Moscow/Kiev.- Ukraine has acknowledged having suffered at least 198 deaths since the beginning last Thursday of the invasion of Russian forces, which launched missiles against some 800 targets last morning.
“Unfortunately, according to operational data, we have 198 dead, including 3 children, and 1,115 injured, 33 of whom are minors,” Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Liashkó said on his Facebook account.
In addition, Russia attacked during the early hours of Saturday more than 800 Ukrainian military targets with cruise missiles, while the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, refused to leave the country and lay down his arms.
“During the night the Russian Armed Forces used high-precision weapons against Ukraine’s military infrastructure, which they destroyed with land and naval cruise missiles,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov reported, specifying that the target was 821 installations.
“Among them 14 military airfields, 19 checkpoints and communications, 24 S-300 and Osa anti-aircraft missile systems, 48 radar stations,” he said.
He reported the shooting down of seven Ukrainian planes, seven helicopters and nine drones, and the annihilation of eight combat boats, as well as 87 tanks and armored vehicles, 28 multiple launchers and 118 military vehicles and equipment.
According to Konashenkov, the Russian forces took the city of Melitopol, located in southern Ukraine, where “they take all measures to ensure the safety of the civilian population and avoid provocations by the Ukrainian intelligence services and nationalists.”
For its part, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense stated that during the last day the losses of enemy troops increased, reporting the shooting down of 14 planes and 8 helicopters and the destruction of 102 tanks and 536 armored vehicles.
According to the Ukrainian military entity, the Russians would have lost more than 3,000 soldiers in combat.
ZELENSKY REMAINS
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, today denied a possible evacuation of his country, for which the US offered to help, and that he has ordered the Army to lay down its arms before the advance of the Russian offensive on the capital.
“Now a lot of false information has appeared on the net that I have ordered to lay down arms and that an evacuation is taking place. I am here and we are not laying down any weapons,” Zelensky said in a video interview.
As reported by “The Washington Post”, US representatives would have spoken with Zelenski about the safest places in which he could take refuge to ensure the continuity of the Government of Ukraine.
For the moment, however, the Ukrainian leader has reportedly rejected the evacuation, despite being aware of the danger.
INJURED IN KYIV
This morning the Ukrainian Army fought in the streets of Kiev with Russian units, which would have bombed a military garrison in the west of the capital of this country.
In addition, at least 35 people were injured last morning in the capital, including two children, according to the balance of the entire city made by its mayor, Vitali Klistchko, who also reported that a Russian missile hit an apartment building in the west of the city.
Likewise, Klistchko denied through a statement from his municipal cabinet the presence of regular Russian troops in the city after a night of intense fighting and attempts by the Russian Army to control the Ukrainian capital.
The Kiev mayor stressed that the city’s key services are operating normally and assured that public transport, including the subway, which also serves as an air-raid shelter, allows essential workers to be transported to their jobs.
THE EXODUS OF UKRAINIANS CONTINUES
Meanwhile, the attempt by thousands of Ukrainians to escape from their country to neighboring countries continues.
One example is the nearly 20,000 people who have entered Romania from Ukraine since the Russian army launched a large-scale military offensive against the Kiev government on Thursday, Romanian authorities reported on Saturday.
The busiest border crossing is the one linking the Ukrainian oblast (a type of administrative division) of Chernivtsi, in southwestern Ukraine, with the Romanian province of Suceava.
Eighty percent of the displaced are women and children, according to the estimate of social workers in the border town of Siret, on the Romanian side.
