(Kiev) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that the night had been “hard” in Ukraine, with Russian bombardments having targeted inhabited areas according to him.
Posted at 7:22
“Last night was hard, again shots, again bombardments of inhabited neighborhoods, of civilian infrastructure. There is nothing today that the occupier does not consider a legitimate target,” he said in a video posted on social networks.
“Vassilkiv, Kiev, Cherniguiv, Sumi, Kharkiv and many other cities live in conditions that we had not seen on our lands […] since the Second World War,” underlined the Ukrainian President.
UKRAINIAN PRESIDENCY PHOTO VIA AFP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
He addressed the Belarusians, whose country serves as a rear base for Russian forces that invaded Ukraine on Thursday to attack Kiev.
“From your territory, it is our children who are being killed”, he said, “how are you going to be able to look your children in the eye, how are you going to look each other in the eye ? How are you going to look your neighbors in the eye? Your neighbors are us”.
Ukrainian forces control Kharkiv
Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv (northeast), is under the control of Ukrainian forces, regional governor Oleg Sinegoubov said on Sunday, hours after announcing a breakthrough by the Russian army and street fighting.
PHOTO SERGEY BOBOK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A Russian armored vehicle abandoned along a road leading to Kharkiv on February 26.
“Kharkiv is under our total control,” Sinegoubov wrote on social media, assuring that an “elimination of enemies in the city” was underway.
According to him, “the Russian enemy is totally demoralized”, abandoning its vehicles and groups of soldiers “surrendering to the Ukrainian military”.
Kharkiv, with 1.4 million inhabitants, is the main city in northeastern Ukraine and is located not far from the Russian border and the territories controlled by the pro-Russian separatists of Donetsk and Luhansk.
In the morning, the regional governor had reported a Russian “breakthrough” with light armor in the city, which had led to street fighting.
Other parts of the Kharkiv region were also still plagued by fighting on Sunday, according to the same source.