Thousands of Ukrainians were trying to leave their towns bombarded or surrounded by Russian forces on Tuesday, while the number of refugees having left the country since the start of the invasion crossed two million.
In particular, civilians began to evacuate the Ukrainian city of Sumy on Tuesday, which was bombed the day before.
At least 21 people were killed Monday evening in Russian airstrikes against this city located 350 km northeast of Kiev, near the Russian-Ukrainian border, according to a new report from the Ukrainian authorities.
Dozens of buses left this city of some 250,000 inhabitants on Tuesday morning in the direction of Lokhvytsia, 150 km to the southwest, said the acting head of the Poltava regional administration Dmitry Lunin. Food and medicine had to take the opposite route for the inhabitants who remained in the city.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, on the other hand, accused the Russians of not respecting another humanitarian corridor supposed to allow the evacuation of some 300,000 civilians stranded in the strategic port of Mariupol, in the south-east of the country, on the sea of Azov.
Evacuation attempts have already failed several times in recent days.
“The enemy launched an attack exactly in the direction of the humanitarian corridor,” the ministry denounced on its Facebook page. “Ceasefire violation!” “, tweeted for its part the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Russia announced Monday evening the establishment Tuesday morning of humanitarian corridors in five particularly exposed metropolises, the capital Kiev, Sumy, Mariupol, Kharkiv, the country’s second city, and Cherniguiv, after several similar attempts without a future since Friday.
But most of the evacuation routes pass through Russia or neighboring Belarus, an ally of Moscow, an unacceptable option for Kiev.
These attempts at humanitarian corridors, discussed in a new round of Russian-Ukrainian talks on Monday, come as Russian forces on the ground continue to deploy around many cities or intensify their bombardments, on the thirteenth day of the invasion. Russian, according to Ukrainian officials.
“More water, electricity”
Heavy fighting also took place in the eastern city of Izium, but Russian troops retreated, the Ukrainian general staff said. Russian forces “have terrorized the city, shelling civilian premises and infrastructure”, he added.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry also claimed that Russian General Vitali Guerassimov had been killed near Kharkiv, information that was not confirmed in Moscow and immediately unverifiable from an independent source.
Russian military spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Russian forces on Monday disabled a military airfield south of Zhytomyr, 150 km west of Kiev.
In eastern Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists from Lugansk have captured eight new localities and those from Donetsk now control the “Ossoviakhim sector” in northern Mariupol, he added.
In Boucha, at the gates of Kiev, residents are desperately trying to leave the city. “There are people in every apartment, every house. The most important thing is to get the kids out. There are a lot of children and women,” Anna told AFP.
“The city is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster. There is no more gas, water, electricity and food is also starting to run out,” she said.
In Irpin, AFP also saw hundreds of people waiting, in single file, to cross the river of the same name on foot, on small makeshift bridges made of planks, wooden pallets and metal carcasses, towards of Kiev, the only direction not yet occupied by the Russian army.
“I didn’t want to leave, but there is no one in the houses around, and no more water, gas or electricity,” said Larissa Prokopets, 43. She decided to leave after several days “hiding in the basement of (her) house”, which was regularly shaking under the effect of the bombardments.
In Mykolayev (south), near Odessa, queues of cars of civilians fleeing the advancing fighting stretched for several kilometers, while gunfire echoed from the front line in the eastern part of the city, noted another AFP journalist.
In front of the city’s central hospital, Sabrina, 19, is waiting for her mother, with a dog on a leash, a cat in her down jacket, and several bags. “We will leave the city as soon as possible. Every day there are bombardments, it’s terrifying,” she said, adding that she had no news of her husband at the front.
The local hospital receives the victims of bombardments. “The first two days, we had 160 wounded soldiers, but for the past few days civilians have been arriving, some seriously injured,” said Dmitri Sykorsky, chief surgeon.
Ukrainian forces are preparing an attack to retake Russian-occupied territories near Mikolaev, regional governor Vitali Kim said. “We received reinforcements, guys with equipment. We are going to start liberating the Mikolaev region,” he said.
The invasion of Ukraine, the most serious military conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War, has provoked one of the most serious humanitarian crises on the continent.
Ukrainians continue to take the route of exodus en masse. The war has already pushed more than two million people to seek refuge in neighboring countries, the UN said on Tuesday.
Europe can expect to receive five million exiles if the bombardment of cities continues, estimated the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell.
The repercussions of the conflict and of the unprecedented Western sanctions adopted by Western countries against Russia continue to grow.
Oil soared again on Tuesday: a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in May took 3.34%, to 127.32 dollars.
In London, the quotation of nickel, used in particular in the batteries of electric cars, was suspended after having reached 100,000 dollars per ton, due to fears over Russian supplies.
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for “maximum restraint” in the Ukraine conflict during a call with French leaders Emmanuel Macron and German Olaf Scholz, expressing his “deep concern”.