Ukraine said Moscow’s “most powerful” bombing to date in the southern city of Mykolaiv killed a grain tycoon on Sunday, while Russia claimed a drone strike wounded six other people at the headquarters of its Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea.
AFP journalists witnessed heavy Russian shelling in the eastern city of Bakhmut after President Volodymyr Zelensky called on civilians to leave the front line of the Donetsk region, which is the hardest hit by the Kremlin offensive.
Moscow and Kyiv accuse others of bombing a criminal holding Ukrainian war criminals Photo: AFP/BULENT KILIC
The Russian government on the Black Sea Peninsula of Crimea, seized through Moscow from Ukraine in 2014, said a small explosive device from an advertising drone, likely introduced nearby, hit the navy’s command in Sevastopol.
The local mayor blamed “Ukrainian nationalists” for the attack that forced the cancellation of festivities in the city that mark Russia’s annual military holiday.
But the Ukrainian military accused Russia of staging the attacks as a pretext to cancel the festivities.
Ukrainians bring the coffin of Vasyl Sushchuk, a soldier of the Azov regiment killed in combat with Russian troops Photo: AFP/Yuriy Dyachyshyn
“Russia is afraid to hold a parade in the Black Sea, but announces a plan to dominate the upper seas,” presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said.
The claim and counterclaim come as the dispute over which he beat a criminal detaining Ukrainian war criminals in Kremlin-controlled Olenivka has been rumbling, with Kyiv and Moscow as culprits.
Russian movements continue to rain down on Ukrainian cities Photo: AFP/Brochure
The Russian Defense Ministry said Sunday it had invited the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations to the site “in the interest of an objective investigation. “
But the ICRC said on Sunday it had not yet obtained permission to enter a domain in which it has been active since 2014 following the outbreak of violence between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists.
“We are in a position to deploy,” the ICRC said. It is imperative that the ICRC has quick access. “
Main ports of the Black Sea and Ukraine Photo: AFP / Emmanuelle MICHEL
The Russian military said 50 Ukrainian servicemen were killed, adding infantrymen who surrendered after weeks of fighting russia’s brutal bombardment of the sprawling Azovstal metallurgical plant in the port city of Mariupol.
Russian invasion of Ukraine Photo: AFP/Sophie RAMIS
Ukraine claims Russia was the attack, with Zelensky accusing Moscow of “deliberate mass killing of Ukrainian prisoners of war. “
He has intensified calls for the community, especially the United States, for Russia to be officially declared a “state sponsor of terrorism. “
Russian missiles hit a school in the eastern city of Kharkiv Photo: AFP/SERGEY BOBOK
Authorities in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv said Sunday that widespread Russian shelling overnight had killed at least two civilians as Moscow continued to attack the expanding front line.
“Mykolaiv suffered a bombing today. Probably the most powerful yet,” the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Senkevych, wrote on Telegram.
Authorities said prominent Ukrainian agricultural tycoon Oleksiy Vadatursky, 74, and his wife Raisa were killed when a missile hit their home.
Russian electric giant Gazprom has suspended Latvia’s fuel source, the latest adjustment of fuel materials to European Union states Photo: AFP/Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV
Vadatursky, who ranked 24th among the richest people in Ukraine with a fortune of $430 million through Forbes, owned the leading grain exporter Nibulon and in the past had received the prestigious “Hero of Ukraine” award.
Podolyak, the presidential adviser, said his death “was not a twist of fate but a deliberate, well-planned and arranged murder. “
Mykolaiv, which has been attacked, is the closest Ukrainian city to the southern front, where Kyiv forces are looking to launch a major counteroffensive to regain territory lost after the Russian invasion in February.
The attacks also hit the northeastern regions of Kharkiv and Sumy, near the front line with Russian forces.
Sumy regional leader Dmytro Zhyvytsky said about fifty movements on Saturday left one dead and two wounded.
The governor of the Donetsk region, where Moscow concentrates most of its attacks, said three civilians were killed and eight wounded in Saturday’s shelling.
AFP journalists on Sunday saw a wounded man picked up in an ambulance after a fierce shelling of the city of Bakhmut.
In an evening speech, Zelensky warned that thousands of people, including children, were still in the battlefield spaces of the Donetsk region.
“There is already a government resolution on the evacuation of Donetsk,” Zelensky said, pointing to the government’s calls to leave the besieged region in recent weeks.
“Go, we will do it,” Zelensky said. At this level of war, terror is Russia’s main weapon. “
According to official Ukrainian estimates, the number of civilians still living in unoccupied Donetsk is between 200,000 and 220,000.
A mandatory evacuation statement issued Saturday night said next winter made it an emergency matter, especially for the more than 50,000 youth still in the area.
Kateryna Novakivska, deputy commander of a Ukrainian unit, said she is fighting for her comrades to be reunited with their families.
“The morale of our army is at an all-time high now, yet everyone needs to go back to their homes, see their loved ones and their loved ones,” he said.
The intense bombardment around Ukraine comes as the government pushes to stimulate grain exports as part of a PLAN negotiated through the UN and Turkey to lift Russia’s naval blockade.
A spokesman for the Turkish presidency said there is a “high probability” that a first shipment with Ukrainian grain could leave Ukraine on Monday.