Saturday’s announcement marks the first time Ukraine has claimed control of the capital since Russia launched its invasion on February 24. “The whole region of Kiev has been liberated from the invader,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar wrote on Facebook. There was no immediate Russian comment on the allegation. In total, Ukrainian troops have recaptured more than 30 towns and villages around Kyiv, according to officials. The recaptured cities bore the marks of five weeks of fighting, with damaged armored vehicles, military equipment and dozens of corpses scattered on the streets. In Bukha, a city northwest of the capital, Ukrainian soldiers used cables to pull civilian bodies from the streets, fearing that Russian forces might leave them trapped. Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said authorities there had buried 280 people in a mass grave and said the victims included women and a 14-year-old boy. “All these people were shot, killed, in the back of the head,” Fedoruk said. A man stands next to a civilian vehicle destroyed during fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces that still has the driver’s body inside, in a city outside Kyiv [Vadim Ghirda/ AP] On a street in Boucha, Agence France-Presse reported seeing at least 20 bodies, including one with his hands tied. Next to him was an open Ukrainian passport on the ground, while two other people had a white cloth tied around their arms. The French agency said everyone was wearing civilian clothes – winter coats, jackets or overalls, jeans or jogging pants and gyms or boots. The British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truce, said she was terrified of the atrocities in Bucha and expressed her support for the International Criminal Court’s investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine. Russia denies targeting civilians and denies allegations of war crimes.
Mines
Since sending troops to Ukraine in what it calls a “special operation” to demilitarize its neighbor, Russia has been unable to occupy a single large city and has instead besieged urban areas, uprooting a quarter of Ukraine’s population. Ukraine’s armed forces reported reduced Russian air and missile strikes on Saturday, but said Russian troops retreating near Kyiv were developing mines. The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in a videotaped speech: “They are mining this whole territory. “Houses are being mined, equipment is being mined, even the bodies of the dead.” He did not provide details. Ukraine’s emergency services said more than 1,500 explosives were found in one day during a search of the village of Dmitrivka, west of Kiev. The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment on the mining allegations. Russia has portrayed the withdrawal of its forces near Kyiv as a gesture of goodwill in the peace talks. Ukraine and its allies say Russia has been forced to turn its attention to eastern Ukraine after suffering heavy casualties near Kyiv. The change does not mean, however, that the country has faced a postponement after more than five weeks of war or that more than 4 million refugees who have fled Ukraine will return soon. Zelensky said he expects the cities from which Russian forces withdrew to withstand missile and long-range missile attacks and the fighting in the east to be intense. In a video overnight speech Saturday, the Ukrainian leader said the country’s troops would not allow the Russians to retreat without a fight: “They are being bombed. “They are destroying whoever they can.” Russia, Zelensky said, has enough power to put more pressure on eastern and southern Ukraine. “What is the goal of the Russian troops?” “They want to occupy Donbass and southern Ukraine.” “What is our goal?” “To defend ourselves, our freedom, our land and our people.”
“Symbol of the Ukrainian resistance”
Moscow’s focus on eastern Ukraine also targeted the besieged southeastern city of Mariupol. The port city in the Sea of Azov is located in the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbass region, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian troops for eight years. Military analysts say Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to seize the region after his forces failed to secure Kyiv and other major cities. The International Committee of the Red Cross had hoped to evacuate Mariupol residents on Saturday, but had not yet arrived in the city. A day earlier, local authorities said the Red Cross was being blocked by Russian forces. Zelenskyy’s adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, said in an interview with Russian lawyer and activist Mark Feygin that Russia and Ukraine had reached an agreement to allow 45 buses to go to Mariupol to evacuate residents “in the coming days”. The Mariupol city council said earlier on Saturday that 10 empty buses were heading to Berdyansk, a town 84 kilometers (52.2 miles) west of Mariupol, to pick up people who managed to get there on their own. About 2,000 people left Mariupol on Friday, some by bus and others in their own vehicles, city officials said. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk said that 765 residents of Mariupol on Saturday used private vehicles to reach Zaporizhzhia, a city still under Ukrainian control that has served as a destination for other planned expeditions. Some civilians fleeing the besieged city said Russian soldiers searching for Ukrainian fighters had been stopped several times as they fled. “They stripped the men, they were looking for tattoos,” said Dmytro Kartavov, a 32-year-old builder. The occupation of Mariupol would give Moscow an unbreakable land bridge from Russia to Crimea, which it occupied from Ukraine in 2014. But its resistance also has symbolic significance during the Russian invasion, said Volodymyr Fesenko, its leader. Ukrainian thinking group Penta. “Mariupol has become a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance and without its conquest, Putin can not sit at the negotiating table,” Fesenko said. Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met for face-to-face talks this week in Istanbul, Turkey, but described the talks as “difficult”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peshkov said on Saturday that “the main thing is to continue the talks, either in Istanbul or elsewhere.” A new round of talks has not yet been announced. However, Ukrainian negotiator David Arahamia said on Saturday that enough progress had been made to allow direct talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky. “The Russian side has reaffirmed our position that the draft documents have been developed sufficiently to allow for direct consultations between the leaders of the two countries,” Arahamia said. Russia has not commented on the possibility.
