A third mass grave has been found near the embattled Ukrainian city of Mariupol, and the mayor says Russian occupiers have forced residents to work on the burials.
The trench, seen on satellite images, stretches more than 200 yards – and contains thousands of civilian bodies, Mayor Vadym Boychenko said.
“We know about these mass graves because these fascists – and I have no other words – involve the local population for burial,” Boychenko told Radio Svoboda. “They told us that you need to work hours (for) food, water. … People are forced to do so.”
Weeks of Russian bombardments have devastated the community and shrunk the once-bustling city of more than 400,000 to a small fraction of that number. Russian forces control most of the city; holdouts are centered in and around the sprawling Azovstal steel plant. The British Defense Ministry says Russia’s decision to besiege rather than attack the plant means many Russian units cannot be redeployed elsewhere in the country.
“Ukraine’s defense of Mariupol has also exhausted many Russian units and reduced their combat effectiveness,” the British assessment says.
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Latest developments:
►New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Opera Narodowa of Poland, in a gesture of solidarity with war victims, will gather leading Ukrainian musicians into the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra for a European and American tour from July 28 to Aug. 20.
►Poland’s government says it is imposing sanctions on 50 Russian entities and individuals over Russia’s war against Ukraine.
►The European Union intends to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas by two-thirds by year’s end and to zero by 2028, European Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni told the Messaggero daily.
►Mariupol is drawing global notice, but local officials said at least nine people were killed and several more wounded by Russian attacks elsewhere in eastern and southern Ukraine. Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said Russian forces “continue to deliberately fire at civilians and to destroy critical infrastructure.”
►German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said her government has cleared delivery of self-propelled armored anti-aircraft guns. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has faced mounting pressure to approve sending heavy weapons to Ukraine.
British defense minister says strikes into Russia ‘legitimate’
Ukraine has the right to used Western-provided weapons to strike military targets on Russian soil, U.K. Defense Minister James Heappey said. Such strikes aimed at disrupting supply lines are “entirely legitimate,” he told the BBC.
Heappey also dismissed a top Russian diplomat assertion that the danger of a nuclear conflict is “serious” and “real.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the statements on Russian TV, accusing Ukrainian leaders and NATO of provoking Russia by “pouring oil on the fire” with the advanced weaponry. Heappey said the likelihood of nuclear war is “vanishingly small” since it would not be in the best interested of any country.
Blinken: U.S. beginning process of reopening embassy in Ukraine
U.S. diplomats are returning to Ukraine this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. Pressed on when the U.S. is reopening its embassy operations there, Blinken said he expects diplomats to first work out of Lviv before going back to Kyiv after assessing how the embassy there can be securely reopened.
“We want to have our embassy reopened and we’re working to do that,” he said.
The U.S. relocated its embassy operations to Poland days before Russian began its invasion on Feb. 24. Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged a speedy reopening.
“All our European partners are already back there,” Risch said. “We need people on the ground to help Ukraine meet its needs…