Humanitarian corridor ‘working for first time’ says Volodymyr Zelensky
Up to 200 civilians remain trapped inside bunkers in the Azovstal steel works, despite an evacuation operation led by the UN to save civilians from the site, a Ukrainian fighter in Mariupol has said.
Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, 39, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s controversial Azov Regiment, said his fighters could hear the voices of people trapped in bunkers of the vast industrial complex.
The United Nations had earlier conducted a “safe passage operation” for civilians in the steelworks, which was serving as the last-remaining Ukrainian stronghold in the city of Mariupol.
Up to 1,000 civilians were thought to have been stuck underneath the Azovstal plant with minimal supplies alongside hundreds of fighters – some said to be suffering with festering wounds – after Vladimir Putin told Russian troops to blockade the area last week “so that a fly can’t get through”.
One evacuee from the steelworks said that survivors still trapped inside were running out of food. “Children always wanted to eat. You know, adults can wait,” she said.
200 civilians still stuck in Mariupol steel plant, says mayor
More than 200 civilians are still holed up with fighters in a huge steel plant in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, according to mayor Vadym Boychenko.
He said a total of about 100,000 civilians were still in the southern Ukrainian city that has been occupied by Russian forces.
Chiara Giordano3 May 2022 07:45
Russian military significantly weaker now, claims UK
The invasion of Ukraine is going to have a lasting impact on Russian military as its troops have faced strategic and operational failure, the British defence ministry said on Tuesday.
“Russia’s defence budget approximately doubled between 2005 and 2018, with investment in several high-end air, land and sea capabilities. From 2008 this underpinned the expansive military modernisation programme New Look,” the ministry said in its latest intelligence update.
It added: “However, the modernisation of its physical equipment has not enabled Russia to dominate Ukraine. Failures both in strategic planning and operational execution have left it unable to translate numerical strength into decisive advantage.”
“Russia’s military is now significantly weaker, both materially and conceptually, as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. Recovery from this will be exacerbated by sanctions. This will have a lasting impact on Russia’s ability to deploy conventional military force,” the British officials said.
Arpan Rai3 May 2022 07:03
Russia planning to annex parts of eastern Ukraine, says US official
Russia is working on a plan to annex large portions of eastern Ukraine this month, a top US official has warned.
It is likely that Russia will hold sham referendums in the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics that would “try to add a veneer of democratic or electoral legitimacy” after which it will attach the entities to Russia, said Michael Carpenter, US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
There were signs that Russia would engineer an independence vote in Kherson, Mr Carpenter said.
Arpan Rai3 May 2022 06:52
Editorial: Like the real Nazis of the past, Russia must not win
Today as they ask troops to keep invading Ukraine, Russia’s leaders spout antisemitic nonsense, stand accused of genocide and treat the people of a friendly neighbouring nation as subhuman.
As Russian troops continue to disgrace themselves in Ukraine and with leaders failing to establish their competency, the threat of worst grows. It is making the Kremlin even more desperate for winning this battle, and even more reliant on terrorising the civilian population of Ukraine, and bandying around the threat of using nuclear weaponry.
Conventional combat has not worked out for Russia so far and hence,…