However, the Ukrainian army reported the shooting down of several planes.
According to Ukraine’s state information service, an attack has also begun in the southern Ukrainian city of Cherson. The strategically important port city of Mariupol in the extreme south-east of the country was still under the control of the Ukrainian army on Tuesday morning, but after a Russian air raid it was almost without electricity. There are also internet and cell phone outages.
Terekhov reported problems with the city’s electricity and water supply as a result of the blasts. He had previously spoken of 87 damaged residential buildings, nine dead and 37 injured. “Today has shown that this is not just war. This is the murder of us, the Ukrainian people,” he said in a video message. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the events in Kharkiv as a war crime. “There will definitely be a tribunal for this crime. An international one. It’s a violation of all conventions,” he said in a video message.
Dormitories and houses destroyed
A dormitory and two five-story apartment buildings were destroyed in the Kyiv region on Monday evening, authorities reported. The buildings were located in the cities of Vasylkiv and Bila Tserkva in the south-west of Kiev and in the settlement of Kalynivka in the north-west of the city. The authorities did not provide any information about possible victims.
Five warplanes and a helicopter were shot down during Russian airstrikes on Monday, Ukrainska Pravda reported on Tuesday, citing the Defense Ministry. The shooting down of the fighter planes took place during the air raids on Vasylkiv and Brovary in the Kiev region, it said. A cruise missile and a helicopter were also shot down near Kyiv. Ukrainian fighter planes bombed tanks and troops near Kyiv and Zhytomyr, and there were also bombings in northern Chernihiv and near the Russian-controlled city of Berdyansk in the south.
Huge military convoy sighted
The US broadcaster CNN reported on Monday evening (local time), citing military experts, that the storming of the capital could be imminent. However, the army could also try to form a siege ring around the city. Findings by the US company Maxar, which specializes in analyzing satellite images, also caused concern, according to which the Russian army convoy in the north-west of the city is 40 miles (64 kilometers) more than twice as long as previously thought.
Former US intelligence coordinator James Clapper expressed the expectation that the Russian army would intensify artillery fire in particular. “It will be brutal and ugly,” he said on Monday evening (local time) to the US broadcaster CNN. Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik said they were preparing for a siege. It is important to keep the access roads to Kyiv open, she stressed.
Klitschko: “As long as we are alive”
When asked how long the city could withstand Russian pressure, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said: “As long as we are alive.” There is an unbelievable consensus among the population that “does not want to go back to the Soviet Union”. “We see our future as a modern European country. That is our goal,” he emphasized.
According to Ukraine’s state information service, an attack also began on Tuesday night in the southern Ukrainian city of Cherson. An attack in the Sumy region in north-eastern Ukraine is said to have resulted in heavy casualties on both sides. The Ukrainian anti-corruption portal Antikor wrote on Tuesday night that there may have been 70 deaths on the Ukrainian side and a large number of victims on the Russian side. Russian artillery hit a military unit. Bodies would be recovered from under the rubble. According to the UNIAN agency, the Ukrainian army claims to have destroyed around 100 Russian military vehicles in the Sumy region.
Meanwhile, there were new reports that the Russian aggressors could get support from the Belarusian army. The Ukrainian military reported on Monday that Belarusian troops are already on their way to Ukraine. “Some units of the most combat-ready formations of the Belarusian Armed Forces have begun to move towards the state border of Ukraine in the direction of Volhynia,” the Ukrainian General Staff wrote on Facebook on Monday. This information could not be independently verified. Volhynia is a region in northwestern Ukraine.
As early as Monday night, there had been speculation that Belarus might soon be officially involved with soldiers in Russia’s war against Ukraine. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Belarusian President Lukashenko had assured on Sunday that he did not want to intervene in the war.
Source: Nachrichten
