What you need to know | War in Ukraine, Day 38

(Zaporizhia) Ukraine confirmed on Saturday that Russian forces were carrying out a “rapid withdrawal” from Kyiv and Cherniguiv regions in the north of its territory, aiming to “gain a foothold” in the east and south, where new Evacuations of civilians were planned for the day.

After a night of bombardments in the center and east of the country, the Red Cross was preparing on Saturday to try to get civilians out of Mariupol (southeast), a strategic and besieged port on the Sea of ​​​​Azov where the humanitarian situation is catastrophic.

“After a rapid withdrawal of the Russians from the Kyiv and Cherniguiv regions […], it is quite clear that Russia has chosen another priority tactic, ”wrote a Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, on Telegram messaging. It is a question of “withdrawing towards the East and the South, keeping control of vast occupied territories and gaining a foothold there in a powerful way”, he continues.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously claimed that the Russians were preparing for “powerful attacks” in the east, in particular on Mariupol where some 160,000 people are still believed to be blocked and at least 5,000 inhabitants of which have been killed since the start of the war. Russian invasion on February 24, according to local authorities.

For the Russians, control of Mariupol would ensure territorial continuity from Crimea to the two pro-Russian separatist republics of Donbass (Donetsk and Luhansk).

Unable for weeks, evacuations began on a small scale. On Friday, “humanitarian corridors operated in three regions: Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhia. We managed to save 6,266 people, including 3,071 from Mariupol,” President Zelensky said overnight from Friday to Saturday.

“Our city no longer exists”

AFP witnessed the arrival of around 30 evacuation buses in the town of Zaporizhia on Friday evening.

Arriving in the suburb of Zaporizhia, some evacuees wept with relief. “We cried when we saw soldiers at the checkpoint with Ukrainian patches on their arms,” ​​said Olena, her baby girl in her arms. “My house was destroyed. I’ve seen it in photos. Our town no longer exists.

Several people told AFP they had to walk 15 kilometers or more to leave Mariupol, before finding private vehicles and then ending their journey with a 12-hour coach ride through a series of checkpoints, instead three hours before the war.

These residents of Mariupol had managed to reach the city of Berdiansk, occupied by Russian forces, where they were taken care of by the convoy, according to testimonies to AFP and official officials.

On Saturday, seven humanitarian corridors were planned in the East and Southeast, according to Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar on Saturday offered “maritime support, especially for the evacuation from Mariupol of civilians and wounded Turkish or other nationalities”, according to the official Anadolu news agency.

After having had to give up reaching Mariupol on Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), announced that it would try again on Saturday “to facilitate the safe passage of civilians from Mariupol”.

But “for the operation to succeed, it is essential that the parties respect the agreements and provide the necessary conditions and security guarantees”, also underlined the ICRC.

Russian withdrawal from Chernobyl

Conditions weakened by the continued fighting. Russia on Friday accused Ukraine of carrying out a helicopter strike on its soil and threatening to toughen negotiations. Kyiv did not comment, with Mr Zelensky telling US broadcaster Fox News that he was “not discussing [ses] orders as Commander-in-Chief”.

The attack hit energy giant Rosneft’s fuel storage facilities in Belgorod, a Russian town about 40 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.

For the British Ministry of Defence, the destruction of oil tanks in Belgorod as well as explosions at an ammunition depot near the town will “probably add additional pressure in the short term to the already stretched Russian supply chains”.

Ukraine, for its part, warned that Russian soldiers who left the Chernobyl nuclear power plant – the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986 – after weeks of occupation could have been exposed to radiation, judging that “Russia behaved irresponsibly in Chernobyl” by digging trenches in contaminated areas and preventing plant personnel from carrying out their duties.

Since the night of Friday to Saturday, several regions, especially in the center and the east, have been bombarded.

The strikes hit residential neighborhoods in Kharkiv (east), according to the presidency citing the regional authorities, but also infrastructure in Dnipro (center) according to the regional governor, or even localities in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk (east), as well as Kherson (south).

Bombings also hit infrastructure in Kremenchuk (center, Poltava region), headquarters of the largest Ukrainian oil refinery, said the Ukrainian presidency, while the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Saturday morning that it had destroyed with “weapons high precision” refinery gasoline and diesel fuel depots.

These depots were used to supply fuel to Ukrainian forces in the center and east of the country, according to a ministry statement.

New American aid

“Russian missiles” also disabled two military airfields in the Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk regions (center), according to the same source.

In Kharkiv, the bombardments continued intermittently on Saturday morning, in particular on the district of Saltivka, a district already largely destroyed and deserted by its inhabitants, apart from a few refugees in the cellars, noted AFP on the spot.

“Give us missiles. Give us airplanes,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded on Fox News. “Can’t you give us F-18s or F-19s or whatever you have? Give us the old Soviet planes […]. Give me something to defend my country”.

The request was heeded by the United States, which announced up to $300 million in additional military aid to Ukraine, on top of the military aid allocated since the invasion, amounting to more than 1.6 billion.

Peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials resumed Friday via video, but the Kremlin warned that the attack in Belgorod could not “be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for further negotiations”.

On Sunday, Britain’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths will be in Moscow to try to secure a “humanitarian ceasefire” in Ukraine, the UN chief said on Friday. , Antonio Guterres.

Pope Francis on Saturday castigated in Malta the acts of “some powerful” locked in “nationalist interests” by evoking the “icy wind of war” coming from “Eastern Europe” in a clear allusion to the Russian president Vladimir Putin, without however naming him.

The Ukrainian economy is suffering the repercussions of the events: the Ukrainian GDP collapsed by 16% in the first quarter, compared to the same period last year, according to estimates by the Ministry of the Economy.