As Russia’s war in Ukraine entered its third week, the massive Kremlin convoy stranded near Kiev began to split up and encircle the capital as relentless attacks on the port city amounted to “war crimes,” officials said.
Satellite imagery showed that the 40-mile convoy, which had been moving towards Kyiv for several weeks amid reports of food and fuel shortages, had been redeployed. Some armored vehicles were seen in the northern suburbs, others entered the woods and moved into firing positions.
The dispersal came after drone footage released by the Ukrainian military showed Kremlin tanks being ambushed on their way to the city, where President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has defiantly lurked since the start of the unprovoked invasion.
Armed civilians surrounded the capital in large numbers ahead of an expected attack as the number of refugees fleeing Ukraine rose to 2.3 million on Thursday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
A Ukrainian soldier stands next to a burned-out Russian Tiger fighting vehicle in a forward position east of the strategic port city of Mykolaiv, Ukraine March 10, 2022. Scott Peterson/Getty Images
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko visits a checkpoint of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues on March 6, 2022. REUTERS/VALENTYN OGIRENKO
“Every street, every house… is being fortified,” Klitschko said. “Even people who never intended to change clothes in their lives are now in uniform with machine guns in their hands.”
Katya, 14, was recovering in a hospital near Kiev after she was ambushed from a roadside forest while her family tried to flee the city by car.
The teenager was shot in the arm, and her father, who was in the operating room, was shot in the head and had two fingers torn off, said her mother, who identified herself as Nina.
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In Turkey, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmitry Kuleba to discuss a 24-hour ceasefire, but during their first meeting during the war, they failed to make any progress.
Ukraine has dropped its surrender demands, and Russia has said it will not back down in its alleged efforts to topple the former Soviet territory and reunite it with Moscow.
As Lavrov called outrage over civilian casualties “pathetic squeals” and denied the invasion, Russia continued its rampage Thursday in Ukraine’s key port city of Mariupol.
Tanks are seen being destroyed on the outskirts of Brovary, Ukraine. AZOV HANDOUT via REUTERS
View of Czech hedgehogs and sandbag barricade in the center of Kyiv. EPA/ZURAB KURTSIKIDZE
During the 10 days of the siege of the city, more than 1,300 people were killed. The refusal to evacuate the city’s 430,000 residents, combined with attacks on humanitarian aid providers, amounted to “outright terror,” Zelenskiy said.
“They have a clear order to hold Mariupol hostage, mock it, constantly bomb and shell it,” Zelensky said in a video message.
Many people trapped in the frigid, burned-out city were left without heat, electricity and telephone service and were in desperate need of food and fuel, officials said, as bodies were dumped in mass graves.
The situation in Ukraine on March 10, 2022.NY Post Illustration
Hungry citizens attacked each other for food, bought vegetables on the black market, and stole gasoline from cars. Stores have long been empty of meat and drugs.
Wednesday’s airstrike, which killed three people, including a baby, in a maternity hospital and injured 17, was a “war crime,” international leaders said.
“They want to destroy the people of Mariupol. They want to starve them to death,” Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said. “This is a war crime.”
Satellite image of a Russian position near Berestyanka, Ukraine. MATERIAL MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES
“The eyes of the whole world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of this aggression and these atrocities,” said Vice President Kamala Harris, who was abroad in Poland.
“I don’t have a home anymore. That’s why I’m moving,” said Alexander Ivanov, driving a cart with sacks along an empty street with destroyed houses.
“He no longer exists. He was hit by a mortar,” said the exhausted man.
Russian equipment and troops are deployed in Ozero, Ukraine. MATERIAL MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES
As the Russian economy continues to spiral downward, Zelensky issued a stern warning to Moscow.
“You will definitely be held accountable for complicity in war crimes,” he said in his overnight address.
“And then, this will definitely happen, you will be hated by Russian citizens – everyone whom you constantly, daily, for many years in a row deceived, when they feel the consequences of your lies in their wallets, in their narrowing possibilities. , in the stolen future of Russian children.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his country will “get over” economic instability, but acknowledged that the sanctions have caused “certain problems”.
With mail wires