The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky As Russian forces withdraw from the area of the Ukrainian capital, retreating troops create a “catastrophic” situation for civilians, leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and “even the bodies of those killed,” President Volodymyr warned on Saturday. Zelenskyy. Ukraine and its Western allies have reported growing indications that Russia is withdrawing its forces from Kyiv and sending troops to 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 4 million refugees who had fled Ukraine would return soon. Zelensky said he expected the departed cities to withstand long-range rocket 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 fighting,” the nation’s president said in a video message at night. “We have to wait until our land is demarcated, wait until we can assure you that there will be no more bombing.” 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 and military analysts believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to seize power. failed to secure Kyiv. and other major cities. The International Committee of the Red Cross planned to try to enter Mariupol on Saturday to evacuate the residents. 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. The aid team said a team of three vehicles and nine Red Cross staff members were on their way to facilitate the safe passage of civilians on Saturday following a failed attempt the previous day. In a statement late Friday, the group said its group planned 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,” the statement said. The Mariupol city council said 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 could 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. The evacuees boarded about 25 buses in Berdyansk and arrived around midnight in Zaporizhia, a city still under Ukrainian control that has served as a destination with previous ceasefires announced – and then broken – to evacuate to 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. “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 do not have a job, I can not find my son.” Mariupol, which was besieged by Russian forces a month ago, has been the scene of some of the worst attacks of the war, including a maternity hospital and a civilian theater. About 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city, out of a pre-war population of 430,000, and are facing severe shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine. Occupying the city would give Moscow an unbreakable land bridge from Russia to Crimea, which it occupied from Ukraine in 2014, but has also taken on symbolic significance during the Russian invasion, said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Ukrainian team. Penta thought. “Mariupol has become a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance and without its conquest, Putin can not sit at the negotiating table,” Fesenko said. 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 take Mariupol to evacuate residents “in the coming days”. . Such agreements have been concluded in the past, but have been violated. On Thursday, Russian forces blocked a 45-bus convoy trying to evacuate people from Mariupol and seized 14 tonnes of food and medical supplies destined for the city, Ukrainian authorities said. Turkey’s defense minister said his country had offered to help transport civilians by sea from Mariupol, where Turkish authorities estimate that about 30 of their citizens were trapped by the siege. 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.” Meanwhile, Pope Francis on Saturday criticized Russia for starting a “savage” 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 nuclear war on the world in a “baby and catastrophic attack” 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. 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, the (Ukrainian) armed forces will work to clear settlements of (remaining) residents, military equipment and possibly mines.” 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. Ukrainian officials say the death toll from a Russian rocket attack Tuesday on a government building in Mykolaiv, a port city east of Odessa, has risen to 33, with another 34 injured. The confirmed death toll is rising steadily as the search and rescue operation continues. As the war continued, the Pentagon announced Friday night that it was providing an additional $ 300 million in weapons to Ukrainian forces, including laser-guided missile systems, drones, armored vehicles, and firearms. Medical supplies, field equipment and spare parts are also included. There was no immediate word on Saturday about the latest round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators on Friday. During a round of talks earlier in the week, Ukraine said it would be willing to abandon an effort to join NATO and declare neutral – Moscow’s main request – in exchange for security guarantees from many other countries. On Friday, the Kremlin accused Ukraine of launching a helicopter attack on a fuel depot on Russian soil. Ukraine has denied responsibility for the blast at a civilian oil storage facility on the outskirts of the city of Belgorod, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the Ukrainian border. If Moscow’s claim is confirmed, it will be the first known offensive in the war in which Ukrainian aircraft infiltrated Russian airspace. “For some reason they say we did it, but in reality it does not correspond to reality,” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security Council of Ukraine, told Ukrainian television. Later, in an interview with US television channel Fox News, Zelensky declined to say whether Ukraine was behind the attack.
