71st day of hostilities: Ukraine accuses Russia of continuing to attack the Azovstal factory

“It’s been the third day since Russia entered the factory Azovstal, where bloody fighting continues. Once again, they violated the ceasefire commitment and did not allow the evacuation of civilians, who continued to hide in the factory basements to avoid shelling,” said Sviatoslav Palamar, commander of the Azov Battalion, which was entrenched in the house. Azovstal steel machine in the city of Mariupol, said in a video posted on Telegram.

The Russian military earlier announced a three-day ceasefire in the area to evacuate civilians. Palamar called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pay attention to “wounded soldiers who are dying in terrible pain due to improper treatment”.

The Kremlin previously denied that Russian forces entered the plant and said humanitarian corridors to evacuate stranded civilians were still open. In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett today, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Russian military is still ready to create conditions for civilians trapped in the factory to be evacuated safely.

“As for the remaining troops in Azovstal, the Kiev authorities must order them to lay down their arms and surrender,” Putin said.

Ukrainian officials believe that about 200 civilians are still trapped with soldiers in the steel factory basement. Another UN convoy is heading to the factory to continue evacuating people.

The convoy is a new effort after the United Nations and the International Red Cross said on May 3 that 101 civilians had been evacuated from the factory to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia. Russia has repeatedly accused Ukrainian soldiers of keeping civilians in the factory as a shield.

The head of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said at least 25 civilians were injured in last night’s Russian attack on the city. Kramatorsk.

Ukrainian authorities also announced that Ukrainian forces re-controlled some residential areas on the border of the two provinces Mykolayiv and Kherson in the South.

“Due to the success of the Ukrainian defense forces, the Russian forces no longer control a number of settlements on the border of Mykolayiv and Kherson provinces,” the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army said in an intelligence report, but did not say. publish details of the number and names of these residential areas.

Russia has not commented on this information.

The Kremlin accuses the West of obstructing a “quick” end to Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine by providing weapons and information. Intelligence for this country.

“We know very well that the US, UK, and NATO give all intelligence to the armed forces of Ukraine. Along with the weapons that these countries are sending to Ukraine, these are all actions that do not contribute to war. the epidemic will end quickly,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about the information that the US provided intelligence to Ukraine, the Russian commanding officer, and stressed that the West could not prevent Russia from achieving its goals. its goal.

The EU’s aviation safety agency has warned that the risk of civilian aircraft being accidentally hit by a missile is increasing, due to the hostilities in Ukraine.

“Previous wars have shown that it is very easy to misidentify the target. Besides, the ability to jam electronic support devices related to positioning and/or identification tools further shows the possibility. Civilian aircraft were inadvertently brought into the sights of missiles or weapons,” the agency said. “Drones and military aircraft operating in conflict zones may also inadvertently infringe into neighboring civilian airspace.”

European Council President Charles Michel thinks the EU should confiscation and sold Russian assets they had seized, then used the proceeds to rebuild Ukraine. US President Joe Biden last week offered a similar idea.

Early last month, the EU said it had frozen 30 billion euros ($32 billion) of assets related to blacklisted Russian and Belarusian individuals.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) noted that more than 5.6 million Ukrainians had left the country after February 24, when Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on May 4 reported a total of 6,731 civilian casualties in Ukraine, of which 3,280 died and 3,451 were injured. The agency warned the actual number could be much higher.

Huyen Le (According to Guardian, CNN, AFP)