Now, for the first time, free-floating sea mines that have obviously been torn loose have been discovered in the Black Sea.
Day 32 after the Russian attack on Ukraine:
Ukraine accuses Russia of having started destroying Ukrainian fuel and food depots. This means that the government in Kyiv will soon have to distribute the relevant supplies more widely, Interior Ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko said on TV.
Aside from destroying the camps, Russia is moving forces to the border for troop exchanges, Denysenko said. This could mean that Russia wants to make new attempts to invade Ukraine.
Escape corridors
According to Ukrainian information, Ukraine and Russia have agreed on two “humanitarian corridors” for Sunday, in order to evacuate civilians from the front-line areas on Sunday.
This also includes people with private cars entering the particularly competitive south-eastern port city Mariupol can leave, says Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. Mariupol has been surrounded by Russian units and has been under heavy shelling for weeks. Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly accused each other of preventing the establishment of escape corridors for civilians.
Port cities contested
The Ukrainian port cities Mariupol, Berdjansk, Cherson, Mykolajiw and Odessa are increasingly becoming the focal point of the fighting. Mariupol is under siege, fierce fighting is raging around Mykolayiv and Cherson, and Odessa is currently being blocked by the Russian Navy. Experts expect an amphibious landing here, by analogy with Mariupol. In Berdyansk, on the other hand, Ukrainian special forces managed to sink a Russian landing ship while it was unloading cargo.
The fighting and the resulting losses in these important cities and their port facilities could have catastrophic consequences for Ukraine and subsequently also for the global supply situation in the coming weeks and months.
“The ports of Mariupol and Beryansk are damaged, Cherson, Mykolaiv and Odessa are blocked. Now, for the first time, free-floating sea mines that have apparently been torn loose have been discovered in the Black Sea. These pose a major threat and are currently bringing civilian shipping to a standstill,” says Oberst Markus Reisner, head of the development department of the Theresian Military Academy, in conversation with the APA.
He expects insurance premiums for civilian shipping to skyrocket and few shipping companies to pick up the grain in Ukraine in the coming months. In addition, it is completely unclear whether cargo ships can be docked in the contested cities and their ports at all. The current security situation does not allow this, and the Russian Navy dominates the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Ukraine could be left with millions of tons of wheat, soy and corn.
Attacks in the west
The Russian army has carried out several rocket attacks on western Ukraine. After the western metropolis Lviv was also a fuel depot in late Saturday night Dubno hit, as announced by the authorities of the Rivne region. A fuel depot and a military facility were also hit in Lviv. Before that, the invaders had the city Slawutytsch taken near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
In Lviv, five people were injured in two rocket attacks on the outskirts of the city. Mayor Andriy Sadovy said the Russian missile strike caused “significant damage” to the city’s infrastructure. Residential houses were not hit. The rockets were fired from Sevastopol on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, Sadovyj said.
The city, around 80 kilometers from the border with NATO country Poland, has only experienced a few attacks so far. But it is full of refugees from other parts of Ukraine. At the same time, it is an important hub for Western aid supplies. US President Joe Biden visited the Polish side of the border on Friday.
According to the Ukrainian parliament, a nuclear research reactor in Kharkiv was shot at late in the evening. Because of the ongoing clashes near the plant, it is currently impossible to estimate the extent of the damage, the parliament said on Twitter.
Demos against occupiers in Slavutych
Apparently, before the attack on Lviv, the aggressor gained control of the city of Slavutych. They took over the hospital and kidnapped the mayor, according to a statement from the governor of the Kyiv region on Saturday. Russia said it destroyed an arsenal of weapons and military equipment near the town of Zhytomyr, west of Kyiv, in a missile attack.
In Slavutych, the residents are said to have immediately demonstrated against the occupiers. The city’s residents unfurled a large Ukrainian flag, the military administration of the Kyiv region said. According to this information, Russian soldiers shot in the air to disperse the people. The staff who used to operate the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and now oversee the decommissioned plants live in Slavutych. The exclusion zone around Chernobyl has been occupied by Russian forces since the first days of the war. Russian troops have now entered Slavutych and occupied a hospital, wrote Oleksandr Pavlyuk, head of the military administration, on Telegram. Pro-Ukrainian rallies also occur time and again in Russian-occupied cities in the south of the country.
117 military objects destroyed
Before the missile attack on Lviv, the Russian army reported several similar strikes. According to Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov, 117 military objects were destroyed in 24 hours, including six command posts and three fighter jets.
According to their own statements, the Ukrainian soldiers were able to drive the occupiers out of the city of Trostjanets near Sumy in north-eastern Ukraine. The Russians left weapons, ammunition and equipment in Trostianets, several media outlets wrote on Saturday, citing the 93rd Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The information could not initially be independently verified. The Ukrainian military had previously reported on fighting in Trostianets.
Night curfew in Kyiv
Mayor Vitali Klitschko again ordered a curfew for the capital Kyiv. The beginning was therefore for Saturday evening, 8:00 p.m.; the end is scheduled for Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m. (both local times). First, Klitschko had terminated her by Monday. “I have new information from the military command,” he said in the afternoon. Accordingly, there is no curfew for Sunday. “During the day you can move freely.”
The Russian Defense Ministry also released a video of a meeting of the military leadership on Saturday after speculation about the whereabouts of department head Sergei Shoigu. Shoigu said that the armaments orders would be fulfilled despite Western sanctions against Russia. He also said that the arming of the armed forces with high-precision weapons continues despite the “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Escape corridors
Ten humanitarian corridors were set up for Saturday to allow civilians to flee from particularly hard-fought regions. This was announced by Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk in Kyiv. The corridors are in the outskirts of Kiev and in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk. In the evening it was said that 5,208 people had been evacuated via the corridors.
There is no centralized evacuation by bus from the badly damaged port city of Mariupol, Vereshchuk said, according to the Union agency. Anyone who manages to leave Mariupol by car can refuel in the nearby town of Berdyansk. In the evening, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that 4,000 civilians had been “evacuated” from Mariupol. More than 98,000 people managed to escape from the city without Ukrainian help, it said. Kyiv has repeatedly accused the Russian side of kidnapping civilians.
REUTERS / ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO