Images have emerged showing the extent of the devastation in the besieged southeastern port city of Mariupol, where entire building blocks appear to have disappeared during weeks of bombing. “There was an air alarm throughout the country during the night. In fact, there were no areas without sirens. They were repeated in the morning,” Vadim Denishenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on Wednesday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peshkov said on Wednesday that there had been no significant developments since the Istanbul talks, but that Russia had welcomed Ukraine’s written demands. An adviser to the Ukrainian president said the day before that enough progress had been made in the talks to allow a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kyiv and Irpin
Despite these promising words, the situation in the capital, Kyiv, and the surrounding areas remained tense on Wednesday. Military raids continued around Kyiv on Tuesday afternoon and there were reports of rockets being fired overnight. “In Kyiv, several rockets were fired over the capital,” Denisenko said. There were also reports of fighting near the northwestern suburb of Irpin overnight, he said. “So we do not need to say so far that the Russians are reducing the intensity of hostilities in the directions of Kiev and Chernihiv,” he said. “We can say that, yes, indeed, some units and equipment are moving on the territory of Belarus. But it seems more like a rotation and licking of wounds than a real cessation of hostilities.” In a videotaped message Wednesday night, Zelensky said the “alleged withdrawal” of Russian troops from Kyiv and Chernihiv was not a retreat, but the result of the Ukrainian army’s work. He added that Russian troops were gathering in the Donbass region for new attacks, saying the Ukrainians were “ready for it”. US officials also expressed skepticism about Russia’s allegations on Tuesday. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby warned that the move by Russian troops near Kyiv was likely “a repositioning, not a real withdrawal” and that the threat to Kyiv was not over. The full extent of the Irpin disaster was revealed in a new video taken on Tuesday by a Ukrainian NGO and provided to CNN. Shot after Ukrainian forces pushed Russian troops out of the city earlier in the week, the video shows the wooded suburb transformed into a desert, with scattered debris, broken trees and damaged buildings all around. The shootings and bombings may have stopped at Irpin for now, but there are few signs of life. At least five bodies are shown in the video. It is not clear how and when they died. Not much can be heard in the video other than the sound of the wind blowing through the few trees that remain standing, the banging of the metal sheets and the dull thump of a distant military blow.
Chernihiv
The northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, located about halfway between Kiev and the Russian border, has come under heavy bombardment in recent weeks. There are few signs that the Russian attack on the city is over. Viacheslav Chaus, head of Chernihiv’s regional administration, said the city had come under fire from Russian airstrikes and bombardment continued overnight. And in an interview with CNN’s John Berman, the city’s mayor, Vladyslav Atroshenko, criticized Russia’s claim that it planned to “drastically reduce” its military offensive in Chernihiv and Kyiv, saying it was “another confirmation that “Russia is always lying.” According to Atroshenko, Russian attacks in Chernihiv have indeed escalated since the allegation was made on Tuesday. “They say they are reducing the intensity, in fact they have increased the intensity of the strikes,” he said. “Today we have a colossal attack in central Chernihiv. Twenty-five people have been injured and are now in hospital. They are all civilians. So whenever Russia says something, it must be carefully monitored.” In an interview published in the Telegram on Wednesday, Chaus similarly said that the situation in the region has not changed despite Russia’s claims. Russian troops have struck in the city of Nizhyn, he said, destroying “political infrastructure” as well as “libraries, shopping malls and many residential buildings”, while in Chernihiv there is “no electricity, no water, no heat and no gas.” Communications have been disrupted and “there is no way to restore them”, making access to isolated villages difficult, Chaus added. “There are villages where Russian tanks are parked. We know that there are our own people there and the situation is the worst there, because we can not get there and bring neither medicine nor food.” Ukrainian troops are preparing and counterattacking against Russian troops in the Chernihiv region, he added.
Mariupol
Meanwhile, new satellite images from Maxar Technologies show that entire blocks of land in central Mariupol have been removed – a level of destruction previously unseen in the besieged Ukrainian city. With communications inside and outside Mariupol non-existent, the images are the first visual update in recent days that does not come from Russian propaganda. The images confirm data from sensory satellite data from NASA: Dozens of explosions occurred in and around Mariupol. The area just east of the bombed-out theater – where authorities believe about 300 people were killed in a Russian attack – is in ruins. In a satellite image, roofs are either missing or have been severely damaged in almost every building. In eastern Mariupol, another residential area has suffered a similar disaster. Each house surrounding two separate apartment complexes is destroyed. Another large apartment complex in southeastern Mariupol, near the Azovstal iron and steel plant, was destroyed. CNN has previously confirmed that Russian troops and Chechen fighters are active near the apartment complex. Another image from Maxar confirms a claim by the Ukrainian Azov Battalion – a unit that started as a supranationalist militia but has since joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces – that the Red Cross depot in Mariupol was hit by military strikes. Satellite images also show slaughter survivors. Outside the Metro supermarket in western Mariupol, hundreds of people seem to be queuing up, waiting to enter the building. Its roof has holes from military strikes. Just northeast of the city, Russian military positions can be seen, including vehicles parked right next to houses. Artillery trailers are seen just northeast of these vehicles. The mayor of Mariupol estimated that up to 160,000 people remained in the city until Monday. CNN’s Nathan Hodge and Olga Voitovych reported from Lviv and Paul Murphy from New York, while Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London. CNN’s David Lauterbach contributed to this report.
