Russia resumed its bombardment of Odessa, the large port city in southern Ukraine, on Monday, firing a missile that caused at least one death, while the United States accused the Russian government of wanting to “annex” two pro-Russian separatist territories in the east.
Russian forces are concentrating their efforts in the southern and eastern part of the country, in particular the Donbas region and in Odessa, on the shores of the Black Sea, after failing to take the capital kyiv in the first weeks of the war. .
The Odessa city council reported on Telegram that a Russian bombardment reached a residential building in which there were five people and that a 15-year-old teenager died, while a minor was hospitalized.
The fighting is especially intense around Izium, Lyman, and Rubijné, positions that the Russians are trying to take to “prepare their attack on Severodonetsk”, one of the main Donbas cities still controlled by kyiv, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Monday.
“The situation in the Lugansk region can be described in a few words: heavy fighting is still going on,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry warned.
As May 9 approaches, the date Russia commemorates victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, the governor of the Luhansk region said he expected “an intensification of bombing.”
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared to dismiss that idea. “Our military will not artificially adjust their actions to any date,” he said in an interview with Italy’s Mediaset television channel on Sunday.
annexation plans
But, beyond Russia’s military decisions, the United States warned that Moscow is planning to hold referendums “in mid-May” to “try to annex” the pro-Russian separatist “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east.
“Moscow foresees a similar plan for Kherson”, a Ukrainian coastal city controlled by Russia since it launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Michael carpenter
According to him, “these mock referendums, orchestrated votes, will not be considered legitimate, nor will any attempt to annex other Ukrainian territories.”
Previously, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense had also estimated that it is possible that Russia will take the opportunity to “raise the question” of an integration of the “republics” self-proclaimed by the pro-Russian separatists in Donbas to the Russian Federation, after Moscow recognized its independence on the eve of the invasion.
evacuations
Throughout Monday, the Ukrainian authorities hoped to resume the evacuations of civilians from Mariupol, which began over the weekend with the departure of a hundred people from the large Azovstal steelworks, the last stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance in the port city in the south of the Donbas, almost totally controlled by Russian forces.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, thousands of civilians have fled Mariupol, where Ukrainian authorities believe that between 100,000 and 120,000 people still remain.
In this city, which before the war had a population of half a million inhabitants, the kyiv authorities fear that 20,000 people have died since the start of the harsh siege by Russian troops, which has left this port reduced to rubble.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk stated that “hundreds of civilians are still trapped.”
In Zaporizhia, about 200 km northwest of Mariúpol, vehicles from UNICEF and international NGOs had been deployed to receive the evacuees, in a parking lot converted into a reception point for refugees, AFP noted.
But no convoy got there on Monday. In the evening, the Azov regiment, which is involved in the defense of the metallurgical complex, said in a statement released on Telegram that “after the partial evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal territory, the enemy continues to fire on the territory of the factory, including buildings where civilians are hiding.
In a video posted on Mariupol’s Azov Regiment channel, the regiment’s deputy commander, Sviatoslav Palamar, explained that the ceasefire had been delayed on Monday and that the vehicles tasked with evacuating civilians arrived in the late afternoon.
The operations, which began on Saturday coordinated by Ukraine, Russia, the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), allowed, for the first time in two months of siege and bombardment against the city, to evacuate “more than 100 civilians” who were still sheltering in the cellars of the steel mill, according to President Volodimir Zelenski.
In almost ten weeks of war, more than 5.4 million Ukrainians have fled their country, according to the UN, and more than 7.7 million have been internally displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
For his part, the Russian foreign minister caused controversy after being questioned about the statement that his country seeks to “denazify” Ukraine, taking into account that the Ukrainian president is Jewish, for his response in which he stated that Hitler “had Jewish blood.”
His Israeli counterpart called the claims “scandalous” and summoned the Russian ambassador for “explanations.”
Return of diplomats to kyiv
Meanwhile, Western powers have increased their shipments of heavy weapons to Ukraine and are slowly relocating diplomatic missions to kyiv, as many delegations have been transferred to Lviv in the west of the country.
Following the trend of several European countries, the United States hopes to return to the Ukrainian capital “before the end of the month,” Washington’s charge d’affaires Kristina Kvien announced on Monday.
The European Union (EU) seeks to increase pressure on Russia by tightening sanctions.
The energy ministers of the 27 made reference this Monday in Brussels to a calendar to progressively abandon their imports of Russian oil, which represent 30% of their total imports of crude oil.
Likewise, the EU reiterated its refusal to pay in rubles for purchases of Russian gas.
Another setback against Moscow came from UEFA, which on Monday announced the exclusion of Russian clubs from its European competitions next season, including the lucrative Champions League.
Russia had already been excluded from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and suspended from all international competitions “until further notice.”