Odesa, in ruins after the Russian bombardment


Buildings of Odessa are in ruins after Kremlin forces bombarded the southern Ukrainian port with missiles. The attack came after the Russian President Vladimir Putin will defiantly lead the celebrations to mark the soviet victory on Nazi Germany on the WWII. The Russian offensive is also continuing in various regions of the country, such as Luhansk, Kharkiv and Dnipro.

Although Putin kept quiet about plans for an escalation, he urged the Russians to fight back and repeated his claims that they were fighting again against the nazis. His forces continue to destroy the infrastructure of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupolwhere the last Ukrainian troops resist.

“You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War II. So that there is no place in the world for executioners, punishers and Nazis,” Putin said in his speech. In parallel, the President of Ukraine Volodomir Zelenski, in his own speech on Monday, promised that the Ukrainians would triumph. “On Victory Day over Nazism, we fight for a new victory. The road to it is difficult, but we have no doubt that we will win,” Zelensky said.

In Odessathe main Black Sea port for the export of agricultural products, one person was killed and five were injured when seven missiles hit a shopping center and a warehouse, the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Facebook. Video footage from the scene showed firefighters and rescue teams combing through mounds of rubble and spraying down the still-smoldering wreckage.

Search for alternative routes

Ukraine and its allies have intensified their efforts to unblock the ports or provide alternative routes for export its important grain crops, wheat and corn, blocked since the invasion.

The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, visited Odessa on Monday, and his meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal was interrupted by the missile attack. Their talks continued in a bomb shelter, according to Shmyhal’s official Twitter account.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Russian forces, backed by tanks and artillery, were carrying out “assault operations” on the Azovstal plant of Mariupol, where hundreds of Ukrainian defenders have held out during months of siege. Mariupol it sits between the Crimean peninsula, seized by Moscow in 2014, and parts of eastern Ukraine under the control of Russian-backed separatists. The capture of the city would allow Moscow to unite both zones.

migratory exodus

More than 5.5 million Ukrainians have fled their country since the Russian invasion on February 24, according to the United Nations, which has described it as the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War. However, Moscow’s gains from the invasion have been slower than expected at best.

The US President Joe Biden, said he was concerned that Putin does not have a way out at the moment. Various sources claim that the United States Democratic legislators they have agreed to a $40 billion aid proposal for Ukraine, which includes a massive package of new weapons.

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The White House had earlier called Putin’s remarks during his Victory Day speech “revisionist history that took the form of disinformation.”

The Soviet victory in World War II has taken on an almost religious status in Russia under Putin, who has invoked the memory of the “Great Patriotic War” throughout what he calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.


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