Glimmer of hope in Mariupol: 20 civilians were evacuated on Saturday from the Azovstal steel complex. Since March, the eyes of the whole world have been riveted on the industrial site transformed into a refuge, from which no one had so far left.
Posted at 10:06 a.m.
Updated at 11:07 p.m.
No attempt to evacuate Azovstal had succeeded until Saturday, when a first group of 20 civilians – women and children – were pulled out of the rubble of the huge steel complex.
” [Ils] have been transferred to an agreed place and we hope that they will be evacuated to Zaporizhia, in territory controlled by Ukraine,” Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, said on Telegram.
For more than a month, hundreds of trapped soldiers and civilians have been holed up in Azovstal, the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol. Any attempt to evacuate them had so far been disrupted by Russian forces.
The truce scheduled for Saturday also seemed doomed to failure. “Throughout the night, enemy artillery bombarded the site. The ceasefire that was supposed to start at 6 a.m. did not start until 11 a.m. Since then, both parties have respected him. The convoy we were expecting at 6 a.m. only arrived at 6:25 p.m.,” Commander Palamar said.
“The Azov regiment continues to clear the rubble to get civilians out. We hope that this process will continue and that we will succeed in evacuating all civilians,” he added.
Odessa airport hit
In southern Ukraine, Odessa airport was the target of missile fire, which fortunately caused no casualties. “The enemy struck from Crimea with a Bastion coastal defense missile system. The runway at Odessa airport was destroyed,” regional governor Maksim Marchenko confirmed on Telegram.
The Black Sea port city has been relatively spared from war, despite being a key to the Russian military campaign. If it gets its hands on Odessa, Moscow could connect to the west with the pro-Russian separatist enclave of Transnistria, in Moldova.
PHOTO RICARDO MORAES, REUTERS
Firefighter working to extinguish a fire in a burning building following a Russian strike, in Kharkiv on Saturday
At the same time, Russian forces maintained pressure on the eastern regions of the country. Violent explosions sounded in the night from Friday to Saturday in Kharkiv, the second largest city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed that the situation in the region was “difficult”, “but our military is achieving tactical success”, he said. In the Donbass, 14 Russian attacks were intercepted in the previous 24 hours, the Ukrainian forces’ general staff said on Saturday.
Tortured bodies near Boutcha
A month after the withdrawal of Russian forces from northern Ukraine, survivors continue to experience the full extent of the horror that unfolded there.
The tortured bodies of three men were found Friday in a mass grave in Myrotske, a village near Boutcha, symbol of the atrocities attributed to Russia.
The victims “had their hands tied, clothes around their faces so they couldn’t see anything, and some had gags in their mouths,” Kyiv region police chief Andriy Nebitov said in a statement.
The men “were tortured for a long time. “Eventually each of them was shot in the temple,” he added.
Turkish Presidency spokesman met with Zelensky
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalın met the Ukrainian president in Kyiv on Saturday. The content of the discussions was not revealed.
Since the beginning of the war, Turkey has played the role of mediator in the talks between Russia and Ukraine. The last time it hosted direct talks between the two sides was on March 29.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is now trying to organize a first tête-à-tête between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Zelensky.
With Agence France-Presse