The most violent wave of Russian strikes since early March killed 26 people in Ukraine, including 23 residents of the same building in Uman.
Once again, a series of Russian missile strikes woke up Ukraine on Friday March 28, killing at least 26 people. In Ouman, in the center of the country, one of these projectiles gutted an apartment building. The toll, which increased over the course of the day, had reached 23 dead at the end of the afternoon, including four children, according to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry.
In Dnipro, further east, another strike killed two people. It was a young woman and a 3-year-old child, says the mayor of the city on Telegram. At the end of the day, a 56-year-old man was discovered under the rubble of his house in the province of Kherson, in southern Ukraine. This is the largest series of Russian strikes in Ukraine since early March. Here is the rest of the day’s important information.
The doomed strikes
“Every attack, every evil act against our country and (our) people brings the terrorist state closer to failure and punishment”reacted on Telegram Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who demanded a “retort” international at the “terror” Russian. The Ukrainian army also claims to have shot down 21 Russian missiles and two drones during this attack, including all the projectiles targeting kyiv.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned, in a press release, “unacceptable acts constituting war crimes” Who “cannot go unpunished“.
Russia, for its part, claimed to have bombed “temporary deployment points of reserve units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” with some “high precision weapons”. “All assigned targets have been achieved”said the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Nine dead in Donetsk according to pro-Russians
Pro-Russian authorities installed by Moscow announced that Ukrainian strikes on Donetsk, the largest city under their control, had killed nine people, including a child, and injured 16. Denis Pushilin, the pro-Russian leader of the Donetsk region, says the strikes hit “a hospital, a park and apartment buildings”.
kyiv says it is almost ready for the counter-offensive
“Preparations are coming to an end”said Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov about the big attack that his country wants to launch to reconquer the territories occupied by the Russian army in the East and the South. “The equipment has been promised, prepared and partially delivered. In a broad sense, we are ready”he said during a press conference. “When God wills, [quand il y aura] the weather and the decision of the commanders, we will do it”.
He welcomed the arrival in Ukraine of Caesar guns from Denmark, without specifying the number – Copenhagen had promised, in February, the delivery of 19 of these French-made machines. On Thursday, NATO’s secretary general said the alliance had provided kyiv with 230 combat tanks and 1,550 other armored vehicles.
Zelensky wants China’s help against child deportations
Two days after Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone with his Ukrainian counterpart, the latter revealed that he had asked for China’s help in the case of the return of Ukrainian children “deportees” by Russia, whose number is officially estimated at at least 20,000 by kyiv. This massive policy of placement of children from occupied areas of Ukraine in Russian families earned Vladimir Putin an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
Transit of Ukrainian grain guaranteed in the EU
The European Commission has announced that it has reached an agreement with five EU states (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania) to guarantee the transit of Ukrainian cereals. Poland, followed by other neighbors of Ukraine, of which it is nevertheless allies, decided in mid-April to ban Ukrainian agricultural products, including cereals, from its soil. The accumulation of these products in the country had driven prices down, angering local farmers. A judged decision “unacceptable” by Brussels, and complicating the export by land of products from Ukraine. The agreement provides for the end of import bans, in exchange for “exceptional safeguard measures” concerning four products judged “the most sensitive” : wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds.