KYIV | Russian forces that have taken their first major Ukrainian city are tightening their grip on the strategic port of Mariupol and other cities on Thursday, complicating the evacuation of civilians before new Russian-Ukrainian talks.
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“We are going to rebuild every building, every street, every city,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a week after the start of the Russian invasion.
AFP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“You are going to reimburse us fully for everything you have done against our state,” he added to Moscow. On the Russian side, the head of diplomacy Sergey Lavrov once again brandished the threat of a nuclear conflict. , placing the blame on Westerners.
“Everyone knows that a third world war can only be nuclear, but I draw your attention to the fact that it is in the minds of Western policies, not in those of the Russians”, he said. he says during an online press briefing.
On the ground, Ukrainian officials confirmed that the Russian army had for the first time taken control of a large city, Kherson, a metropolis of 290,000 inhabitants near the Crimean peninsula, after violent bombardments.
The head of the regional administration, Gennadi Lakhouta, called on Telegram residents to stay at home, indicating that “the (Russian) occupiers are in all areas of the city and very dangerous”.
Further east, in Mariupol, the mayor accused Russia of wanting to besiege the city.
“They destroyed the bridges, destroyed the trains to prevent us from leaving our women, children and old people (…) They seek to impose a blockade, as in Leningrad”, the Soviet city again become today Saint-Peterbourg, besieged by the Nazis, Vadym Boitchenko said on Telegram.
This large Ukrainian port on the Sea of Azov, a key site to allow Russian forces arriving from Donbass, in the northeast, and Crimea, in the southwest, to join, “resists” for the moment, according to the Ukrainian army.
Further north, Kharkiv, the country’s second city near the Russian border, already hit by deadly bombardments on Tuesday and Wednesday, was shelled all night, according to regional authorities.
And 200 km away, the million-strong industrial center of Dnipro, spared for the moment, was preparing for a Russian assault. AFP saw residents pile up sandbags and prepare Molotov cocktails.
In Kyiv, where loud explosions were heard overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, residents who did not flee have been preparing for an assault for days.
Thousands of women and children have been sleeping for several nights in the metro, transformed into an air raid shelter.
“Hell”
150 km west of Kiev, in Zhytomyr, Oleg Roubak doomed Vladimir Putin to “hell for eternity”, after a strike Tuesday evening which killed his wife and destroyed his house.
“I want the whole world to listen to my story,” he told AFP. A story of simple happiness until the Russian invasion shattered it.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, has adopted a resolution calling on Moscow to “immediately cease actions against Ukrainian nuclear sites”.
Russian troops are in particular near the Zaporozhye power station, the country’s first power station, 200 km south of Dnipro.
Humanitarian Corridors
The Russian military advance comes as Russian-Ukrainian talks were to be held on Thursday afternoon at the Belarusian-Polish border.
According to Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinski, they were to start around 3 p.m. local time (7 a.m. Quebec time). But the head of the Ukrainian delegation, David Arakhamia, indicated that they would not start until about two hours later.
Mr. Arakhamia said he wanted, at a minimum, to negotiate “humanitarian corridors”. Mr. Medinski had indicated on Wednesday that the discussions would focus on a ceasefire.
Initial talks on Monday, at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, had yielded no tangible results. Kyiv demanded an immediate end to the invasion, while Moscow seemed to expect a surrender.
The United States “will support diplomatic efforts” by Kiev to obtain a ceasefire with Moscow, even if “it is much more difficult to achieve this when the shots are ringing and the tanks are advancing”, the chief said. of American diplomacy Antony Blinken.
The Secretary of State, who will be in Poland, the Baltic countries and Moldova in the coming days to reaffirm the support of the United States against Russia, warned of an already “staggering human cost”. “.
“Hundreds if not thousands of civilians have been killed and injured,” he said.
The head of French diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian also feared that “the worst is ahead of us”, with “a siege logic” of Ukrainian cities, already used by the Russians in Syria and Chechnya.
After other European countries, France has called on its nationals whose presence is not “essential” to leave Russia.
French President Emmanuel Macron, president-in-office of the European Union, had a new 90-minute exchange on Thursday with the Russian president, who told him that he could increase his demands vis-à-vis Kyiv.
One million refugees
The murderous shelling of Ukrainian cities is causing great emotion in the world. Anti-war demonstrations and outpourings of solidarity with Ukrainians have multiplied, in view of the bombardments and the exodus from Ukraine of more than a million people, according to the latest figures from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees .
They first fled to Poland, Hungary, Romania and Moldova, but some also began to arrive by train in Berlin from Warsaw. The mayor of the German capital, Franziska Giffey, expects to take care of up to 20,000 refugees.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told AFP that he had raised $1.5 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine.
Russia’s isolation became clear on Wednesday at the United Nations General Assembly: the 193 member countries overwhelmingly voted for a resolution that “demands that Russia immediately cease the use of force against Ukraine.” Only five countries opposed it, 35 abstaining, including China.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Briton Karim Khan, announced on Wednesday evening the “immediate opening” of an investigation into war crimes against Russia.
Collapse of the ruble
The economic sanctions imposed on Moscow by the Western camp are getting tougher.
The EU has confirmed that seven Russian banks will, from March 12, be excluded from the Swift messaging system, a key cog in international finance, while the World Bank has cut all its aid programs in Russia and the Belarus.
Financial rating agencies Fitch and Moody’s have downgraded Russia to the category of countries at risk of not being able to repay their debt.
After losing more than a third of its value in foreign currencies, the ruble plunged again by more than 11% on Thursday morning.
Moscow is stepping up measures to defend its economy, but also to stifle any voice opposed to the war: the independent radio station Ekho Moskvy scuttled itself on Thursday after being banned from airing on Tuesday. Its teams still intend to exist on foreign platforms like YouTube.
As a result of Russia’s economic isolation, the prices of hydrocarbons and aluminum, of which Moscow is a major exporter, continued to soar. The barrel of WTI oil exceeded 115 dollars, a record since 2008.
Russia is also now virtually banned from the world of sport and culture. Latest exclusion measure to date: the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) on Thursday excluded Russian and Belarusian athletes from the Winter Games which start Friday in Beijing.