Russian forces renew assault on Mariupol as missiles hit Odesa
KYIV (Reuters) – Russia resumed its assault on the last Ukrainian defenders holed up in a giant steel works in Mariupol, a Ukrainian official said on Saturday, days after Moscow declared victory in the southern port city and said its forces did not need to take the plant.
Russian forces were hitting the Azovstal complex with airstrikes and trying to storm it, presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said, adding “the enemy is trying to strangle the final resistance of Mariupol’s defenders.”
The biggest battle of the conflict has raged for weeks as Russia seeks to capture a city seen as vital to its attempts to link the eastern Donbas region with Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow seized in 2014.
Two missiles struck a military facility and two residential buildings in the Black Sea port city of Odesa and two more were destroyed, the southern air command of the Ukrainian armed forces said. Ukrainian presidential
aide Andriy Yermak said five people had been killed and 18 wounded. The death toll could not be independently verified.
The last big strike on or near Odesa was in early April. “The only aim of Russian missile strikes on Odesa is terror,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter. Russia has denied targeting civilians in its “special military operation” that began on February 24.
A Russian general, Rustam
Minnekayev, said on Friday Moscow wanted control of the whole of southern Ukraine, not just Donbas. Kyiv said the comments indicated that Moscow had wider goals than its declared aim of demilitarizing and “denazifying” the country. The government and West Ukraine call the invasion an unjustified war of aggression.
Russian forces have besieged and bombarded Mariupol
The statement was seen as a threat to Netanyahu: that UTJ could push for him to be replaced as Likud leader so a new one could form a government.
Netanyahu’s son, Yair, will face a libel trial on Sunday at Tel Aviv’s Magistrate’s Court for statements he made against the Crime Minister movement that protested against his father. Yair is expected to take the stand and be questioned by Crime