The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Dozens feared dead as bomb destroys school
Dozens of Ukrainians are feared dead after a Russian bomb flattened a school sheltering about 90 people in its basement, while Ukrainian fighters held out at the battered Mariupol steel plant as Moscow’s forces rushed to seize it ahead of Russia’s Victory Day holiday.
The governor of Luhansk province, part of the eastern industrial heartland known as the Donbas, said emergency crews had found two bodies and rescued 30 people at the school in Bilohorivka after Saturday’s bombing.
“Most likely, all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” governor Serhiy Haidai wrote.
Russian shelling also killed two boys, aged 11 and 14, in the nearby town of Pryvillia, he said.
As Moscow prepared to celebrate the 1945 surrender of Nazi Germany with a Victory Day military parade today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that attacks would only worsen in the lead-up to the event, and some cities declared curfews or otherwise cautioned people about gathering in public.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is believed to want to proclaim some kind of triumph in Ukraine when he addresses the troops in Red Square.
“They have nothing to celebrate tomorrow,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the United Nations, told CNN.
“They have not succeeded in defeating the Ukrainians.
“They have not succeeded in dividing the world or dividing Nato.
“And they have only succeeded in isolating themselves internationally and becoming a pariah state around the globe.”
A joint statement issued by the G7 leaders following talks with President Zelensky said they promised further support to help him defend his country.
The G7 – the UK, US, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan – reassured the Ukrainian president “of our continued readiness to undertake further commitments to help Ukraine secure its free and democratic future, such that Ukraine can defend itself now and deter future acts of aggression”.
The statement said: “We will pursue our ongoing military and defence assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces, continue supporting Ukraine in defending its networks against cyber incidents, and expand our cooperation, including on information security.
“We will continue to support Ukraine in increasing its economic and energy security.”
Russian forces worked toward a full takeover of Mariupol, which has been largely reduced to rubble since the start of the war.
The sprawling seaside steel mill where an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters made what appeared to be their last stand was the only part of the city not under Russian control.
The last of the women, children and older civilians who were taking shelter with the fighters in the Azovstal plant were escorted out on Saturday.
The Ukrainian troops rejected deadlines set by the Russians for laying down their arms.
Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment, a National Guard unit holding the steel mill, said the site was targeted overnight by three fighter jet sorties, artillery and tanks.
“We are under constant shelling,” he said online, adding that Russian infantry tried to storm the plant – a claim Russian officials denied in recent days – and lay mines.
Capt Palamar reported a “multitude of casualties”.
Lieutenant Illya Samoilenko, another member of the Azov Regiment, said there were a couple of hundred wounded soldiers at the plant but declined to reveal how many able-bodied fighters remained.
He said they did not have lifesaving equipment and had to dig by hand to free people from bunkers that had collapsed under the shelling.
“Surrender for us is unacceptable because we cannot grant such a gift to the enemy,” Lt Samoilenko said.
The Ukrainian government has asked international organisations to try to secure safe passage for the fighters.