Dozens of Ukrainians were feared dead Sunday after a Russian bomb flattened a school sheltering about 90 people in its basement.
The governor of Luhansk province, one of two areas that make up the eastern industrial heartland known as the Donbas, said the school in the village of Bilohorivka caught fire after Saturday’s bombing.
Emergency crews found two bodies and rescued 30 people, he said.
“Most likely, all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” Gov. Serhiy Haidai wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Russian shelling also killed two boys, ages 11 and 14, in the nearby town of Pryvillia, he said.
Ukraine and the West have accused Russian forces of targeting civilians in the war, which Moscow denies. Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
More civilians evacuated from steel plant
In the ruined southeastern port city of Mariupol, scores of civilians have been rescued from a sprawling steel plant in a weeklong operation brokered by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address late on 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 medics. 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’s unclear where all of the evacuees are headed. 5:09
Russian-backed separatists on Saturday reported a total of 176 civilians evacuated from the plant.
The Azovstal plant is a last holdout for Ukrainian forces in the city now largely controlled by Russia, and many civilians had taken refuge in its underground shelters. It has become a symbol of resistance to the Russian effort to capture swaths of Ukraine’s east and south.
‘We will continue to fight’
Ukrainian fighters at the steel plant vowed on Sunday to continue their stand, rejecting deadlines set by the Russians for laying down their arms.
“We will continue to fight as long as we are alive to repel the Russian occupiers,” Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, told an online conference. The regiment is a far-right armed group that was folded into Ukraine’s National Guard after Russia’s first invasion in 2014.
“We don’t have much time; we are coming under intense shelling,” he said, pleading with the international community to help to evacuate wounded soldiers from the plant.
Lt. Illya Samoilenko, another member of the Azov Regiment, said there were a couple of hundred wounded soldiers at the plant but declined to reveal how many were still able to fight. He said fighters didn’t have lifesaving equipment and had to dig by hand to free people from bunkers that had collapsed under the shelling.
“Surrender for us is unacceptable because we cannot grant such a gift to the enemy,” Samoilenko said.
The Ukrainian government has reached out to international organizations to try to secure safe passage for the fighters.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin donned a helmet and a flak jacket on Sunday as he visited Mariupol and did a brief tour of the waterfront. Video provided by the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic showed Khusnullin visiting the port along with the head of the republic, Denis Pushilin.
Mariupol is key to blocking Ukrainian exports and linking the Crimean Peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014, and parts of the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk that have been controlled by Russia-backed separatists since that same year.
Trudeau, Zelensky meet in Kyiv
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Sunday for a meeting with Zelensky in the capital, Kyiv. Trudeau also briefly toured Irpin, a bombed-out community located on the outskirts of Kyiv.
The Prime Minister’s Office said he scheduled the visit to show Canada’s support for the country and its people. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly are with Trudeau.
Trudeau also attended a flag-raising event to mark the reopening of the Canadian Embassy in Kyiv. Canada had announced the closing of its embassy on Feb. 12 amid fears of an imminent invasion by Russia.
During a surprise visit to Ukraine, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged further support for the country amid Russia’s ongoing invasion. 1:00
Representatives from most Western countries fled Ukraine as the war erupted, but more than two dozen have already returned, even as the conflict drags on.
Jill Biden pays surprise visit to Ukraine
U.S. first lady Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday, holding a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with Zelensky’s wife, Olena, in the town of Uzhhorod, close to the border with Slovakia.
“I wanted to come on Mother’s Day,” Biden told Olena Zelenska as the two came together in a small classroom.
“I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop and this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine,” Biden said.
Zelensky holds video call with G7 leaders
In an emotional address on Sunday for Victory in Europe Day, when Europe commemorates the formal surrender in 1945 of Germany to the Allies in the Second World War, Zelensky said that “the evil has returned” to Ukraine with the Russian invasion but that his country would prevail.
U.S. President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders held a video call with Zelensky on Sunday in a show of unity ahead of Victory Day celebrations on Monday in Russia.
The White House said in a statement that the full G7 had committed to “phasing out or banning the import of Russian oil” and would work together “to ensure stable global energy supplies, while accelerating our efforts to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.”
Underlining Western support for Ukraine, Britain pledged to provide a further 1.3 billion pounds ($2.1 billion Cdn) in military support and aid, double its previous spending commitments.
Putin speech to be closely watched
Victory Day is a major event in Russia, and Putin will preside on Monday over a parade in Moscow’s Red Square of troops, tanks, rockets and intercontinental ballistic missiles, showing military might even as his forces fight on in Ukraine.
His speech could offer clues on the future of the war. Russia’s efforts have been stymied by logistical and equipment problems and high casualties in the face of fierce resistance.
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency director 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 in which he doesn’t believe he can afford to lose,” Burns told a Financial Times event in Washington on Saturday.
Reference-www.cbc.ca