A U.S. official confirmed to CBS News senior national security correspondent David Martin that Ukrainian helicopters had struck shortly after noon in front of an ammunition depot in the same area. The official told Martin he was worried in Washington about how Russia might react to the strikes. Ukrainian officials did not claim responsibility for the attack, but senior CBS News correspondent Holly Williams said it was a “significant move” by Ukrainian forces. A video shows firefighters responding to a fire that broke out at a fuel depot in Belgorod, Russia, which the regional governor blamed for an attack by Ukrainian military helicopters on April 1, 2022. Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations / Emergency Russian forces continued to attack Ukrainian cities. They were accused of blocking food and medical supplies from entering the besieged southern port city of Mariupol on Thursday and preventing refugees from leaving, despite Moscow agreeing to open a humanitarian corridor.
Russia has been shelling Mariupol and other cities in southern and eastern Ukraine for more than a month, but attempts to push the country deeper with ground forces have hit a wall and in some places have been repulsed. Just west of Zaporizhzhia, senior CBS News correspondent Holly Williams encountered some of the Ukrainian forces that stood in their way. Measuring Putin’s mental state as the conflict in Ukraine enters its sixth week 04:45 In the rural village of Mala Shesternia, as in most of Ukraine, Russian soldiers were unwanted invaders. The residents fled, but Colonel Serhii Romashko told CBS News his men recaptured Mala Shesternia five days ago, killing some Russians and capturing others. Their clothes and shoes are still there, even their pots. Romashko said the Russians used it as food for guns – they were sent with so little food that it was looted by the locals. One of the most notable Russian moves this week was confirmed on Thursday by Ukraine’s national nuclear power plant operator, Energoatom, which said the last of the Russian forces occupying the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant had withdrawn. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Russian troops digging trenches in the still-contaminated forest around Chernobyl had been exposed to radiation, but there was no immediate confirmation of reports that many were ill. Control of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities by Russian forces poses “security threat”, says expert 07:18 The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Thursday it was continuing to assess the situation at Chernobyl but “was unable to confirm reports of Russian forces receiving high doses of radioactivity” in the blockade zone around the plant. Russian troops from Chernobyl reportedly headed for Ukraine’s border with Belarus. U.S. and British officials said this week that while the Putin regime said it would “drastically reduce” military operations around Kyiv and the northeastern city of Chernihiv to facilitate ongoing peace talks, Russia was expected to expect in Belarus and elsewhere. under its control to carry out a new attack in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. According to Williams, the Russians have war machines that Ukraine can only dream of, but Ukrainian forces are destroying them, including two armored personnel carriers he saw on a single section of road near Mala Shesternia. Photos: During the Russian invasion of Ukraine 60 photos Colonel Romashko told her that three Russians had miraculously escaped from one of the damaged vehicles and were now being treated in a Ukrainian hospital. “We will defeat them,” he said. “I feel like a winner.” The Ukrainian resistance also pushed the Russians out of the city of Irpin, just north of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. But the cost is clear, with a string of corpses lined up along a city street this week – people being slaughtered in what Vladimir Putin calls a “special military operation.” In Mala Shesternia, the Russians also left behind deadly weapons, including a carpeted field with anti-tank mines. An unexploded rocket-propelled grenade landed in the front yard of a house. Putin sent his troops to occupy a country that only wants to be free – and his war is killing both Ukrainians and Russians. More