UKRAINE WAR. The battle for Kiev rages on Sunday, three days after the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Faced with fierce resistance around the Ukrainian capital, the Russian armed forces stepped up attacks on the city. Kharkiv, the country’s second city, is said to be on the verge of giving way. We take stock of the fighting and the current situation.
The essential
- Kiev is still Ukrainian, this Sunday morning. Three days after the start of the Russian offensive on Ukraine, Russian forces “continue their offensive to lock” the Ukrainian capital after having “completed their regrouping” on the northern front, said the Ukrainian army. Anti-aircraft alarm sirens sounded in Kiev overnight from Saturday to Sunday, calling on residents to take refuge in shelters in the capital. Moscow “sabotage units” are said to be in the city, but not yet a military unit of the Russian army. Strikes hit, in the night from Saturday to Sunday, an oil depot in Vassylkiv, about thirty kilometers south-west of Kiev, causing a huge fire.
- The Russians enter Kharkiv. “There was a breakthrough of the Russian enemy’s light vehicles in the city of Kharkiv, including in the central part,” according to the governor of the region, Oleg Sinegoubov. As fighting continues in the streets of the country’s second city, strikes have hit a gas pipeline in the city, in the east of the country. In the rest of the country, the bombardments and fighting also continue, to the south, towards Mariupol, where a port which overlooks the Sea of Azov and close to Crimea already annexed in 2014, would be under the control of Russian forces. Still to the south, the Russians say they have taken control of Melitopol.
- On the diplomatic front, Russia assured, Sunday, February 27, to be ready to negotiate with Ukraine, proposing as a meeting place Gomel, in Belarus. A delegation of representatives of the “Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense arrived in Belarus for negotiations with the Ukrainians”, according to the spokesman of the Russian presidency. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is ready for negotiations with Moscow, but only if he chooses the place.
- Since the start of the Russian invasion on Thursday February 24, at least 198 civilians, including three children, have been killed and 1,115 people injured, according to the Ukrainian health ministry. Residents are taking refuge west where 115,000 Ukrainians have entered Poland since Thursday.
- Follow the evolution of the situation live.
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10:25 – Russian army claims to have surrounded two major cities in southern Ukraine
The Russian army said on Sunday that it had surrounded two major cities in southern Ukraine, Kherson and Berdiansk, which have several hundred thousand inhabitants. “Over the past 24 hours, the Russian armed forces have completely blocked the cities of Kherson and Berdyansk,” according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
10:18 – Kiev resists the onslaught of Russian forces
Three days after the start of the Russian offensive on Ukraine, Russian forces “continue their offensive to lock” the Ukrainian capital after having “completed their regrouping” on the northern front, said the Ukrainian army. Anti-aircraft alarm sirens sounded in Kiev overnight from Saturday to Sunday, calling on residents to take refuge in shelters in the capital. Moscow “sabotage units” are said to be in the city, but not yet a military unit of the Russian army. Strikes hit, in the night from Saturday to Sunday, an oil depot in Vassylkiv, about thirty kilometers south-west of Kiev, causing a huge fire.
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After weeks of lying poker and an escalation not officially declared in recent days, Russia has therefore announced that it will go to war with Ukraine on Thursday, February 24, 2022. In a televised speech published early Thursday, Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” to “protect people who have been intimidated for eight years by the Kiev regime. And to that end, we will strive to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.” The Russian president’s decision comes after the latter recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, territories established in Ukraine ruled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014. “Treaties of friendship and mutual aid” had been signed on February 22 between Russia and these territories, paving the way for a military intervention by Russia, to which Vladimir Putin has therefore committed.
If for several years, tensions have been high in eastern Ukraine, where the conflict escalated in the days preceding the Russian invasion of February 24, war has been declared throughout the country. Indeed, although Russia is bordering only to the east of Ukraine, it is all the main cities of the country, everywhere on the territory, which are under the bombardments. Starting with the capital Kiev, and its surroundings, attacked by Russian forces. Yet located several hundred kilometers from the Russian border, the country’s first city is only 150km by road from Belarus, a country friendly to Russia through which Vladimir Putin’s forces entered Ukraine. . Even further west, near Poland, Lutsk, Lviv or even Ivano-Frankivsk are targeted. The south of Ukraine is also the battlefield, on the shores of the Black Sea, particularly on the side of Odessa, near Moldavia and Transnistria, a self-proclaimed pro-Russian territory, Mykolaiv and Mariupol. In the east of the country, Dnipro is targeted, but also Kharkiv, in addition to Donetsk and Lugansk, which have concentrated tensions for eight years and the start of the war in Donbass.
The Russians took control of the Chernobyl power plant on the evening of Thursday February 24. A symbolic catch, but not only. Well known since the nuclear accident which affected it in 1986, the site saw the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces clash, before an adviser to the presidency, Mikhaïlo Podoliak, took the floor in the post- noon: “After fierce fighting, we lost control of the Chernobyl site.” Continuing, the adviser was particularly worried: “It is impossible to say if the plant is safe”, explaining that the state of the plant’s installations but also that of the tight screed isolating the damaged reactor and the deposit for the nuclear fuel “is unknown”. In this sense, the international energy agency expressed, in a press release, its concern and called for “maximum restraint to avoid any action that would put the country’s nuclear sites in danger”. Moreover, Mikhaïlo Podoliak believes that it is certainly one of “the most serious threats for Europe”. Indeed, the Ukrainian adviser fears that the Russians are using the Chernobyl nuclear site for provocative purposes.
On Friday February 25, the Ukrainian authorities expressed their concern. Worrying radiation data was reportedly picked up by the Chernobyl power plant’s automated control system. Thus, the Ukrainian Parliament reported an increase in “gamma rays” on the site, without specifying the level. Information refuted by Russia: “An agreement has been reached with a battalion of the Ukrainian atomic energy security force for the joint securing of the energy blocks and the sarcophagus”, explains Igor Konashenkov, door -spokesman of the Russian Defense Ministry.