War in Ukraine, Day 59 | Continuation of the fighting, the hopes of a truce fly away

(Zaporijjia) Fighting continued on Saturday in Ukraine, where calls for a truce on the occasion of the Orthodox Easter holiday remain a dead letter for the time being, and a new attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol has failed.

As the war enters its third month on Sunday, the number of refugees fleeing the Russian invasion is approaching 5.2 million, according to the UN. More than 7.7 million people have left their homes but are still in Ukraine.

At least six people, including a child, were killed in Russian strikes on the southern port city of Odessa on Saturday, according to Ukraine’s State Service for Emergencies.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, called for prayers for a “lasting peace” without mentioning the idea of ​​a truce for the Easter weekend of Orthodox Christians, in a statement published on Saturday by the Patriarchate from Moscow.

Fearing “provocations” during ceremonies for the Orthodox Easter holiday which usually attract crowds, the Ukrainian authorities on Saturday called on the faithful to follow religious services online.

In Mariupol, a strategic port in southeastern Ukraine largely destroyed by weeks of bombardment, a new attempt to evacuate civilians to the city of Zaporizhia has failed, a deputy mayor of Mariupol said on Saturday on his Telegram account.

According to Petro Andryushchenko, some 200 residents had started to gather to be evacuated when they were “dispersed” by the Russian army. Some were then allegedly forced to board buses bound for a locality occupied by the Russians, 80 km to the north.

Several humanitarian corridors have already had to be canceled at the last minute in Mariupol. Moscow and Kyiv blamed each other for these failures.

Moscow assured Thursday that it had “liberated” Mariupol and Mr. Putin had ordered the besieging, without assault, of the Azovstal metallurgical complex where Ukrainian fighters are entrenched. The latter “hold on” in the factory where there are also civilians, Kyiv retorted on Friday.

This week began the “second phase of the special operation” launched in Ukraine on February 24 by Moscow. “One of the objectives of the Russian army is to establish total control over Donbass and southern Ukraine,” a senior Russian military official said on Friday.

“They bomb everything”

Russian troops, which withdrew from the Kyiv region and northern Ukraine at the end of March, have already occupied much of the east and south of the country.

It is now a question of “ensuring a land corridor” towards Crimea and access to Transdniestria, a pro-Russian Moldavian region where there is a Russian garrison, detailed General Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of the forces of the Military District of the Center of Russia.

On Saturday morning, the Russian army said it had carried out 1,098 strikes with artillery and rockets in the past 24 hours.

“They literally bomb everything […] all the time, H24, ”wrote on his Telegram channel the governor of the Luhansk region (east), Serguiy Gaidai, calling on the population to evacuate. He then announced two dead and two wounded in Zolote after Russian artillery fire.

Also in the east, the governor of Kharkiv, Oleg Synegoubov, announced on Telegram the recapture by Ukrainian forces “after long fierce fighting” of three villages north of Kharkiv, one of which, Proudïanka, is about fifteen kilometers from the Russian border.

Three people were killed and seven others injured in Russian shelling in Kharkiv, according to Mr Synegoubov.

According to the spokesperson for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Kharkiv remains “partially blocked” by Russian forces, particularly present in the northwest and who “reinforce their positions” south of the city.

In the Donbass, the Russian troops “are concentrating their efforts in the area between Slaviansk-Kramatorsk”, a conurbation located in the oblast of Donetsk, announced Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency. Further south, they “are trying to continue their offensive on the city of Houliaïpole”, in the oblast of Zaporijjia, halfway between the city of the same name and Mariupol.

Between the cities of Mykolaiv and Kherson, close to the Black Sea, “the enemy is trying to improve its tactical positions and consolidate” its control over “the administrative borders of the Kherson region”, according to the Ukrainian army.

Kherson is the only administrative capital captured by the Russians during the first days of the invasion.

“Weapons needed”

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian forces continue “to contain the attacks of Russian invaders” in the East and South and the “number one challenge” is currently “to provide our military with all the necessary weapons”.

The Ukrainian authorities, who have obtained more substantial arms aid from the West in recent days, assure that they can push the Russian army out of their soil but have called for an Easter truce. This was “rejected” by Moscow, Mr. Zelensky had railed on Thursday.

The President of the European Council Charles Michel asked Mr. Putin on Friday to guarantee humanitarian corridors in Mariupol, on the occasion of the Orthodox Easter holiday on Sunday.

The Kremlin, however, said that Kyiv refused the surrender of the last Ukrainian soldiers present in Azovstal, while the Russian army said it was ready to observe “at any time” a truce “on all or part” of this site to allow the evacuation. of civilians and the surrender of combatants.

The UN on Friday listed a series of actions by the Russian military “that may amount to war crimes”. UN chief Antonio Guterres will travel to Moscow on Tuesday to meet Mr. Putin there, and in the process to Ukraine to see Mr. Zelensky.

The American company Maxar Technologies has released satellite images revealing, according to it, “the existence of a second cemetery which has expanded over the past month”, in Vynohradne, a dozen kilometers from Mariupol.

Mass graves

A first set of possible mass graves had recently been unearthed in Manhush (west of Mariupol).

On Friday, Russia for the first time acknowledged losses on its cruiser Moskvaflagship of the Black Sea Fleet which sank on April 14, with one sailor dead and 27 missing.

The sinking of Moskva is widely seen as a humiliation for Russia and even pro-Kremlin commentators have demanded an explanation.

Moscow says the ship sank due to the explosion of ammunition on board and bad weather conditions that hampered towing operations. Ukraine says it sunk the building with missiles.

The capitals expect a conflict that will last. Washington on Friday invited 40 allied countries to meet in Germany on Tuesday to discuss Ukraine’s long-term security needs.