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LAST UPDATE | 1 Mar 2022
RUSSIAN SHELLING ON Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv has killed at least 10 people and left many more injured, emergency services have said, in an attack that targeted the central square and the main administration building.
“At least 10 people were killed and more than 20 were injured,” the regional emergency services said in a statement, adding that 10 people had been discovered alive under rubble as rescue workers cleared debris.
Regional governor Oleg Sinegubov earlier said that the central square of the city and the headquarters of the Kharkiv administration “was criminally attacked” this morning.
“Russian occupiers continue to use heavy weaponry against the civilian population,” he said, adding that the number of victims was not yet known.
He posted footage of the massive blast and debris inside the building.
Kharkiv, a largely Russian-speaking city near the Russian border, has a population of around 1.4 million.
It has been a target for Russian forces since President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine last Thursday.
Kharkiv’s mayor Igor Terekhov, quoted by Ukrainian media, warned that Moscow’s armoured vehicles and tanks are “everywhere around the city”.
Russian forces killed several civilians including children late yesterday, he said.
Separately, an official in the region of Sumy, which lies north of Kharkiv close to Russia’s border, said that some 70 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in Russian shelling on a military facility in the area.
“Many died. Currently, places are being prepared in the cemetery for about 70 dead Ukrainian soldiers,” Dmytro Zhyvytsky, the head of the Sumy region, wrote on Telegram after strikes on the town of Okhtyrka.
He posted images of charred buildings with caved-in walls and rescue workers digging through rubble.
The Ukrainian military, however, has not confirmed the deaths.
Russia has denied targeting civilian areas despite rockets landing in residential neighbourhoods.
Ukraine says more than 350 civilians have been killed since Moscow launched the attack last week.
The Russian army has been regrouping and massing its forces over the past 24 hours “primarily to encircle and take control of Kyiv and other major cities,” the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces wrote on Facebook.
Massive convoy
A huge Russian military convoy is massing on the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital today as fears grew the invading forces were set to launch devastating assaults aimed at taking control of Kyiv and other major cities.
Satellite images showed a long build-up of armoured vehicles and artillery starting 29 kilometres north of the city, as Moscow defied mounting global pressure and a wave of international sanctions that have smashed Russia’s economy.
The column is more than 65 kilometres long and covers the entire road from near Antonov airport outside Kyiv to the town of Prybirsk, US satellite imaging company Maxar said.
“Some vehicles are spaced fairly far apart while in other sections military equipment and units are traveling two or three vehicles abreast on the road,” Maxar said.
The images also showed “additional ground forces deployments and ground attack helicopter units” in southern Belarus near the Ukraine border.
‘Flowers for the grave’
The mayor of Kherson, Igor Kolykhayev, also wrote on Facebook that the Russian army had set up checkpoints at all of the city’s entrances, but said it “remains Ukrainian” and “will be able to resist”.
Explosions were also reported in and around Brovary, a city on the outskirts of the capital.
In Kyiv, many were preparing for a fresh assault with makeshift barricades dotting the streets.
“We will greet them with Molotov cocktails and bullets to the head,” bank employee Viktor Rudnichenko told AFP. “The only flowers they might get from us will be for their grave.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his demands to bring the war to an end in a phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Monday.
They included recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and Ukraine’s demilitarisation.
Instead, Western nations have moved to increasingly isolate Russia, responding with an intensifying diplomatic, economic, cultural and sporting backlash.
The weekend featured a momentous series of announcements from Europe, with Germany unveiling a historic change to its defence policies.
The EU also said it would buy and supply arms to Ukraine, the first such move in its history.
Moscow came under fire at the UN General Assembly and the International Criminal Court (ICC), which opened a war crimes investigation.
“I am satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to believe that both alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in Ukraine” since 2014, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement.
Russia also faced urgent calls at an extraordinary UN General Assembly debate to end its “unprovoked” and “unjustified” assault.
Inside the General Assembly hall, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pleaded: “The fighting in Ukraine must stop. Enough is enough.”
The United States expelled 12 members of Moscow’s UN mission from America on Monday for being “intelligence operatives”.
Canada announced a ban on Russian oil imports Monday.
The European Union and its allies were also preparing more sanctions against Russia in the coming days to “raise the cost” of war in Ukraine, an aide to Macron told reporters.
And Turkey said it would implement an international treaty to limit ships passing through the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits, a move requested by Ukraine to block the transit of Russian warships.
The Russian ruble crashed to a record low as sanctions imposed by the West over the weekend had an immediate impact in Moscow, forcing the central bank to more than double its key interest rate to 20 percent.
Putin also announced emergency measures intended to prop up the ruble, including banning residents from transferring money abroad.
© – AFP, 2022 additional reporting from Press Association
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