Mariupol defenders can’t hope for support as Kyiv suburbs under fire

Berlin Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Russia to engage in serious and honest talks on a peace settlement. Ukraine reported several deaths and injuries in renewed Russian attacks.

The military situation

Fighting continued on several fronts in Ukraine. In the town of Bucha, northwest of the capital Kyiv, seven civilians were killed by shelling on Friday, the police of the Kyiv region said.

In the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, the regional police authority said dozens of people were dead and injured in attacks on Friday. The information could not initially be independently verified.

Ten escape corridors have been set up for the harassed civilian population in the war zones. One leads from the city of Mariupol in the south, which has been particularly hard fought for days, towards the central Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia.

Four corridors led from the embattled Luhansk region in the east of the country to the city of Bakhmut. Further escape routes were set up from villages and towns around the capital Kyiv.

A day and a half curfew was imposed in Zaporizhia. By Monday morning at 6:00 a.m. (5:00 a.m.CET), the city’s train station will also be closed, the Ukrainian railway company said.

The Ukrainian defenders of the embattled port of Mariupol on the Sea of ​​Azov cannot hope for reinforcements. Oleksiy Arestovych, an aide to Ukraine’s president, said Friday night that the closest forces that could help those in Mariupol are already engaged in battles against “overwhelming enemy power” at least 100 kilometers away — or both. “There is currently no military solution for Mariupol,” he said. “That’s not just my opinion, that’s the military’s opinion.”

According to Ukrainian data, 400,000 people are trapped in the port city. Zelensky again accused Russia of preventing aid deliveries to besieged cities.

The Russian military announced the first combat use of the hypersonic missile Kinzhal. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konoshenkov said on Saturday that an underground ammunition depot of the Ukrainian Air Force in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region was destroyed.

Konashenkov also said Russian forces used the Bastion anti-ship missile system to attack military installations near Odessa. Russia first used this weapon system in Syria in 2016.

The Ukrainian Navy has mined the ports of Odessa, Ochakiv, Chornomorsk and Pivdenny, the Russian domestic secret service FSB said on Saturday in Moscow. However, some of the more than 420 anchored sea mines were torn loose in the storm. That threatens ships on the Black Sea. In the worst case, mines could drift through the Turkish straits into the Mediterranean, the FSB statement said.

The Ukrainian portal BlackSeaNews, which specializes in shipping, also quoted the Russian warning of floating sea mines on Saturday. However, citing its own sources, it reported that the Russian Black Sea Fleet laid the sea mines on the route between Odessa and the Bosphorus. There was no independent confirmation of this.

The United States wants to send a contingent of troops to Bulgaria to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank. Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said after talks with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Sofia on Saturday. This contingent is said to be under the command of NATO’s supreme commander in Europe.

The humanitarian situation

The Ukrainian President has accused the Russian armed forces of wanting to bring the population to its knees by blockading the largest cities. He said the Russians were preventing supplies from reaching the encircled towns in the center of the country and the south-east. He warned on Saturday that this strategy will fail and Moscow will lose in the long run if it does not end the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the EU Commission is even warning of an impending famine in the country. “People in the besieged cities are exposed to apocalyptic conditions – no food, no water, no medical care and no way out,” said Janez Lenarcic, the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Protection in the “Welt am Sonntag”.

The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is already critical, but it could get worse. “This ruthless invasion began more than three weeks ago, but we are already beginning to see famine developing.”

A special focus is once again on the port city of Mariupol, which has epitomized the horror of the Russian invasion of Ukraine since the beginning of the war. Eyewitnesses from the city report that supermarkets have been looted and that people are already starving.

So far, essential supplies have always made it into the city, says Lenarcic. “The big problem is access. It is an obligation to provide humanitarian access without any obstacle.”

Since the start of the Russian invasion, Ukraine has evacuated 190,000 civilians from front-line areas via evacuation corridors, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a television interview.

Corridors in the Kyiv and Luhansk regions were open on Saturday, but a planned corridor to the besieged eastern port city of Mariupol is only partially functional as buses from Russian troops are not allowed through.

In Germany, the federal police have registered 207,742 war refugees since the beginning of the Russian attack, according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior on Saturday. However, the number of people who actually arrived is likely to be significantly higher.

According to the UN, more than 3.1 million people have fled Ukraine abroad since then. Around two million people have arrived in Poland alone so far.

The situation at the peace talks

The Ukrainian President has called on Russia to engage in serious talks on a peace settlement. “I want everyone to hear me, especially in Moscow. It’s time to meet, it’s time to talk,” Zelenskiy said in a video message on Saturday, as fighting in Ukraine continued unabated.

Zelensky demanded that Ukraine’s territorial integrity be restored. Otherwise, Russia will suffer losses from which it will take several generations to recover. Ukraine has always shown its willingness to engage in honest talks on peace and security without delay.

>> Read here: Scenarios for the end of the Ukraine war: A long road to the ceasefire

Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on a ceasefire have so far yielded no results. Both sides accuse each other of delaying tactics.

According to the Russian news agency Interfax, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expects the operation in Ukraine to end with the signing of a comprehensive agreement on security issues, including a neutral status for Ukraine.

The United States has warned China against military aid to Russia. However, according to Lavrov, the connection between Russia and China will only grow stronger under the given circumstances. “At a time when the West is blatantly undermining all the foundations on which the international system is based, we – as two great powers – need to think about how to proceed in this world,” he was quoted as saying by Interfax.

More on the Ukraine war:

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called for tougher sanctions by the European Union against Russia. His country is proposing a trade blockade, which must come into force as soon as possible, he said, according to the PAP agency. This must include both a ban on Russian ships carrying Russian goods entering European seaports and a ban on overland trade.

The two former British Prime Ministers Gordon Brown (Labour) and John Major (Conservative) spoke out in favor of a separate war crimes tribunal for Ukraine. The background to this is that an indictment against Russian President Vladimir Putin at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for ordering a war of aggression against Ukraine is unlikely, Brown told the BBC.

The warring parties have been conducting negotiations on this since February 28, most recently via video link almost daily. In addition to Ukraine’s neutrality, Russia is striving to demilitarize the country, among other things. In addition to an immediate ceasefire, Ukraine is demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops and subsequent concrete security guarantees.

With agency material

More: Still a civilian yesterday – “Today I sent 20 soldiers to the front”