Chernihiv and Kharkiv under heavy fire

Dusseldorf, Frankfurt Russia on Sunday intensified its attacks on targets in Ukraine, increasingly using highly destructive weapons. According to Ukrainian sources, targets in which civilians were staying were again shot at. In Kharkiv, a multi-story apartment building was shot at, in Mariupol an art school with many civilians. According to military information from Kyiv, heavy fighting is also continuing around the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv.

The general military situation

The Russian military has used the new Kinzhal hypersonic missile in its war against Ukraine for the second time in two days, according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow. Kalibr cruise missiles were also fired at Ukraine from ships in the Black and Caspian Seas. The targets were an armaments repair factory in Nizhyn in the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine and Ovruch in the northern Zhytomyr region, where foreign fighters and Ukrainian special forces are said to have been stationed, the Russians said.

According to Ukrainian sources, however, the front lines between the Ukrainian and Russian armed forces are currently “virtually frozen”. Russia does not have enough fighting power to advance further, said Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych in a video address. At the same time, seven escape corridors for civilians were set up in the embattled cities of Ukraine on Sunday.

As the British “Financial Times” reported on Sunday morning with reference to high-ranking Ukrainian military officers, the Russian army is currently regrouping in order to launch another attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. At the same time, Russia would try to cut off the route to the northern Ukrainian cities of Sumy and Chernihiv.

Ukraine also fears an attack on the western Volyn region from Belarus, according to the Presidential Office, citing the military. The probability is high. It remains unclear whether the attack could be carried out by Russian troops from Belarusian soil or by the Belarusian military. So far, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been concentrated in the north, south and east of the country.

However, according to the British MoD, Ukraine has continued to be successful in defending the country’s airspace. The Ukrainian Air Force and Air Defense Forces would “continue to effectively defend it,” the ministry said on Twitter.

Russia has failed to achieve air supremacy and relies largely on standoff weapons fired from the relative safety of Russian airspace to hit targets in Ukraine. Gaining control of the airspace was one of Russia’s main goals in the early days of the war. The continued failure to do so has “significantly impacted Russia’s operational progress.”

The situation in the contested cities

The situation is particularly dramatic in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. In the city of 400,000, the Russian military is said to have bombed an art school where around 400 people were seeking shelter, including women, children and the elderly. This was announced by the local authorities in Mariupol on Sunday in the Telegram news channel.

The building was destroyed in the attack on Saturday. “People are still under the rubble.” Initially, no information was given about the victims. The city council blamed Russian troops. However, this could not be independently verified.

A theater in Mariupol, where people had sought shelter from air raids, had also been attacked earlier. Those who were buried were rescued. For days, however, it has been unclear how many dead and injured there were in this incident. Around 40,000 people have fled the fighting in Mariupol within a week. The city council said so.

The strategically important port city has been surrounded by Russian troops and has been subjected to relentless Russian bombardment for the past three weeks. The city is cut off from energy, food and water supplies.

At least 2,300 people were killed, according to local authorities, some of whom had to be buried in mass graves. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address to the nation that the siege of Mariupol will go down in history because of war crimes by Russian troops.

The city of Kharkiv, besieged by Russian troops and home to 1.5 million people before the start of the war, continues to come under artillery shelling, Ukraine’s Unian agency reported. Several residential buildings were hit and caught fire on Saturday evening. The information could not be independently verified.

Heavy fighting also raged on in Chernihiv. “Chernihiv is defended,” the Ukrainian army announced on Sunday. The city near the Belarusian border is under fire. There is no electricity and no heating. Many residents are without gas.

In contrast, the night around the capital Kyiv was comparatively quiet. The “enemy” erected fortifications. But there was fighting around the town of Bucha northwest of Kyiv, as well as around Hostomel and Worsel. According to the military, the shelling on the suburbs of the city of Sumy in north-eastern Ukraine has been going on for more than a week.

None of the information has been independently verified.

The humanitarian situation

In the embattled cities of Ukraine, seven escape corridors for civilians were set up on Sunday. Aid goods should also be brought to the cities via the routes, said the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Wereschuk in Kyiv. The corridors were laid out in the areas around the capital Kyiv and Kharkiv and from the port city of Mariupol, which was particularly hard hit by fighting, in the direction of the city of Zaporizhia.

Buses are ready for the people, said Wereshchuk. You can also leave Mariupol by car. Transport options should also be organized for people who have already set off on foot. The escape routes and routes for the aid deliveries are announced anew for each day.

In addition to Mariupol, the situation is particularly dramatic in Chernihiv. “The indiscriminate artillery shelling of residential areas continues, peaceful people are dying,” said Mayor Vladislav Atrashenko, according to the Ukrainian agency Unian. The city is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe. “The city’s infrastructure has been completely destroyed.”

The hospital in the city of 300,000 is repeatedly shot at, which is why medical care has collapsed. In addition, no escape corridor has been set up for the city so far.

After a rocket attack by Russian troops on a barracks in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine on Friday, helpers recovered at least 50 dead from the rubble on Saturday. A total of around 200 soldiers were sleeping in the building when the rockets hit, the online newspaper Ukrajinska Pravda reported on Saturday. Almost 60 injured were taken to nearby hospitals. The information on the number of victims could not be independently verified.

The status of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia

According to Turkey, Ukraine and Russia are converging on critical points. There is almost an agreement on some issues, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the daily Hurriyet. He hoped for a ceasefire, provided there was no regression in the talks between the two countries and the progress made was thereby nullified.

The Ukrainian President Zelensky also commented on the ongoing negotiations with Russia. They are “not easy or pleasant, but they are necessary,” he said. Zelensky said he discussed the course of Saturday’s talks with French President Emmanuel Macron. “Ukraine has always sought a peaceful solution. Moreover, we are now interested in peace,” he said.

He also addressed the Russian population with martial words about heavy Russian war losses. In some places, the Russian military does not recover the bodies of its soldiers. “In places where there has been particularly heavy fighting, the bodies of Russian soldiers are simply piled up along our line of defences. And nobody is collecting these corpses, these bodies,” he continued. “And they’re chasing new units over them, any reserves that the Russian commanders are gathering somewhere.”
Zelensky described a battle near Chernobaivka in the south in which Ukrainian forces held their positions and the Russians repulsed six times. This would have simply sent their people on “to the slaughter”.

He can understand that Russia has almost endless reserves of soldiers and military equipment. “But I would like to know from the citizens of Russia: what has been done to you over the years that you did not notice your losses?”. More than 14,000 Russian soldiers have already been killed. “That’s 14,000 mothers, 14,000 fathers, wives, children, relatives, friends – and you don’t notice it?”

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The Ukrainian account of the killed Russian soldiers cannot be independently verified – just as little as that of their own military losses, which the state leadership put at around 1,300 soldiers around a week ago. So far, the Russian side has officially confirmed just under 500 of their own casualties.

Rail connections between Ukraine and Belarus probably interrupted

Belarusian railway workers have apparently cut off all rail connections between Belarus and Ukraine. The chairman of the Ukrainian railways, Olexander Kamyshin, thanked his colleagues in Belarus for the unspecified action on Saturday.

“As of today I can say that there is no rail traffic between Belarus and Ukraine,” he was quoted as saying by the Ukrainian agency Unian. This would mean that Russian troops in Ukraine would not receive reinforcements or supplies via these routes.

An adviser to the Belarusian opposition icon Svetlana Tichanovskaya also reported on the alleged action on Twitter. “Heroes! Belarusian railway workers have cut the railway connection with Ukraine, so trains with Russian equipment cannot go to Ukraine,” wrote Franak Viachorka.

The alleged action could not be confirmed by independent sources. Although Russian troops have invaded Ukraine from Belarus, authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is considered a protégé of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, has so far refused to allow his troops to take part in the war in the neighboring country.

With agency material

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