Mariupol has been a major Ukrainian force majeure and has suffered from Russian shelling for weeks.
Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine:
Ukraine said on Saturday that Russian forces are “quickly withdrawing” from northern areas around the capital Kiev and the city of Chernigiv as the Red Cross prepared for another evacuation effort from the besieged southern port of Mariupol.
Ukraine said Russian forces concentrated in the east and south, a day after thousands of people escaped from Mariupol and surrounding Russian-occupied areas in a convoy of buses and private cars.
“Russia is prioritizing a different tactic: falling back to the east and south,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said on social media.
He said that although the Russian forces appeared to be withdrawing from Kiev and Chernigiv, their aim was to “take control of much of occupied territory and establish themselves there in a forceful manner”.
Podolyak said Russian troops would “burrow in there, set up air defenses, drastically reduce losses and dictate conditions.
Moscow’s goal was to “dramatically reduce losses and dictate terms,” he said on Twitter on Saturday.
“Without heavy weapons we will not be able to drive out (Russia)”.
‘Our city no longer exists’
Mariupol has been a major Ukrainian force majeure and suffered for weeks from Russian shelling that killed at least 5,000 residents, local officials said.
The estimated 160,000 people who remain will face shortages of food, water and electricity.
“We managed to rescue 6,266 people, including 3,071 people from Mariupol,” Zelensky said in a video speech earlier on Saturday.
Dozens of buses carrying Mariupol residents who had fled the devastated city arrived Friday in Zaporizhzhya, 200 kilometers (120 miles) to the northwest, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.
The buses were carrying people who had fled Mariupol to Russian-occupied Berdiansk.
“We cried when we reached this area. We cried when we saw soldiers at the checkpoint with Ukrainian weapons on their arms,” said Olena, carrying her young daughter in her arms.
“My house was destroyed. I saw it in pictures. Our city no longer exists.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the team headed to Mariupol to attempt an evacuation was forced to return Friday after “arrangements and conditions made it impossible to proceed”.
The ICRC said it would try again on Saturday.
New American Aid
Peace talks between Kiev and Moscow resumed via video Friday, but the Kremlin warned that what it described as a helicopter attack on a fuel depot in Russia would hamper negotiations.
“This is not something that can be seen as creating comfortable conditions for the continuation of the negotiations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The airstrike hit energy giant Rosneft’s fuel storage facility in Belgorod, 40 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
But Kiev wouldn’t be drawn into whether it was behind the attack, as Zelensky told Fox News, “I’m sorry, I’m not discussing any of my orders as commander in chief.”
He said Russia was consolidating and preparing “vigorous attacks” in the east and south, echoing Western assessments that Moscow’s forces were regrouping and not retreating.
Ukraine also warned that Russian troops leaving the Chernobyl nuclear power plant — site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, in 1986 — after weeks of occupation may have been exposed to radiation.
“Russia behaved irresponsibly in Chernobyl” by digging trenches in contaminated areas and preventing factory workers from performing their duties, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
Zelensky, meanwhile, reiterated his plea for more military support for the West.
“Just give us missiles. Give us planes,” he told Fox. “You can’t give us an F-18 or an F-19 or whatever you have? Give us the old Soviet planes. That’s all… Give me something to defend my country with.”
The Pentagon later said it is allocating $300 million in “security assistance” to bolster Ukraine’s defense capabilities, on top of the $1.6 billion pledged by Washington since Russia invaded in late February.
‘Where roses used to bloom’
A savage Ukrainian struggle and Russia’s logistical and tactical difficulties have hampered Russia’s efforts and there is growing concern in the country as military losses mount.
Russia launched its annual military service on Friday, but promised that no conscripts would be sent to fight in Ukraine.
Referring to the design, Zelensky urged Russian families not to send their children to war.
“Don’t let them join the army. It’s not their war. We don’t need any more dead,” he said.
Civilians have seeped out of devastated areas after arduous and daring escapes.
Three-year-old Karolina Tkachenko and her family spent an hour walking through a field littered with burnt-out Russian armored vehicles to flee their village outside Kiev.
“The shops are closed, there is no delivery of supplies. The bridge has also been blown up, we cannot do any shopping there,” said Karolina’s mother Karina Tkachenko.
In Mariupol, Viktoria Dubovytskaya, who had been hiding in the theater where 300 people are said to have died in Russian bombings, said she only understood the extent of the destruction when she fled.
Bodies were in the rubble and small wooden crosses were planted in the ground, she told AFP.
“When people find their loved ones, they just bury them where they can. Sometimes where roses bloomed,” she said.
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
