KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s leader called for more powerful Western weapons as he prepared to meet with top U.S. officials in the war-torn country’s capital on Sunday and Russian forces concentrated his attacks in the east, including the attempt to dislodge the last Ukrainian troops holding out in the battered port city of Mariupol.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the planned visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin during a lengthy press conference held Saturday night at a station of kyiv metro. The White House has not commented.
Zelenskyy said that he was looking for the Americans to produce results, both in terms of weapons and security guarantees. “You can’t come to us empty-handed today, and we’re not just expecting gifts or some kind of cake, we’re expecting specific things and specific weapons,” he said.
The visit would be the first by top US officials since Russia. invaded Ukraine 60 days ago. Blinken briefly set foot on Ukrainian soil in March to meet with the country’s foreign minister during a visit to Poland. Zelenskyy’s last face-to-face meeting with an American leader was on February 19 in Munich with Vice President Kamala Harris.
The meeting was scheduled so that Ukrainians and Russians observed Orthodox Eastercelebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ and considered the happiest holiday in the Christian calendar.
Speaking Sunday from the former Saint Sophia Cathedral, Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, highlighted the allegorical significance of the occasion for a nation torn apart by nearly two months of war.
“Today’s big holiday gives us great hope and unshakeable faith that light will defeat darkness, good will defeat evil, life will defeat death, and therefore Ukraine will surely win!” he said.
Earlier, during his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskyy claimed that intercepted communications recorded Russian troops discussing “how they hide the traces of their crimes.” in Mariupol. The president also highlighted the death of a 3-month-old girl in a Russian missile attack on Saturday in the Black Sea port of Odessa.
Zelenskyy said the Western supporters’ team had been of great help so far, but also stressed that Ukraine needs more heavy weapons, including long-range air defense systems, as well as fighter jets to defend against Russian attacks.
The Russian military reported hitting 423 Ukrainian targets overnight, including fortified positions and troop concentrations, while Russian warplanes destroyed 26 Ukrainian military sites, including an explosives factory and several artillery depots.
Most of Sunday’s fighting was centered in the eastern Donbas region, where Ukrainian forces are concentrated and where Moscow-backed separatists controlled part of the territory before the war. Since they failed to capture kyiv, the Russians intend to gain full control over the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine.
Russian forces launched fresh airstrikes on a Mariupol steel plant, where some 1,000 civilians are sheltering along with some 2,000 Ukrainian fighters. The Azovstal steelworks, where the defenders are hiding, is the last corner of resistance in the city, which the Russians have otherwise occupied.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, called for a localized Easter truce. He urged Russia to allow civilians to leave the plant and suggested talks to negotiate an exit for the Ukrainian soldiers.
Podolyak tweeted that the Russian military was attacking the plant with heavy bombs and artillery while building up forces and equipment for a direct attack.
Mariupol has been the focus of fierce fighting since the start of the war due to its location on the Sea of Azov. Its capture would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, free up Russian troops to fight elsewhere and allow Moscow to establish a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which Ukraine seized in 2014.
More than 100,000 people, down from the pre-war population of around 430,000, are believed to remain in Mariupol with little food, water or heating. Ukrainian authorities estimate that more than 20,000 civilians have been killed.
Satellite images released this week showed what appeared to be mass graves dug up in towns west and east of Mariupol.
Zelenskyy accused the Russians of committing war crimes by killing civilians, as well as setting up “filtration camps” near Mariupol for people caught trying to leave the city. From there, he said, Ukrainians are sent to Russian-occupied areas or to Russia itself, often as far as Siberia or the Far East. Many of them, he said, are children.
The claims could not be independently verified.
In attacks on the eve of Orthodox Easter, Russian forces attacked cities and towns in southern and eastern Ukraine. The 3-month-old baby was among eight people killed when Russia fired cruise missiles at Odessa, Ukrainian officials said.
The Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, citing social media posts, reported that the baby’s mother, Valeria Glodan, and her grandmother were also killed when a missile hit a residential area. Zelenskyy promised to find and punish those responsible for the strike.
“The war started when this baby was a month old,” he said. Can you imagine what is happening? “They are disgusting scum, there are no other words for that.”
For the Donbas offensive, Russia has reassembled the troops that fought around kyiv and in the north of Ukraine earlier. Britain’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had repelled numerous attacks in the past week and “inflicted a significant cost on Russian forces.”
“Low Russian morale and limited time to reconstitute, re-equip and reorganize forces from previous offensives are likely to hamper Russian combat effectiveness,” the ministry said in an intelligence update.
The Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had destroyed a Russian command post in Kherson, a southern city that fell to Russian forces earlier in the war.
The command post was attacked on Friday, killing two generals and seriously wounding another, the Ukrainian military intelligence agency said in a statement. The Russian military did not comment on the claim, which could not be confirmed.
If true, at least nine Russian generals have been killed since the beginning of the invasion, according to Ukrainian reports.
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Associated Press writers Yesica Fisch in Sloviansk, Ukraine, Mstyslav Chernov and Felipe Dana in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Cara Anna and Inna Varenytsia in Kviv, and Associated Press staff members around the world contributed to this story.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
David Keyton, Associated Press
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