the area,” Petro Kyseliev, acting head of the emergency services, told AFP.
“The next step will be to secure the area and remove mines and booby traps, as there is information that the bodies could also be trapped,” he added.