No let-up in Russian assault on Ukraine as protests grow
Putin holds talks with Erdogan and Macron, questions future of Ukraine’s statehood; US accuses Russia of war crimes; Moscow dropping 500kg bombs: Official; be ready to leave Sumy, Indians told; 11-year-old crosses border alone.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday his campaign in Ukraine was going to plan and would not end until Kyiv stopped fighting, as efforts to evacuate 200,000 people from the heavily bombarded city of Mariupol fell apart for a second day in a row.
“War is madness, please stop,” Pope Francis said in his weekly address to crowds in St Peter’s Square, adding that “rivers of blood and tears” were flowing in Ukraine’s war.
Anti-war protests took place around the world including in Russia itself, where police detained over 4,300 people, an independent protest monitoring group said.
The interior ministry said 3,500 demonstrators had been held, included 1,700 people in Moscow and 750 in St Petersburg.
“The current (Ukrainian) authorities must understand that if they continue to do what they are doing, they are puting in question the future of Ukrainian statehood,” Putin said.
“And if this happens, they will be fully responsible.”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said most civilian casualties were caused by the use of “explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.”
The head of the Chernihiv region said Russia dropped powerful bombs on residential areas of the city, which has a population of 290,000. Vyacheslav Chaus posted a photo online of what he said was an undetonated FAB-500, a 1,100-pound (500-kilogramme) bomb.
“Usually this weapon is used against militaryindustrial facilities and fortified structures,” Chaus said.
Putin made his demand for Kyiv to end the fighting in a phone call with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who appealed for a ceasefire. Putin told Erdogan he was ready for dialogue with Ukraine and foreign partners but any atempt to draw out negotiation would fail, a Kremlin statement said.
Russian media said Putin also held almost two hours of talks on Sunday with French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron told Putin he was concerned about a possible imminent atack on the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa, Macron’s office said.
The United States said on Sunday it was in “active discussions” with European nations about banning Russian oil imports as further economic penalty against Moscow for invading Ukraine, but stopped short of announcing an outright boycot.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States has seen very credible reports of deliberate atacks on civilians in Ukraine, adding that Washington was documenting them to support appropriate organizations in their potential war crimes investigation over Russia’s actions.
Ukraine’s top security official has said that Russia’s war command has shited its atention to the southern front in order to cut the country off from the Black Sea.
He said that Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Odessa remain strategically important, and that Russian troops plan to encircle the cities and block Ukrainian armed forces from entering.
It comes as President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russian forces are preparing to bombard the city of Odessa on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.
Russian forces have now seized two Ukrainian nuclear power plants and are advancing toward a third, Ukraine’s president has said.
Zelenskyy said the third plant currently under threat is the Yuzhnoukrainsk nuclear power plant, located 120 kilometres north of Mykolaiv.
A boy from Zaporizhzhia in southeast Ukraine, was hailed “a hero of the night” by Slovakian authorities ater they said he crossed Ukraine’s border into Slovakia on his own, CNN reported.
The 11-year-old was carrying a backpack, a plastic bag and a passport, and had a telephone number writen on his hand, according to the Slovak Ministry of Interior.
According to a report by local media channel Indian students, who have been stranded at a medical college hostel in embatled northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, have been told to “be ready to leave on short notice” by the Indian Embassy.