Meanwhile, Ukraine claimed it destroyed the Russian warship in the Black Sea. (File)
Moscow:
Russia said Thursday that the flagship of its Black Sea fleet was seriously damaged and the crew had been evacuated after a fire that sparked an explosion, as a Ukrainian official said the ship had been hit by missiles.
The incident on the Moskva missile cruiser took place after ammunition exploded on board, the Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s defense ministry as saying.
“Ammunition exploded as a result of a fire on the Moskva missile cruiser,” the statement said.
Maksym Marchenko, governor of the region around the Black Sea port of Odessa, said in an online post that the 12,500-ton ship was hit by two missiles, without providing evidence.
“Neptune missiles guarding the Black Sea have caused very serious damage,” he said in an online post.
Reuters was unable to independently verify both accounts.
Ukraine late Wednesday warned that Russia is stepping up its efforts in the south and east as it seeks full control of Mariupol, in what would be the first major city to fall.
Western governments send more military aid to strengthen Kiev.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Wednesday that 1,026 soldiers of Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade, including 162 officers, had surrendered in Mariupol, which has been under siege for weeks, and the port was fully under its control.
Capturing the Azovstal industrial district, where the Marines have entrenched, would give the Russians complete control of Ukraine’s main Sea of Azov port, strengthen a southern land corridor and expand the occupation of the east of the country.
Ukraine’s general staff said Russian troops attacked Azovstal and the port, but a defense ministry spokesman said he had no information about a possible surrender.
“Russian troops are carrying out their activities on the southern and eastern fronts and are seeking to avenge their defeats,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address Wednesday evening.
Reuters journalists accompanying Russian-backed separatists saw flames rise from the Azovstal area on Tuesday, a day after Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade said its troops were out of ammunition.
The United States on Wednesday announced an additional $800 million in military aid, including artillery systems, armored personnel carriers and helicopters. This brought total US military aid to over $2.5 billion. France and Germany also promised more.
Senior US officials are considering sending a top cabinet member such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Austin Lloyd to Kiev as a show of solidarity, a source familiar with the situation said.
Russia will consider US and NATO vehicles carrying weapons on Ukrainian territory as legitimate military targets, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told TASS news agency.
It will impose tit-for-tat sanctions on 398 members of the US House of Representatives and 87 Canadian senators, Interfax quoted the State Department as saying after Washington attacked 328 members of Russia’s lower house of parliament.
Britain announced new financial measures against separatists.
‘FREE US FROM WHAT?’
Ukraine says tens of thousands of people are said to have died in Mariupol and accuses Russia of blocking aid convoys for civilians stranded there.
The mayor, Vadym Boichenko, said Russia had brought in mobile crematoria “to get rid of evidence of war crimes” – a statement that could not be verified.
Moscow has blamed Ukraine for civilian deaths and accused Kiev of denigrating Russia’s armed forces.
In the village of Lubianka northwest of Kiev, from which Russian forces had attempted to subdue the capital before being driven out, a message to Ukrainians was written on the wall of a house occupied by Russian troops.
“We didn’t want this…forgive us,” it read.
The Kremlin says it has launched a “special military operation” to demilitarize and “liberate” Ukraine, a message that villagers say had been repeated by Russian forces.
“To free us from what? We are peaceful… We are Ukrainians,” said Viktor Shaposhnikov, a resident of Lubianka.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, during a visit to Kiev with his Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian colleagues, said those who committed and ordered crimes should be brought to justice.
The German president did not join them as he had planned.
Zelenskiy said there had been no official approach and one of his officials denied a newspaper report that he had turned down the visit because of Steinmeier’s recent good relations with Moscow.
BIDEN’S GENOCIDE COMMENTARY
The Kremlin denounced President Joe Biden’s description of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine as genocide, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying this was unacceptable from the leader of a country he said had committed its own crimes.
An initial report from an expert mission set up by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe documents a “catalogue of inhumanity” by Russian forces in Ukraine, the US ambassador to the OSCE said.
“This includes evidence of direct attacks on civilians, attacks on medical facilities, rapes, executions, looting and forced deportation of civilians to Russia,” said Michael Carpenter.
Russia denies targeting civilians and says Ukrainian and Western war crimes allegations are fabricated.
The Kiev district police chief said 720 bodies had been found in the region around the capital from which Russian troops had withdrawn, with more than 200 missing.
The mayor of the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest, said bombing had increased significantly on Wednesday and satellite photos from Maxar Technologies showed long columns of armored vehicles in the region.
Ukrainian forces shot down two Russian planes attacking towns in the region, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said earlier.
Reuters could not immediately verify his statement, but filmed people in Kharkiv quietly carrying bodies from an apartment building hit by shelling.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
