(Severodonetsk) Sixty people died in the Russian bombing of a school in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a G7 summit on Sunday evening, which showed his unity and support for the invaded country. by Russia at the end of February.
Posted at 7:32
Updated at 7:17 p.m.
As Russia prepares for the celebrations, scheduled for Monday, of the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, which Russian President Vladimir Putin often compares to the deadly conflict in Ukraine, the latter continues with no prospect of a lull in the near future.
In the East, “just yesterday, in the village of Bilogorivka, in the Luhansk region, a Russian bomb killed 60 civilians”, said Mr. Zelensky during a videoconference intervention at a Summit of the G7. “They were trying to find refuge in the building of an ordinary school which was targeted by a Russian airstrike”.
The governor of the Luhansk region, Sergiï Gaïdaï, provided the same assessment on the Russian-language television Current Time TV. Sunday morning, he explained that “there were a total of 90 people” on the spot at the time of the strike. “27 were saved,” he added, adding that the temperature had been very high after the explosion which “completely blew up” the school.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “horrified” by the bombardment, according to his spokesman.
On the same day, US First Lady Jill Biden met with her Ukrainian counterpart Olena Zelenska at a school in Ukraine near the border with Slovakia, where she was staying this week.
Trudeau: “war crimes”
Other surprise visits include that of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Irpin, a locality in the Kyiv suburbs devastated by the fighting, and of the President of the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, Bärbel Bas, also near the Ukrainian capital, in Boutcha, scene of atrocities against civilians.
“Vladimir Putin is responsible for these heinous war crimes” and “he will have to be held to account,” said Mr. Trudeau.
Photo by the press service of the Ukrainian presidency, provided to REUTERS
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday.
The G7, of which his country is a member, decided on Sunday to wean itself “gradually” from Russian oil.
“The entire G7 today pledged to ban or phase out imports of Russian oil,” the White House said in a statement. This decision “will deal a blow to the main artery irrigating Putin’s economy and deprive him of the income he needs to finance his war”.
At the level of the European Union, negotiations will continue at the beginning of the week between Member States to remove the obstacles to the proposed European embargo on Russian oil, hampered by Hungary.
The United Kingdom announced Sunday evening export bans targeting Russian industry and the increase in customs tariffs, in particular on palladium and platinum.
In Mariupol, a port in southeastern Ukraine almost entirely under Russian control, the Ukrainian soldiers who are still resisting in the huge Azovstal steelworks have ruled out surrendering. “Surrender is not an option, because our life does not interest Russia. Leaving us alive doesn’t matter to him,” said Ilya Samoilenko, an intelligence officer.
PHOTO ALEXEI ALEXANDROV, ASSOCIATED PRESS
The galleries of the Azovstal steelworks house the last defenders of Mariupol.
“The enemy does not cease its offensive operations […] in order to establish full control over the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson regions and maintain the land corridor between these territories and Crimea occupied “by Russia since 2014, warned the general staff of the Ukrainian army.
He said that in the Donetsk region, Russian troops continued their attacks around Lyman, Popasniansky, Severodonetsk and Avdiivka.
“In Severodonetsk alone, there were dozens of strikes and a hospital was also hit,” said the governor of the Luhansk region.
The town of Popasna is now in ruins and the Ukrainian soldiers have withdrawn from it to occupy “better positions”, according to the same source.
On the Russian side, the Ministry of Defense claimed Sunday the destruction of the “command post of a mechanized brigade” Ukrainian, in the region of Kharkiv (north-east), as well as the “communication center of the military aerodrome of Chervonoglinskoye”, in the southwest.
“Evil is back”
“Evil is back” in Europe, “in a different uniform, under different slogans, but with the same objective”, exclaimed the Ukrainian president on Sunday, comparing the invasion of his country by Russia to the aggression of European states by Nazi Germany, in a speech commemorating the end of World War II in Europe.
In Zaporizhia (southeast), 174 civilians, some with young children, arrived on Sunday evening on eight buses “from the hell of Mariupol”, wrote on Twitter the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, Osnat Lubrani. About forty evacuees came from the Azovstal steelworks, which houses the last defenders of the city.
She told AFP that according to her latest information, “there are no more civilians” in the steelworks, specifying that she “was not able to verify”.
Photo GLEB GARANICH, REUTERS
A Ukrainian police officer hugs Vika, 10, a refugee from Mariupol, as he wishes her a happy birthday after arriving at a registration and humanitarian aid center for displaced people in Zaporizhia.
Aid workers escorted elderly people, including an elderly lady in a wheelchair, to a reception centre.
“We were hoping for an evacuation every day,” said Vladymyr Babeush, 41, an evacuee from Azovstal who worked at the factory. “And now we are done waiting. We are so grateful to everyone involved.”
Another evacuee, Dmytro, 17, said he was “very tired” after seventeen hours on the bus. “But I’m happy because there’s fresh air and I’m in Ukraine,” he added.
Already on Saturday, Mr. Zelensky had launched: “We have evacuated the civilians of Azovstal”, citing the number of 300 exfiltrated people. “We are now preparing the second phase […] : the wounded and the medical personnel.
According to Yevgenia Tytarenko, a nurse whose husband, a member of the Azov regiment, is still at the Azovstal factory, “many soldiers are in serious condition. They are injured and have no medicine”. “Food and water are also lacking.”
“Our units in the Azovstal plant area continue to be blocked,” the Ukrainian general staff noted on Sunday, referring to “Russian assault operations” with “the support of artillery and fire of tanks”.
Mariupol, which had nearly 500,000 inhabitants before the war, was almost entirely wiped off the map by two months of Russian bombardment.
President Putin assured Sunday that “as in 1945, the victory will be ours”, multiplying the comparisons between the Second World War and the conflict in Ukraine in his wishes of May 8. However, Russia has so far only been able to claim complete control of one major city, Kherson.
For his part, President Zelensky accused his Russian counterpart of having “forgotten everything that was important for the victors” of 1945.