Ukraine: in the basement on the ruins of Mariupol found 200 bodies | News

Meanwhile, heavy fighting was reported in the Donbass, the eastern industrial center that Moscow forces intend to capture. Russian troops captured the industrial city where the CHP is located and intensified efforts to encircle and capture Severodonetsk and other cities.

As a result of Russian shelling in the Donetsk region of Donbass, according to the governor of the region, 12 people were killed. And the governor of the Luhansk region of Donbass said that this area is experiencing “the hardest time” in eight years since the beginning of separatist fighting.

“Russians are advancing in all directions at once. They brought an insane amount of fighters and equipment, ”Governor Syarhei Haidai wrote in the Telegram. “Invaders are killing our cities, destroying everything around.” He added that Luhansk is becoming “like Mariupol”.

At least 21,000 people died during the blockade, according to Ukrainian authorities, who accused Russia of trying to hide the horrors by bringing mobile cremation equipment and burying the dead in mass graves.

The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russians of waging a “total war” and trying to inflict as much death and destruction on his country.

“Indeed, there has been no such war on the European continent for 77 years,” Zelensky said, referring to the end of World War II.

Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces in the Donbas for eight years and hold large areas. Severodonetsk and neighboring cities are the only part of the Luhansk region of Donbass that is still under the control of the Ukrainian government.

Russian troops have achieved “some local success” despite strong resistance from Ukrainians in buried positions, British military officials said.

Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces in the region are in a difficult situation.

“Virtually all the power of the Russian army, whatever they have left, rushes to the offensive,” Zelensky said Tuesday night in his address to the people. “Liman, Papasna, Severodonetsk, Sloviansk – there the occupiers want to destroy everything.”

In the Donetsk region, Moscow troops captured the industrial city of Svetlodarsk, where the CHP is located and numbered about 11 thousand pre-war residents, and raised the Russian flag there.

“They hung their rags on the building of the local administration,” the head of the local Ukrainian military administration Syarhei Hoshka told Vilnius Radio Ukraine, citing the Russian flag. Goshka said that armed detachments were patrolling the streets of Svitlodarsk and checking the documents of the residents.

Russian troops also fired cluster munitions at the eastern city of Sloviansk, entering a private building, Mayor Vadim Lyakh said. He said the casualties had been avoided because many people had already left their homes, and urged other residents to evacuate to the west.

Heavy fighting was fought in the city of Lyman.

During the fighting, two top Russian officials seemed to admit that Moscow’s advance was slower than expected, although they promised that the offensive would achieve its goals.

Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council. said the Russian government “is not running out of time.” Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting of the Russian-led security alliance of the former Soviet states that Moscow was deliberately slowing down the offensive to allow residents of the besieged cities to evacuate – although forces have repeatedly struck at civilian targets.

A few hours later, Zelensky mocked Shoigu’s statement.

“Well, after three months of searching for an explanation for why they couldn’t break Ukraine in three days, they couldn’t think of anything better than to say what they had planned,” he said in a video message.

Russian officials have also announced that Moscow forces have completed the demining of Mariupol and that a safe corridor will be opened today to allow up to 70 foreign ships to leave Ukraine’s southern coast.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, there were signs of recovery after weeks of bombing. This week, residents lined up in large queues to get rations from flour, pasta, sugar and other staple foods. On Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said Moscow’s forces had withdrawn from the Kharkiv area earlier this month, retreating to the Russian border in the face of Ukrainian counterattacks, although Russia continues to shell the area from afar.

Galina Kalembed, the coordinator of the aid distribution center, said that more and more people were returning to the city. Kalembed said the center provides food to more than 1,000 people every day, and that number is growing.

“Many of them have young children and they spend money on children, so they need food support,” she said.

Meanwhile, the wife of the commander-in-chief, who stayed at the capital’s Azovstal plant in Mariupol, said on Tuesday that she had a brief telephone conversation with her husband, who surrendered to the Russians and was taken prisoner last week.

Ekaterina Prokopenko, who is married to the head of the Azov Regiment Denis Prokopenko, said that the call was cut off before he could say anything about himself.

She said the call was made possible under an agreement between Ukraine and Russia mediated by the Red Cross.

Prokopenko and Yulia Fedosyuk, the wife of another soldier, said that several families had received calls over the past two days. The women said they hoped the soldiers would not be tortured and would eventually “return home”.

The leader of the Moscow-backed separatists in the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, told Russia’s Interfax news agency that preparations were under way for the trial of captured Ukrainian servicemen, including the defenders of Mariupol.

This was reported by Bekataros from Kramatorsk, Ukraine. Associated Press journalists Yuras Karmanov from Lviv, Andrea Rosa in Kharkiv, Danika Kirka in London and other AP staff around the world.