Ukraine and its Western allies have been increasingly reporting that Russia is withdrawing its forces from Kyiv and building up its troops in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian fighters recaptured several areas near the capital after forcing the Russians to leave or enter behind them, officials said.
The visible shift did not mean that the country was facing a postponement after more than five weeks of war or that more than four million refugees who had fled Ukraine would return soon. Zelensky said he expected the abandoned cities to withstand long-range missile and rocket attacks and that fighting in the east would be intense.
“It is not yet possible to return to normal life, as it used to be, even to the lands we take back after the battles. We have to wait until our land is cleared, wait until we can assure you that there will be no more bombing.” The president’s claims about Russian mines could not be independently verified, the president said during his video overnight speech.
Moscow’s focus on eastern Ukraine also targeted the besieged southern city of Mariupol. The port city in the Sea of Azov is located in the predominantly Russian-speaking area of Donbass, where Russian-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.
A Ukrainian soldier passes by damaged Russian tanks in the village of Dmitrivka, west of Kiev, on Saturday. (Efrem Lukatsky / The Associated Press)
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) planned to try to enter Mariupol on Saturday to evacuate residents from the city. The Red Cross said it could not conduct the operation on Friday because it had not received assurances that the route was safe. City officials said the Russians had blocked access to the city.
CLOCKS What happened this week in Russia’s attack on Ukraine:
What happened in the 6th week of the Russian attack on Ukraine: Peace talks, evacuation of Mariupol
Russia’s promise to reduce its military activity near Kyiv was met with skepticism, and a humanitarian convoy attempted to evacuate Mariupol. The following is a summary of events in Ukraine and how world leaders reacted from March 26 to April 1. 8:21
The humanitarian team said a team of three vehicles and nine Red Cross staff headed to Mariupol on Saturday to facilitate the safe evacuation of civilians from the city. She said her group was planning to escort an escort of civilians from Mariupol to another city.
“Our presence will put a humanitarian mark on this planned movement of people, giving the escort extra protection and reminding all sides of the political, humanitarian nature of the operation,” she said in a statement.
Late night trip from Mariupol
The Mariupol city council announced on Saturday that 10 empty buses were heading to Berdyansk, a town 84 kilometers 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.
Internally displaced persons from Mariupol and nearby towns arrive in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Friday. (Felipe Dana / The Associated Press)
The evacuees boarded about 25 buses in Berdyansk and arrived around midnight in Zaporizhzhia, a city still under Ukrainian control that had served as a destination under previous ceasefire announcements – and then broke – to remove them. and help in Mariupol.
Among them was Tamila Mazurenko, who said she left Mariupol on Monday and arrived in Berdyansk that night. Mazurenko said she waited for a bus until Friday, spending one night sleeping in a field.
“Normal life was ruined”
“I have only one question: Why? she said about the test of her city. “We lived only as normal people. And our normal life was ruined. And we lost everything. I have no job, I can not find my son.”
Mariupol, which was besieged by Russian forces a month ago, has suffered some of the worst attacks in the war, including a maternity hospital and a theater housing civilians. About 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city, compared to the pre-war population of 430,000, and are facing severe shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.
A Ukrainian soldier stands on Friday outside a school hit by rockets in the southern village of Zelenyi Hai, located between Kherson and Mykolaiv. (Bulent Kilic / AFP / Getty Images)
Occupying the city 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.
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“Mariupol has become a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance and without its conquest, Putin can not sit at the negotiating table,” Fesenko said.
More leave “in the coming days”
Zelensky’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.” .
About 500 refugees from eastern Ukraine, including 99 children and 12 people with disabilities, arrived in the Russian city of Kazan by train overnight. Asked if he saw the opportunity to return home, Mariupol resident Artur Kirillov replied: “This is unlikely, there is no city anymore.”
Women and children disembark as a convoy of buses carrying people displaced from Mariupol and Melitopoli arrives at the registration center in Zaporizhia late Friday. (Emre Caylak / AFP / Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Pope Francis on Saturday blamed Russia for starting a “wild” war in Ukraine and said he was considering traveling to Kyiv. Francis, who was visiting Malta, said “some powerful people” had launched the threat of a nuclear war on the world in “infantile and destructive aggression” under the guise of “anachronistic claims of nationalist interests”.
The pope did not name Putin by name on Saturday, but his point was clear.
On the outskirts of Kiev, signs of fierce fighting were everywhere in the aftermath of the Russian rearrangement. Damaged armored vehicles from both armies left on the streets and fields and scattered military equipment covered the ground next to an abandoned Russian tank.
Locals are clearing rubble in Dmitrivka. (Genya Savilov / AFP / Getty Images)
Ukrainian forces have recaptured the town of Brovary, 20 kilometers east of the capital, Mayor Ihor Sapozhko said in a televised speech Friday night. The shops reopened and residents returned but “remain ready to defend” their city, he added.
“The Russian occupants have now left almost the entire Brovary area,” Sapozhko said. “Tonight, [Ukrainian] the armed forces will work to clear the settlements [remaining] passengers, military equipment and possibly mines “.
The body of the wartime photographer was found
A prominent Ukrainian photojournalist who went missing last month in a battle zone near the capital was found dead Friday in the village of Huta Mezihirska north of Kiev, the country’s attorney general’s office said.
Maksim Levin, 40, worked as a photojournalist and videographer for several Ukrainian and international publications and was a longtime Reuters contributor covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He leaves behind his wife and four children.
Ukrainian photographer Maksim Levin was spotted on January 25 near the demarcation line by Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. His body was found Friday in a village north of Kiev. His death was attributed to gunshot wounds. (Stanislav Kozliuk / Reuters)
The attorney general’s office attributed his death to two gunshots allegedly fired by the Russian military and said an investigation was under way.
Elsewhere, at least three Russian ballistic missiles were fired late Friday in the Black Sea region of Odessa, said regional leader Maksim Marchenko. The Ukrainian military says the Iskander missiles did not hit critical infrastructure targeting Odessa, Ukraine’s largest port and naval base.
PHOTOS Day 37 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
Ukraine’s state nuclear service said a series of explosions on Saturday injured four people in Enerhodar, a city in southeastern Ukraine that has been under Russian control since early March along with the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Ukrainian officials also said the death toll from a Russian rocket attack Tuesday on a government building in Mykolaiv, a port city east of Odessa, had risen to 33, with another 34 injured. The confirmed death toll is rising steadily as the search and rescue operation continues.
