Ukraine: 1,000 fighters remain in Azovstal, hundreds wounded

LAST UPDATE: 15.31

Damaged buildings were found Tuesday in Ukraine’s southern port of Odessa, a day after Russian forces pounded it with rockets and as Russia celebrated Victory Day over Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. In a speech in Moscow’s Red Square, Russian President Vladimir Putin recalled the memory of Soviet war heroism to inspire his army fighting in Ukraine, but did not provide information on the course of the war and acknowledged that Russian soldiers had been lost in the war. battles with Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a statement on the anniversary of May 9, promised that the Ukrainians would triumph, saying: “The road is difficult, but we have no doubt that we will win.”

What is happening on Ukrainian soil

The Ukrainian soldiers who are trapped in Azofstal of Mariupol They say there was heavy bombardment during the night and, for a while, they lost contact with the area hospital. The deputy commander of the Azov Battalion, Captain Svyatoslav Palamar, said the bombing continued overnight and that Russian planes were involved.

“There are injured, many are seriously injured,” he said, adding that they needed immediate delivery.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry had earlier said that Russian-backed tanks and artillery forces were conducting “raid operations” in Azovstal, where the city’s last defenders had taken refuge.

“At least a thousand” Ukrainian fighters, including “hundreds of wounded”, are still in the Azovstal steel plant, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Veresuk told AFP today.

“After the evacuation of all civilians last week with the help of the UN,” at least a thousand “fighters, including” hundreds of wounded “, remain in the underground galleries of this huge metallurgical complex, Irina Veresuk told AFP by telephone.

“There are seriously injured people who urgently need to be evacuated,” he said, adding that “the situation is deteriorating day by day” at the steel plant, the last stronghold of Ukrainian forces against the Russian army in the devastated city of Mariupol. Sea of ​​Azov.

Veresuk also denied information provided by two regional officials that civilians were still in the steel industry.

“It’s not true,” he said, adding that the Azov Battalion chief, who has been fortified in the steel industry, had officially told Ukrainian government officials and a UN spokesman that “no civilians, women, children or the elderly remain in Azovstal.”

Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boichenko, for his part, declined to say whether he was “100% sure” that all civilians had been evacuated from Azofstal, stressing that “it is not possible” to be verified until there is a viable ceasefire in the field.

“The situation was and remains very difficult,” he told an online news conference, adding that “very fierce fighting” had resumed in Azovstal with the end of the evacuations.

Ukrainian authorities are “working” on the possible removal of wounded soldiers, medical personnel and military priests of the steel industry, while hoping for help from international organizations and Turkey, Veresuk said.

“The medical staff want to leave with the injured, because they have to accompany them” in case a “humanitarian corridor” opens from the steel industry, he added.

He said such an operation could “take at least a week” given the number of injured who had to be “transported by stretcher”.

As Azovstal’s military has repeatedly called on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for help, Veresuk stressed that “Turkey is working closely with Kyiv”.

“They really want to help,” the official said, adding that such a removal could be done by sea on a Turkish boat equipped with a military hospital.

“We want it very much and the Turks are ready,” but Kyiv is seeking “guarantees that Russia will not start firing” during the evacuation, Veresuk said.

“Absolute guarantees are needed in writing, that is what we are trying to ensure,” he said.

In Odessaone of the most important ports of the Black Sea for the export of agricultural products, one person was killed and five were injured when seven rockets hit a shopping center and a warehouse, the Ukrainian armed forces said on Facebook.

Airstrikes and rockets interrupted a meeting between European Council President Charles Michel, who was visiting Odessa, and Ukrainian Prime Minister Dennis Smihal, forcing them to go to a bomb shelter.

In some eastern regions of Ukraine, the Luhanskthe Kharkiv and Dniproair raid sirens were heard early Tuesday.

The Ukrainian military said yesterday that Russia was holding back some of its forces within its borders to prevent a Ukrainian counterattack that has made some progress east of the country. Kharkiv. Inside Ukraine, the General Staff says the most intense activity is in its territory Donetskwhere Russian forces are trying to advance towards the city Portan important transport hub.

In the Russian-occupied southern city Hersonissos, incessant bombing has turned buildings into ruins. In the nearby villages, the fields are covered with debris. But many residents can not leave according to CNN.

The bodies of 44 civilians were found in Izium

The bodies of 44 civilians were found in the rubble of a five-storey building in Izium that was destroyed by Russian forces in March, according to a Ukrainian official.

“The bodies of 44 civilians were found in the temporarily occupied Izium under the rubble of a five-storey building that was destroyed by the occupiers in the first ten days of March,” said Oleg Sinegubov, head of the BBC’s regional military administration.

“This is another horrific war crime of the Russian army against the civilian population,” he told the Telegram.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify these allegations.

WHERE: 200 attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine since the start of the war

The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 200 attacks on health care facilities in Ukraine since the start of the war, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday, calling on Russia to “stop this war.”

Speaking from Kyiv after spending two days in Ukraine, Tedros said he was “deeply moved” by what he saw and heard, according to CNN.

Tedros said the attacks on healthcare facilities “must stop”, adding: “There is a medicine that the WHO can not give and that Ukraine needs more than any other, and that is peace.”

The United States is “seeing signs” that Ukrainians are being displaced against their will in Russia

Pentagon spokesman John Kerby said Monday that the United States was “seeing signs” that Ukrainians were being transferred to Russia against their will.

“Of course we have seen indications that Ukrainians are being transferred to Russia, I can not say how many camps there are or what they look like,” Kerby told accredited authors at the Pentagon.

“But we have indications that Ukrainians are being displaced against their will in Russia,” he said, calling it “outrageous” as opposed to “responsible force”.

“You do not have to look far to see evidence of Russian barbarism,” the Pentagon spokesman said. “Every time you think that (the Russians) can not fall lower, they prove to you that you are wrong,” he added.

On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that about 1.16 million Ukrainians have been transferred from their homeland to Russia since the Russian military invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, including about 205,000 children.

Kyiv and Washington complain that Moscow is involuntarily deporting Ukrainian citizens and not allowing them to return to territories controlled by the Ukrainian government. Russia denies it, saying the purpose of the civilian movement is to save it from hostilities, especially in the eastern part of the country.