Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski denounced on Sunday a new “act of terror” after the bombing of a school in Mariupol, although he was willing to negotiate with Vladimir Putin to end the attacks by Russia, which again used a hypersonic missile .
The bombardments, in particular on the besieged port city of Mariupol (southeast), whose streets are littered with corpses according to witnesses, come at a time of difficulties in the negotiations, although Turkey said on Sunday that the parties were “close to a agreement”.
The Ukrainian president said he was willing to negotiate with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
“I have been ready for the last two years and I believe that without negotiations the war will not stop,” Zelensky said in an interview broadcast on the US network CNN.
He had previously denounced the bombing of the Mariúpol art school, destroyed by Russian attacks when 400 people, including women, children and the elderly, took refuge there, according to local authorities.
– ‘Terror act’ –
“The building has been destroyed and people are still under the rubble. The death toll is still being clarified,” the city council said. This information has not yet been verified.
Inflicting “something like that on a peaceful city … is an act of terror,” Zelensky said, denouncing a “war crime.”
Greece’s consul general in Mariupol, Manolis Androulakis, the last remaining European diplomat there, said on his return to Athens that the besieged city “will join the list of cities in the world completely destroyed by war, like Guernica, Stalingrad, Grozny or Aleppo”.
In kyiv, a shell exploded outside a building on Sunday, injuring at least five people, two of whom were hospitalized, Mayor Vitali Klichko said.
The 10-story building is badly damaged and all its windows have been destroyed, according to AFP journalists on the spot.
“My sister was on the balcony when it happened, she almost died,” said Anna, 30, who lives in the building.
Separately, three people were also wounded on Sunday in an airstrike in the western region of Khitomir, where Friday’s attacks on a barracks had left dozens dead.
– No progress on the front –
Despite this, the Ukrainian authorities reported a certain calm on the front this Sunday.
“The front is practically frozen”, there have been “virtually no missile attacks on the cities” and “Russian aviation is practically not active”, with only “tactical actions” by both sides, said Oleksiy Arestovich, adviser to the presidency. ukrainian
The Russian Defense Ministry, which says it is not targeting any civilian targets or residential areas, claimed to have destroyed a fuel depot in the Mikolaiv region (south) with “‘Kalibr’ cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea, as well as by hypersonic ballistic missiles fired by the ‘Kinjal’ aeronautical system from the airspace of Crimea”.
These missiles belong to a family of new generation “invincible” weapons, according to Vladimir Putin.
With the use of such weapons, Russia is “trying to regain momentum” in the conflict in which its army is struggling, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, stating that these weapons are “not a game changer.”
– 10 million people fled –
Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation continues to worsen. “The war in Ukraine is so devastating that 10 million people have fled, either as internally displaced persons or as refugees abroad,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said on Sunday.
The humanitarian situation in Mariupol, as in other besieged cities, is dramatic.
Some families recounted bodies lying in the streets for days and going hungry and thirsty on bitterly cold nights in sub-zero basements.
The shelling also severely damaged the Azovstal steel and metallurgical plant in Mariupol, a port and industrial city crucial for steel exports from the east of the country.
“One of the largest metallurgical plants in Europe is destroyed. The economic losses for Ukraine are immense,” said MP Lesia Vasylenko.
– ‘Absolute humanitarian disaster’ –
In the north of the country, the mayor of Chernigov, Vladislav Atroshenko, described the situation in his city as an “absolute humanitarian catastrophe”.
“Indiscriminate artillery fire continues in residential areas, dozens of civilians, children and women are killed,” he told television. “There is no electricity, heating or water, the city’s infrastructure is completely destroyed.”
The attacks have not stopped in recent days in the capital, kyiv, in Mikolaiv and in Kharkov, a large Russophone city in the northwest, where at least 500 people have been killed since the start of the war, according to official Ukrainian figures.
The UK Ministry of Defense said Russia “has failed to gain control of the airspace and relies heavily on ranged weapons launched from the relative safety of Russian airspace to attack targets in Ukraine.”
According to the Ukrainian military, Russian troops have carried out 291 missile attacks and 1,403 air raids since the invasion began on February 24.
In an intervention in Russian published on the night of Saturday to Sunday, Zelenski affirmed that the corpses of the Russian soldiers were scattered on the battlefields and had not been collected.
“I want to ask the citizens of Russia, what did you do to them for years so that they do not realize their losses?” he added, indicating that, according to him, more than 14,000 Russian soldiers have died since the beginning of the invasion. Russia speaks of 500 dead.
Russia reported on Sunday the death of the deputy commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Andrei Palii, in fighting near Mariupol.
– ‘Indifference kills’ –
In recent days, Zelenski multiplied his interventions by videoconference addressing foreign parliaments and this Sunday he did so before the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
“Ukraine made its choice 80 years ago and we have Righteous Ones who hid the Jews. It is time for Israel to make a decision … indifference kills,” said Zelensky, who is of Jewish origin.
China’s ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, on Sunday called claims that Beijing might provide military aid to Moscow “disinformation,” speaking to CBS.
Australia, for its part, announced on Sunday an embargo on its exports to Russia of alumina and aluminum ore, a strategic material especially for the arms industry.
