Dhe Orthodox Easter is only a week away. This Sunday was therefore Palm Sunday for Russians and most Ukrainians. But even on a public holiday, the Russian armed forces did not stop their bombardments, complained the mayor of KharkovIgor Terekhov, in an impassioned speech on Orthodox Palm Sunday.
The city is increasingly becoming the center of Russian attacks. According to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, five people were killed and 15 injured in the shelling of downtown Kharkiv on Sunday. AFP journalists reported on several fires that spread through residential areas in central Kharkiv, causing roofs to collapse following the attacks.
As Zelenskyj explained in his evening video speech, 18 people have been killed and 106 injured in the city in the past four days alone. “This is nothing but premeditated terror. Mortars, artillery against ordinary neighborhoods, against ordinary civilians,” he said.
Firefighters try to put out a fire in a residential building in Kharkiv after a Russian attack
Source: dpa/Andrew Marienko
According to information from Moscow, Russian troops on Sunday in the Kharkiv region also shot down two Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jets. In addition, two Ukrainian command posts and a radar system for S-300 surface-to-air missiles are located in the town of Avdiivka im Donetsk district been destroyed. This area, the Donbass, is also seen as a new main target for the Russian invaders.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the Russian armed forces also used Iskander missiles to destroy four depots of weapons and military equipment in Ukraine. This is reported by the Tass news agency. In addition, three Ukrainian military aircraft and eleven drones were shot down. The Russian armed forces had hit a total of 315 targets since the evening.
The new target of the Russian attackers would apparently be the Eastern Ukraine take possession and separate themselves from the rest of the country. To this end, they recently withdrew from the north of the country. However, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence service, this has not changed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans.
Ukrainian soldiers take cover during a Russian attack in downtown Kharkiv as explosions are heard
Source: dpa/Felipe Dana
“The purpose of the military aggression remained the same: it is an operation aimed at destroying the Ukrainian state,” intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov told Spiegel, according to an advanced report on Sunday. According to Russia, Ukraine should “cease to exist as a state”.
When asked why Russia decided to withdraw its troops from the area around the capital Kyiv, Budanov replied: “They didn’t just pull out – we drove them out of the Kyiv region. It started by our recapture of the town of Irpin. This threatened to cut their forces in two in the kyiv region.
Source: WORLD infographic
Budanov said he was not surprised that the Russian plan to conquer kyiv had failed. But he is surprised by something else: “How the Russian commanders approached the implementation of an operation of such a scale with incompetence and negligence. If they really believed they could do it in three days – and we understand they absolutely did – then Russian leaders must be asking themselves how competent their generals are.
Budanov also repeated the Ukrainian government’s demand for weapons from Germany: “We need artillery systems – the German army is especially strong in them,” the major general said. “And unfortunately, we need tanks, because we had very high losses of armored vehicles.”
The Ukrainian army wants to use arms to liberate occupied territories, Budanov said. This includes the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 Crimea. Budanov sees no problem with the training of Ukrainian soldiers, for example on the Leopard battle tank: “We will learn this quickly. With all due respect, this is not higher math.
April 17, 2022: Seven-year-old Yehor lives in the rubble of a town not far from kyiv. The Ukrainian capital was also bombed again
Source: dpa/Evgeny Maloletka
In his Monday evening speech, President Zelensky again stressed the importance of arms deliveries, especially as Russian troops continue to prepare for an offensive in the east of the country. He also announced fierce resistance to the feared large-scale attack in the east of the country. “We will not give up our territory,” he told CNN. The battle in the Donbas region could affect the course of the entire war.
“Like the Russian troops Mariupol by destroying them, they also want to raze other towns and villages in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” he said. In the port city of Mariupol, besieged for weeks, thousands of residents are believed to have been killed.
The last Ukrainian soldiers would be there, in the premises of the Azovstal Steelworks entrenched. According to new information from local authorities, there are many civilians in addition to Ukrainian troops. Residents were hiding from shelling during the week-long siege of the city by the Russian military, Mariupol Police Patrol Chief Mikhail Werschinin told local television Monday night.
A man walks through a completely destroyed residential area of Mariupol
Source: REUTERS
“They don’t trust the Russians. They see what’s happening in the city, so they stay put,” he said. The information could not be independently verified. Several thousand Ukrainian defenders of the city are said to have entrenched themselves in the huge steelworks, which also includes underground facilities. Large parts of Mariupol are now under the control of the Russian army.
The Ukrainian General Staff reported on Sunday evening Russian rocket and bomb attacks against besieged Mariupol. He would also come Tu-22M3 supersonic bomber for use. Prime Minister Denys Schmyhal told US broadcaster ABC that the city had not fallen. Ukrainian soldiers would “fight to the end” in Mariupol. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reported on US broadcaster CBS that their own troops were “essentially surrounded” by Russian troops who wanted to raze Mariupol. Literally, Kuleba said, “The city no longer exists.
Tanks of pro-Russian troops near the port of Mariupol
Source: REUTERS
Russia had previously threatened the remaining Ukrainian troops in Mariupol with annihilation. The Ukrainians ignored an ultimatum asking them to lay down their arms and surrender by noon Sunday.
About 100,000 residents remained in Mariupol, Vershinin said. Russian troops had them clear the rubble for food and had the bodies removed and buried in mass graves, he claimed. Before the war, Mariupol had about 400,000 inhabitants. Thousands of civilian deaths are to be feared after the long siege and the incessant bombardments.
Meanwhile, President Zelenskyy has said his government will do everything possible to ensure that the same thing does not happen again in the east of the country. At the same time, however, he criticized delays in arms deliveries to his country. Given the expected new offensive by Russian troops, this means “permission for Russia to take the lives of Ukrainians”, Zelenskyy said.
He did not name any country. However, there had recently been a dispute within the traffic light coalition in Germany over the delivery of heavy weapons. Politicians from the Greens and the FDP had accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) of hesitation. Military experts assume that Ukraine will need many more heavy weapons in the east of the country to resist attacks.
Source: WELT infographic/Beate Nowak
Ukraine is in constant contact with its partners to provide defense in the East, Zelenskyy said. We are grateful to those who “help with what they can”. “But those who have the arms and ammunition we need and who withhold their help must know that the fate of this battle also depends on them. The fate of the people who can be saved.
In some cases, a response has been awaited since the start of the Russian aggression war 53 days ago.