Some 60 people were feared dead in the Russian shelling of a village school in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region, the regional governor said on Sunday.
Governor Serhiy Gaidai said Russian forces dropped a bomb on Saturday afternoon at the school where some 90 people were sheltering in the basement, sparking a fire that engulfed the building.
“The fire was extinguished after almost four hours, then the rubble was removed and unfortunately the bodies of two people were found,” Gaidai wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“Thirty people were evacuated from the rubble, seven of whom were injured. Sixty people are likely to have died under the rubble of the buildings.”
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Ukraine and the West have accused Russian forces of targeting civilians in the war, which Moscow denies.
More civilians evacuated from steel plant
In the blighted southeastern port city of Mariupol, dozens of civilians have been rescued from a sprawling steel plant in a week-long operation brokered by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech late Saturday that more than 300 civilians had been rescued from the Azovstal steelworks and authorities would now focus on trying to evacuate the wounded and doctors. Other Ukrainian sources have cited different figures.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister says all women, children and the elderly have been evacuated from a besieged steel mill in Mariupol. It is unclear where all the evacuees are headed. 5:09
Russian-backed separatists reported on Saturday that a total of 176 civilians had been evacuated from the plant.
The Azovstal plant is the last holdout for Ukrainian forces in the now largely Russian-controlled city, and many civilians have taken refuge in its underground bunkers. It has become a symbol of resistance to the Russian effort to capture swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine.
‘We will keep fighting’
Ukrainian fighters at the steel plant vowed on Sunday to continue their stand.
“We will continue to fight as long as we are alive to repel the Russian occupiers,” Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, told an online conference. The regiment is a far-right armed group that was incorporated into the National Guard of Ukraine after Russia’s first invasion in 2014.
“We don’t have much time; we are under heavy bombardment,” he said, pleading with the international community to help evacuate wounded soldiers from the plant.
Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the invasion he launched on February 24 a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of Western-sponsored anti-Russian nationalism. Ukraine and its allies say Russia launched an unprovoked war.
Zelensky will hold video call with G7 leaders
Mariupol is key to blocking Ukrainian exports and linking the Crimean peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014, and parts of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions that have been controlled by Russian-backed separatists since that year.
In an emotional speech Sunday for Victory in Europe Day, when Europe commemorates the formal 1945 surrender of Germany to the Allies in World War II, Zelensky said “evil has returned” to Ukraine with the Russian invasion but that his country would prevail.
US President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders were to hold a video call with Zelensky on Sunday in a show of unity ahead of Monday’s Victory Day celebrations in Russia.
Underscoring Western support for Ukraine, Britain has pledged to provide a further 1.3 billion pounds ($2.1 billion Canadian) in military aid and support, double its previous spending commitments.
Jill Biden makes surprise visit to Ukraine
US first lady Jill Biden paid an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday and held a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with Zelensky’s wife Olena in the near-border city of Uzhhorod. with Slovakia.
“She wanted to come on Mother’s Day,” Biden told Olena Zelenska as the two met in a small classroom.
“I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop and that this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine,” Biden said.
Putin’s speech will be closely watched
Victory Day is a major event in Russia, and Putin will preside over a parade of troops, tanks, rockets and ICBMs on Monday in Moscow’s Red Square, showcasing military might even as his forces fight in Ukraine.
His speech could offer clues to the future of the war. Russia’s efforts have been hampered by logistical and equipment problems and high casualties in the face of fierce resistance.
The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, said on Saturday that Putin was convinced that “doubling down” on the conflict would improve the outcome for Russia.
“He’s in a frame of mind where he doesn’t think he can afford to lose,” Burns told a Financial Times event in Washington on Saturday.
Attacks repelled in eastern Ukraine, army says
Mariupol, which sits between the Crimean peninsula seized by Moscow in 2014 and parts of eastern Ukraine seized by Russian-backed separatists that year, is key to uniting the two Russian-controlled territories.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Sunday that Ukrainian units near the Azovstal plant continued to be blocked and that Russia continued its artillery and tank assault on Mariupol.
Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine is aimed at establishing full control over the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, where pro-Russian separatists have declared breakaway republics, and maintaining the land corridor between these territories and Crimea.
Ukrainian forces in the two regions repulsed nine enemy attacks, destroying 19 tanks, 20 combat vehicles and one unit of enemy special engineering equipment, the General Staff said on Sunday. Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.
Reference-www.cbc.ca