In the sixth week of the Ukraine war, Russian invading forces are withdrawing from the north-western outskirts of the capital Kyiv and stepping up their attacks in the east and south of the country.
According to the government, the Ukrainian army has regained full control of the region around the capital Kyiv. “Irpin, Bucha, Hostomel and the entire Kyiv region were liberated from the enemy,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
There are air strikes on the cities of Mariupol and Kharkiv, said presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych on Ukrainian television on Saturday. The city of Chernihiv northeast of Kyiv was also attacked.
According to British intelligence information, Ukrainian troops were pursuing Russian units that were withdrawing from the suburbs of Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel northwest of Kyiv.
The invading troops also withdrew from the Hostomel cargo airport, which had been fought over since the beginning of the war on February 24.
Arestovych said Ukrainian troops had recaptured more than 30 villages around Kyiv.
The Ukrainian General Staff announced that Russian troops would also be withdrawn from the exclusion zone around the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant and from adjacent areas in Belarus. They were apparently to be transferred to the Russian Belgorod region in order to advance from there to Kharkiv.
Regarding the troop movements, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a new video address that he expected heavy attacks in the east. “Russian soldiers are being brought to the Donbass. Likewise in the direction of Kharkiv.”
Thousands of people escape from embattled cities
In the badly damaged city of Mariupol, which had been under siege for weeks, many of the estimated 100,000 remaining residents were hoping for a new attempt by the Red Cross to be evacuated by bus.
A team of nine helpers left the city of Zaporizhia, according to a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva. Ten buses are to be used this Sunday to save around 500 people, according to a citizens’ initiative on Telegram.
According to the government in Kyiv, thousands of people managed to escape from embattled cities on Saturday. 765 civilians had left the port city of Mariupol in the south-east of the country in their own vehicles, said Deputy Prime Minister Irina Wereschuk.
Almost 500 civilians fled the city of Berdyansk. The goal of the people from both cities is Zaporizhia. In addition, ten buses started in Berdyansk. The evacuation should continue there on Sunday, Vereshchuk said.
People were also rescued on Saturday from cities such as Sievjerodonetsk and Lysychansk in the Luhansk region in the east of the country. “We continue to work,” wrote the Deputy Prime Minister. Russia began its war against Ukraine on February 24.
Heavy explosions in Dnipro region
Further north, from around Dnipro, heavy explosions were reported on Saturday night, as reported by the online portal “Ukrajinska Pravda”, citing the regional administration.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, a military airfield was destroyed near Dnipro, as was another near Poltava. A spokesman for the ministry said that a total of 67 military objects were destroyed within one day, including ammunition depots.
Like all reports from the combat zones, the information was not independently verifiable. Despite the rocket attacks – some from airplanes – the Ukrainian Air Force claims to maintain control of the airspace.
According to Kyiv, “direct talks between the two heads of state” are possible
Zelenskyj called on the population in the Russian-occupied south not to accept positions for the occupation regime. “My message to you is simple: the responsibility for collaboration is inescapable,” the President said. According to Ukrainian information, Russia is trying to set up pro-Moscow administrations in the occupied territories.
Parallel to the fighting, other negotiations between the warring parties were also going on in the background. From the perspective of the government in Kyiv, the first positive signals are emerging.
With a view to the current status, the Ukrainian chief negotiator David Arakhamiya spoke on state television on Saturday evening of a possible meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.
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The drafts of the relevant documents are already so far advanced that a “direct talk between the two heads of state” is possible. However, Arachamija did not provide any further information on the current status of the negotiations.
“Therefore, our task at the moment is to work out the final version of the documents and outstanding issues in order to enable an eventual meeting of the presidents,” said Arachamija. If the meeting takes place, it will probably be held in Turkey, either in Ankara or Istanbul.
In recent weeks, Zelensky has repeatedly called for direct talks with Putin to end the war of aggression that Moscow began on February 24. The Kremlin has so far rejected this, pointing out that Putin is demanding a concrete basis – in the sense of completed preliminary negotiations – for this meeting.
While the Polish government spoke out in favor of further tightening the EU sanctions against Russia, Moscow threatened to end cooperation on the International Space Station ISS.
If the United States and other Western countries do not lift their sanctions against Russia, the Moscow leadership will soon propose deadlines for ending the cooperation, said the head of the space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, via Telegram. (dpa)
Source: Tagesspiegel
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