War in Ukraine, day 53 | Russian ultimatum to Mariupol defenders expired

(Kyiv) The last Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol seemed on Sunday to have ignored the ultimatum of Russia, which asked them to lay down their arms and evacuate this strategic port in the south-east of Ukraine whose capture would be an important victory for Moscow.

Russian forces also announced that they had shelled a new arms factory near Kyiv on Sunday for the third consecutive day, carrying out their threat to intensify their strikes against the Ukrainian capital after the destruction of the flagship of their fleet at sea. Black.

At least five people were killed and 13 injured in a series of strikes on Kharkiv, a major city in northeastern Ukraine, which caused fires, the emergency services announced.

As Ukrainians celebrate Palm Sunday, Pope Francis called on leaders to “hear people’s cry for peace” on this “Easter of war”, again referring to “martyred” Ukraine.

In Mariupol, which Russian forces claim to control almost entirely after fierce fighting, with the exception of a pocket of resistance, the situation is “inhuman”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday evening.

He called on Westerners to “immediately” provide the heavy weapons he had been asking for for several weeks and threatened to stop peace negotiations with Moscow if the last Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol were “eliminated”.

The Russian Ministry of Defense had asked the last Ukrainian fighters entrenched in the Azovstal metallurgical complex to stop fighting at 6 a.m. Moscow time on Sunday and to evacuate the premises before 1 p.m.

But the ultimatum expired and Moscow accused Kyiv of having “prohibited negotiations for the surrender” of its troops, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

In the early morning of Sunday, the Ukrainian general staff had indicated that air strikes had been carried out on the city by the Russians, in particular from the Donetsk region. He also mentioned “assault operations near the port”, without further details.

The capture of this city would be an important victory for the Russians because it would allow them to consolidate their coastal territorial gains along the Sea of ​​Azov by linking the Donbass region, partly controlled by their supporters, to the Crimea that Moscow has annexed in 2014.

Putin “believes he is winning the war”

According to Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who met Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday, the Russian president believes he is winning the war sparked by his invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

“I think he is now in his own logic of war,” Mr. Nehammer said in an interview with the American channel NBC, excerpts from which were published on Saturday. “I think he believes he is winning the war.”

For his part, the head of the Italian government Mario Draghi regretted Sunday in an interview with the daily Il Corriere della Sera the apparent ineffectiveness of the “dialogue” with Vladimir Putin, noting that these contacts did not prevent the “horror” from continuing in Ukraine.

“The situation in Mariupol remains as serious as it can get. Simply inhuman,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message.

According to him, there are only “two options”: either the Westerners deliver heavy weapons immediately to help him lift the siege of Mariupol inhabited by 441,000 people before the invasion on February 24, or they help him to obtain a cessation of fighting through negotiation.

starving civilians

“There is no food, no water, no medicine,” he got carried away with the media, accusing the Russians of “refusing” the establishment of humanitarian corridors.

According to the executive director of the World Food Program David Beasley, more than 100,000 civilians are on the brink of starvation in Mariupol, also lacking water and a source of heating.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk on Sunday demanded the opening of an evacuation route for wounded soldiers from Mariupol.

At the same time, she announced the suspension of humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians from eastern Ukraine, for lack of agreement with the Russian army on a cessation of firing.

In the Kyiv region, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Sunday that it had launched high-precision missiles against an ammunition factory near Brovary.

Brovary Mayor Igor Sapojko said “some infrastructure elements were affected” in the early hours of Sunday.

Over the past three days, Russian forces have carried out several strikes on military factories in Kyiv and its region, following the destruction of the cruiser Moskva in the Black Sea.

The Ukrainians claim to have caused its sinking thanks to their Neptune anti-ship missiles. The Pentagon agreed, stating that the Russian ship had been hit by two Ukrainian missiles on Thursday.

A version that the Russian authorities have not officially endorsed, simply evoking a fire that caused the explosion of ammunition on board the building which sank a few hours later during its tow.

However Moscow has warned that it will intensify its strikes against the Ukrainian capital.

A Russian strike on Friday hit a complex in the Kyiv region producing Neptune missiles.

And on Saturday one person was killed and “several” had to be hospitalized following a strike against an industrial complex in the Darnytsky district, on the outskirts of Kyiv, which notably manufactures tanks, announced the mayor of the capital. Vitali Klitschko.

Kyiv and its surroundings had been relatively spared from the bombardments since the withdrawal of the Russian army from this area at the end of March, but the loss of the Moskva raised the ire of Moscow.

In the southern Ukrainian region of Odessa, “Russian anti-aircraft defense shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane, delivering a large batch of weapons supplied to Ukraine by Western countries”, for its part affirmed on Saturday the Russian Defense Ministry.

Pray “for victory”

In Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine, around 40 faithful, mostly women, attended the Svyato-Pokrovsky Orthodox Church at the Palm Sunday liturgy, noted an AFP journalist.

“It’s hard, very hard and scary right now,” said a woman as she arrived in front of the red-brick building with four golden domes. “We must pray for our soldiers to have strength and faith, it is necessary,” she added, refusing to give her name.

In Lviv, in the west of the country, relatively spared from the fighting, the faithful also celebrated Palm Sunday. Natalia Borysiuk, a 29-year-old woman who works in the information technology sector, held a bouquet of willows and wheat tied with a blue and yellow ribbon, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. She said she came to pray for “peace and victory”.

Nearly five million people have fled Ukraine since February 24, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said, adding that 40,200 more people had left their country in the past 24 hours.