War in Ukraine, day 53 | Ukraine wants to fight “to the end” in Mariupol

(Kyiv) Ukraine wants its last troops present in Mariupol to fight there “to the end”, ignoring Russia’s ultimatum which had asked them to lay down their arms and evacuate this strategic port in the south-east of which the capture would constitute an important victory for Moscow.

In the northeast, in Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, at least five people were killed on Sunday and 13 others injured in a series of strikes that caused fires, according to local emergency services.

And Russian forces said they bombed a new arms factory near Kyiv on Sunday for the third day in a row, following through on their threat to step up strikes against the Ukrainian capital after the flagship of their fleet was destroyed in the Black Sea. .

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 once the ultimatum expired, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal assured the American channel ABC that the Ukrainian soldiers would continue the fight.

“No, the city did not fall. Our military forces, our soldiers are still there. They will fight until the end. As I speak to you, they are still in Mariupol,” he said.

The head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba accused the Russian army of wanting to “raze the city at all costs”, in an interview also broadcast on Sunday by another American channel, CBS.

“The remnants of the Ukrainian army and a large group of civilians are surrounded by Russian forces. They continue their fight, but it seems, given the behavior of the Russian army in Mariupol, that they have decided to raze the city at all costs,” said Dmytro Kouleba.

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, as 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 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 told the American channel NBC. “I think he believes he is winning the war.”

For his part, the head of the Italian government Mario Draghi regretted Sunday in 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 .

Mr. Zelensky told him on CNN that he had invited Emmanuel Macron to go to Ukraine, to find that Russian forces were committing “genocide”, a term that his French counterpart had so far refused to use.

“The situation in Mariupol remains as serious as it can get. Simply inhumane, ”said Mr. Zelensky 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 World Food Program Director-General 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 the Kyiv region, following the downing 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.

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 sparked the ire of Moscow.

To the south in 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 said on Saturday the Russian Ministry of Security. Defense.

Pray “for victory”

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 Kramatorsk (east), about forty 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 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 (west), a city relatively spared from the fighting, the faithful also celebrated the Orthodox holiday. 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”.