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'Fill the silence with your music,' Zelenskyy tells Grammys
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared in a video message at the Grammy Awards to ask for support in telling the story of Ukraine’s invasion by Russia.
During the message that aired on the show Sunday, he likened the invasion to a deadly silence threatening to extinguish the dreams and lives of the Ukrainian people, including children.
Read:Ukraine accuses Russia of massacre, city strewn with bodies
“Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals, even to those who can’t hear them,” he said. “But the music will break through anyway.”
The Recording Academy, with its partner Global Citizen, prior to the ceremony highlighted a social media campaign called “Stand Up For Ukraine” to raise money and support during the humanitarian crisis.
“Fill the silence with your music. Fill it today to tell our story. Tell the truth about the war on your social networks, on TV, support us in any way you can any, but not silence. And then peace will come to all our cities,” Zelenskyy said.
Following Zelenskyy’s message, John Legend performed his song “Free” with Ukrainian musicians Siuzanna Iglidan and Mika Newton, and poet Lyuba Yakimchuk, as images from the war were shown on screens behind them.
Read:Ukraine documents alleged atrocities by retreating Russians
The war in Ukraine had taken a particularly gruesome turn Sunday when Ukrainian forces entering the town of Bucha, recently held by Russian soldiers, found bodies of people who had been shot, some after being bound and tortured. Ukrainian authorities accused the Russians of war crimes, and European leaders called for tougher sanctions against Moscow. Russia said the atrocities had been committed by Ukrainians.
Ukraine accuses Russia of massacre, city strewn with bodies
Bodies with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture lay scattered in a city on the outskirts of Kyiv after Russian soldiers withdrew from the area. Ukrainian authorities accused the departing forces on Sunday of committing war crimes and leaving behind a “scene from a horror movie.”
As images of the bodies emerged from Bucha, European leaders condemned the atrocities and called for tougher sanctions against Moscow. In a sign of how the horrific reports shook many leaders, Germany’s defense minister even suggested that the European Union consider banning Russian gas imports.
Ukrainian officials said the bodies of 410 civilians were found in Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian forces.
Associated Press journalists saw the bodies of at least 21 people in various spots around Bucha, northwest of the capital. One group of nine, all in civilian clothes, were scattered around a site that residents said Russian troops used as a base. They appeared to have been killed at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs, one was shot in the head, and another’s legs were bound.
Ukrainian officials laid the blame for the killings squarely at the feet of Russian troops, with the president calling them evidence of genocide. But Russia’s Defense Ministry rejected the accusations as “provocation.”
The discoveries followed the Russian retreat from the area after Moscow said it was focusing its offensive on the country’s east. Russian troops had rolled into Bucha in the early days of the invasion and stayed up until March 30.
Read More: Ukraine documents alleged atrocities by retreating Russians
One resident, who refused to give his name out of fear for his safety, said that Russian troops went building to building and took people out of the basements where they were hiding, checking their phones for any evidence of anti-Russian activity before taking them away or shooting them.
Hanna Herega, another resident, said Russian troops started shooting at a neighbor who had gone out to gather wood for heating.
“They hit him a bit above the heel, crushing the bone, and he fell down,” Herega said. “Then they shot off his left leg completely, with the boot. Then they shot him all over.”
The AP also saw two bodies, that of a man and a woman, wrapped in plastic that residents said they had covered and placed in a shaft until a proper funeral could be arranged.
“He put his hands up, and they shot him,” said the resident who refused to be identified.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, described bodies lying in suburban streets as a “scene from a horror movie.” He claimed some of the women had been raped before being killed and the Russians then burned the bodies.
In a video address, Zelenskyy said Russian soldiers who killed and tortured civilians were responsible for “concentrated evil.”
“It is time to do everything possible to make the war crimes of the Russian military the last manifestation of such evil on earth,” he said in remarks translated by his office.
He directed some of his remarks at the mothers of Russian soldiers involved.
“Even if you raised looters, how did they also become butchers?” he said. “You couldn’t overlook that they are deprived of everything human. No soul. No heart. They killed deliberately and with pleasure.”
Zelenskyy said his government would take steps to create a special justice mechanism to investigate every crime committed by the Russian forces in Ukraine.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that photos and videos of dead bodies “have been stage managed by the Kyiv regime for the Western media.” It noted that Bucha’s mayor did not mention any abuses a day after Russian troops left.
The ministry said “not a single civilian” in Bucha had faced any violent action by the Russian military.
Russia asked for a meeting Monday of the U.N. Security Council to discuss events in the city. The U.S. and Britain have recently accused Russia of using Security Council meetings to spread disinformation.
In Motyzhyn, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Kyiv, residents told AP on Sunday that Russian troops killed the town’s mayor, her husband and her son and threw their bodies into a pit in a pine forest behind houses where Russian forces had slept.
Inside the pit, AP journalists saw four bodies of people who appeared to have been shot at close range. The mayor’s husband had his hands behind his back, with a piece of rope nearby, and a piece of plastic wrapped around his eyes like a blindfold.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk confirmed that the mayor was killed while being held by Russian forces.
Some European leaders said the killings in the Kyiv area amounted to war crimes. The U.S. has previously said that it believes Russia has committed war crimes, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called images of what happened near Kyiv “a punch to the gut” on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“It is a brutality against civilians we haven’t seen in Europe for decades,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on the same show.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko called on nations to immediately end Russian gas imports, saying they were funding the killings.
In a turnaround, Germany’s defense minister said that the EU should consider doing just that. Ministers “would have to talk about halting gas supplies from Russia,” Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Sunday night on German public broadcaster ARD. “Such crimes must not go unanswered.”
Russia provides 40% of Europe’s gas and 25% of its oil, and until now many EU nations have resisted calls to scale back or fully end reliance on Russian fossil fuels. Giving them up would mean even higher prices at the pump and higher utility bills, potentially creating an energy crisis and a recession.
The U.S. has previously announced a ban on Russian oil, but it imports only a small share of Russia’s oil exports and doesn’t buy any of its natural gas.
Read More: Ukraine's Odesa comes under airstrike
As Russian forces retreated from the area around the capital, they pressed their sieges in other parts of the country. Russia has said it is directing troops to the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years.
In that region, Mariupol, a port on the Sea of Azov that has seen some of the war’s greatest suffering, remained cut off. About 100,000 civilians — less than a quarter of the prewar population of 430,000 — are believed to be trapped there with little or no food, water, fuel and medicine.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday that a team sent Saturday to help evacuate residents had yet to reach the city.
Ukrainian authorities said Russia agreed days ago to allow safe passage from the city, but similar agreements have broken down repeatedly under continued shelling.
The mayor of Chernihiv, which has also been cut off from shipments of food and other supplies for weeks, said that relentless Russian shelling has destroyed 70% of the northern city.
The Ukrainian military said early Monday that its forces had retaken some towns in the Chernihiv region and that humanitarian aid was being delivered. The road between Chernihiv and the capital, Kyiv, was to reopen to some traffic later in the morning, according to the news agency RBK Ukraina.
The regional governor in Kharkiv said Sunday that Russian artillery and tanks launched over 20 strikes on Ukraine’s second-largest city and its outskirts in the country’s northeast over the past day.
The head of Ukraine’s delegation in talks with Russia said Moscow’s negotiators informally agreed to most of a draft proposal discussed during face-to-face talks in Istanbul this week, but no written confirmation has been provided.
The Russian invasion has left thousands dead and forced more than 4 million Ukrainians to flee their country.
Ukraine documents alleged atrocities by retreating Russians
Ukrainian troops are finding brutalized bodies and widespread destruction in suburbs of the capital as Russian soldiers withdraw and Moscow focuses its attacks elsewhere, including missile strikes Sunday that targeted fuel and ammunition supplies in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a small city northwest of Kyiv, saw the bodies of at least nine people in civilian clothes who appeared to have been killed at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs. The AP also saw two bodies wrapped in plastic, bound with tape and thrown into a ditch.
Authorities said they were documenting evidence as Ukraine's military reclaims territory and discovers indications of execution-style slayings to add to their case for for prosecuting Russian officials for war crimes.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said scores of killed civilians were found on the streets of Bucha and the Kyiv suburbs of Irpin and Hostomel in what looked like a “scene from a horror movie.”
Arestovych said some people were shot in the head and had their hands bound, and some bodies showed signs of torture, rape and burning.
Also read: Ukraine's Odesa comes under airstrike
The capital city's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said civilians were “shot with joined hands” and told German newspaper Bild that “what happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide.”
A day earlier, AP journalists witnessed Ukrainian soldiers gingerly removing at least six bodies from a street in Bucha with cables in case the Russians had booby-trapped corpses with explosives before their withdrawal. Local residents said the dead people were civilians killed without provocation, a claim that could not be independently verified.
Klitschko called on other nations to immediately end Russian gas imports, saying they were funding the invasion of Ukraine, now in its 39th day.
“Not a penny should go to Russia anymore. That's bloody money used to slaughter people. The gas and oil embargo must come immediately,” the mayor said.
Charles Michel, president of the European Council, wrote on Twitter that he was shocked by the “haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army" in the capital region. The EU and non-governmental organizations were assisting in the effort to preserve evidence of war crimes, according to Michel, who promised “further EU sanctions” against Russia.
On Sunday morning, Russian forces launched an airstrike on the Black Sea port of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, sending up clouds of dark smoke that veiled parts of the city. The Russian military said the targets were an oil processing plant and fuel depots around Odesa, which is Ukraine's largest port and home to its navy.
"I live in that eight-floor building. At six in the morning, Russia launched an attack, and this piece of rock reached my house,” said Maiesienko Ilia, who lives near one of the targeted facilities.
The Odesa city council said Ukraine’s air defense shot down some missiles before they hit the city. Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Nazarov said there were no casualties from the attack.
The smaller port of Mariupol, located to the east on the Sea of Azov, remained cut off from the rest of the country as Russian and Ukrainian soldiers fought for control of the besieged city. About 100,000 civilians -less than a quarter of the prewar population of 430,000 - are believed to be trapped there with little or no food, water, fuel and medicine,
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it hoped a team of nine staffers and three vehicles it sent Saturday to help evacuate residents would reach Mariupol on Sunday but cautioned, "The situation on the ground is volatile and subject to rapid changes.”
Ukrainian authorities said Russia agreed days ago to allow safe passage from the city, which has been the site of some of the worst attacks and greatest suffering, but similar agreements have broken down repeatedly under continued shelling.
Mariupol is in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years. Its capture would create an unbroken land corridor from Russia to Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
With Mariupol squarely in Russia’s crosshairs, Ukraine insisted it had gained a leg up elsewhere in the country. As his country's troops retook territory north of the capital of Kyiv from departing Russian troops, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on all Ukrainians to do whatever they could "to foil the enemy’s tactics and weaken its capabilities.”
Also read: Zelenskyy: Troops shell retreating Russians
“Peace will not be the result of any decisions the enemy makes somewhere in Moscow. There is no need to entertain empty hopes that they will simply leave our land. We can only have peace by fighting,” Zelenskyy said late Saturday.
Zelenskyy and Ukraine's Western allies believe Russia has shifted its forces from the capital region and the country's north in order to build strength in the east and south. The Ukrainian leader again urged the West to supply his military with warplanes and more anti-missile systems.
"Every Russian missile that hits our cities and every bomb dropped on our people, on our children, only adds black paint to the history that will describe everyone on whom the decision depended - the decision of whether to help Ukraine with modern weapons,” Zelenskyy said.
While the geography of the battlefield morphed, little changed for many Ukrainians more than five weeks into a war that has sent more than 4 million people fleeing the country as refugees and displaced millions more from their homes.
The regional governor in Kharkiv, said Sunday that Russian artillery and tanks performed over 20 strikes on Ukraine’s second-largest city and its outskirts in the country's northeast over the past day. Gov. Oleh Synyehubov said a missile strike on the city of Lozovo wounded four people and that Russian tanks bombarded a hospital in the town of Balakliia.
Zelenskyy alleged Saturday that Russian troops have left mines around homes, abandoned equipment and even the bodies of the dead as they withdraw from around Kyiv. Those claims could not be independently verified, but Ukrainian troops were seen heeding the warning.
In towns and cities surrounding Kyiv, signs of fierce fighting were everywhere in the wake of the Russian redeployment. Destroyed armored vehicles from both armies lay in streets and fields along with scattered military gear.
Ukrainian troops were stationed at the entrance to Antonov Airport in the suburb of Hostomel, demonstrating control of the runway that Russia tried to storm in the first days of the war.
Inside the compound, the Mriya, one of the biggest planes ever built, lay wrecked underneath a hangar pockmarked with holes from the February attack.
The head of Ukraine’s delegation in talks with Russia said Moscow’s negotiators informally agreed to most of a draft proposal discussed during face-to-face talks in Istanbul this week, but no written confirmation has been provided.
The Ukrainian negotiator, Davyd Arakhamia said on Ukrainian TV that he hoped the was developed enough so that the two countries’ presidents can meet to discuss it. But the top Russian negotiator in talks with Ukraine, Vladimir Medinksy, was quoted by Interfax as saying that it’s too early to talk about a meeting between the two leaders.
Ukrainian authorities warned that Russia's focus on eastern Ukraine did not mean Kyiv and other cities wouldn't become targets again. In his evening address Saturday, Zelenskyy called for his people to do whatever they can to ensure the country’s survival, even by engaging in acts as simple as showing each other kindness.
“When a nation is defending itself in a war of annihilation, when it is a question of life or death of millions, there are no unimportant things. ... And everyone can contribute to a victory for all,” the president said.
Ukraine's Odesa comes under airstrike
Explosions rocked Ukraine's southern Black Sea port city of Odesa early Sunday as the city came under an airstrike, the Operation Command South, a formation of the Ukrainian Ground Forces in southern Ukraine, said on Facebook.
The attacks hit the city's infrastructure. Some of the missiles were intercepted by the air defense.
Also Read: Ukraine blogger video fuels false info on Mariupol bombing
According to preliminary data, there were no reports of casualties from the strikes.
Smoke has been rising in various districts of the city.
1 killed, dozens injured after explosion at night club in Baku
At least one man was killed and more than 30 others were injured after a huge blast at a night club in the center of Azerbaijan's capital Baku in the early hours of Sunday, according to law enforcement authorities.
The explosion resulted in a huge fire that engulfed the building of the night club and caused part of it to collapse, according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The blast also damaged nearby properties, including cars.
Several fire and emergency crews were sent to the area, who managed to extinguish the fire. One body was discovered at the scene. At least 31 people suffered injuries, mainly burns, and were hospitalized, according to initial estimates of law enforcement authorities.
Also Read: 2 killed, 8 injured in car bomb blast in western Afghanistan
The blast was caused by a propane gas cylinder, said Ruslan Aliyev, general director of the country's main gas provider Azerigas, adding that gas supply to the area was halted for safety reasons.
Senior officials, including Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations Etibar Mirzayev, First Deputy Prosecutor General Elchin Mammadov and Baku Mayor Eldar Azizov rushed to the scene.
Authorities have launched an investigation into the incident as emergency crews were still searching for victims.
Zelenskyy: Troops shell retreating Russians
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian troops retaking areas around Kyiv and Chernihiv are not allowing Russians to retreat without a fight, but are “shelling them. They are destroying everyone they can.”
Zelenskyy, in his Saturday night video address to the nation, said Ukraine knows Russia has the forces to put even more pressure on the east and south of Ukraine.
“What is the goal of the Russian troops? They want to seize the Donbas and the south of Ukraine,” he said. “What is our goal? To defend ourselves, our freedom, our land and our people.”
He said a significant portion of the Russian forces are tied up around Mariupol, where the city’s defenders continue to fight.
“Thanks to this resistance, thanks to the courage and resilience of our other cities, Ukraine has gained invaluable time, time that is allowing us to foil the enemy’s tactics and weaken its capabilities,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy appealed again to the West for more modern weaponry, such as anti-missile systems and aircraft.
Ukraine blogger video fuels false info on Mariupol bombing
A Ukrainian beauty blogger whom Russian officials accused of being a crisis actor when she was interviewed and photographed by The Associated Press in a bombed out Mariupol maternity hospital has emerged in new videos that are fueling fresh misinformation about the attack.
A Russian government-linked Twitter account on Friday shared an interview with Marianna Vishegirskaya, in which the new mother says the hospital was not hit by an airstrike last month and that she told AP journalists she did not want to be filmed — assertions that are directly contradicted by AP reporting.
In the interview, conducted by Russian blogger Denis Seleznev and filmed by Kristina Melnikova, Vishegirskaya is asked to provide details about what occurred at the hospital on March 9, the day of the bombing. It is not clear where Vishegirskaya is, or under what conditions the interview was filmed.
The video was posted to Seleznev's YouTube account and circulated on Telegram and Twitter, and similar videos were also shared on Vishegirskaya's personal Instagram account. Russian officials have repeatedly tried to cast doubt on the strike in Mariupol, a key military objective for Moscow, since images were seen around the world and shed light on Russia’s attacks on civilians in Ukraine.
READ: Ukrainian forces retake areas near Kyiv amid fear of traps
In the new videos, Vishegirskaya says those huddled in the basement of the hospital after the attack believed the explosions were caused by “shelling,” not an airstrike, because “no one” heard sounds that would indicate that bombs were dropped from planes.
But eyewitness accounts and video from AP journalists in Mariupol lays out evidence of an airstrike, including the sound of an airplane before the blast, a crater outside the hospital that went at least two stories deep and interviews with a police officer and a soldier at the scene who both referred to the attack as an “airstrike.”
At the time of the strike, AP reporters were in another part of Mariupol. They distinctly heard a plane and then two explosions. They went to the 12th floor of a nearby building where they filmed two large plumes of smoke in the distance in the direction of the hospital. It then took them about 25 minutes to get to the hospital.
“By that time you would hear an airplane almost every 10, 15 minutes, and there would be airstrikes all around the city,” AP video journalist Mstyslav Chernov explained in an interview Saturday. “This one was closer to us so we heard it very well."
Chernov said that when airstrikes are happening, the sound of an airplane is followed by the sound of an explosion within seconds. On March 9, he said he heard an airplane and then two bombs immediately after. Vishegirskaya also notes in the interview released Friday that she distinctly heard two blasts.
“We heard the noise of a projectile. Then I personally, instinctively put a blanket on, and then we heard the second projectile,” says Vishegirskaya, who speaks in Russian.
Vishegirskaya also says in the video that she repeatedly told AP she did not want to be filmed, but recordings of AP journalists’ interactions with her contradict this. Video shows reporters’ first encounter with her outside the hospital, where she is wrapped in a blanket and looks directly at the camera.
“How are you?” Chernov asks, and Vishegirskaya replies: “Everything is good. I feel good.” Someone off camera says, “Let’s go,” and she replies, “Yes, let’s go please,” before entering the building with an emergency worker to collect her belongings.
During the exchange Vishegirskaya is aware she is on camera and does not make any indication that she does not wish to be filmed. AP reporters also said neither she nor her husband ever indicated that they did not consent to being filmed or interviewed when they spoke with the couple March 11, the day after she gave birth.
In video recorded that day, she discussed what she saw and heard at the hospital. The subject of whether it was hit by airstrikes or shelling did not explicitly come up. The only reference that Vishegirskaya made on the matter was that she was not sure where the strike came from.
“I didn’t see with my own eyes, from whom it flew, from where, what and which direction. We don’t know,” she told AP on camera, adding: “There are many rumors, but in fact we can’t say anything.”
Vishegirskaya's newly released comments actually contradict talking points that Russia promoted after the bombing. The country's embassy in the United Kingdom had shared the AP’s photos of Vishegirskaya and another woman wounded on a stretcher, placing the word “FAKE” over the images and claiming that Vishegirskaya had posed in both in “realistic makeup.” The misinformation was repeated by Russian ambassadors in other parts of the world.
In reality the photos showed two different women, and Vishegirskaya confirms in the new interview that she was injured in the attack and that the woman on the stretcher was someone else.
The Russian government-linked Twitter account that shared the clip ignored the contradictions and portrayed the interview as an authoritative account.
The AP has not been able to identify the woman on the stretcher, but a surgeon confirmed that both she and her baby died from injuries sustained during the attack.
Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov that has been besieged for over a month, has suffered some of the war’s heaviest damage and also come to symbolize Ukrainian resistance to the invasion. Located in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years, capturing the city would give Russia an unbroken land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014.
Ukrainian forces retake areas near Kyiv amid fear of traps
Ukrainian troops moved cautiously to retake territory north of the country’s capital on Saturday, using cables to pull the bodies of civilians off streets of one town out of fear that Russian forces may have left them booby-trapped.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that departing Russian troops were creating a “catastrophic” situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and “even the bodies of those killed.” His claims could not be independently verified.
Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, watched as Ukrainian soldiers backed by a column of tanks and other armored vehicles used cables to drag bodies off of a street from a distance. Locals said the dead — the AP counted at least six — were civilians killed without provocation by departing Russian soldiers.
“Those people were just walking and they shot them without any reason. Bang,” said a Bucha resident who declined to give his name citing safety reasons. “In the next neighborhood, Stekolka, it was even worse. They would shoot without asking any question.” Ukraine and its Western allies reported mounting evidence of Russia withdrawing its forces from around Kyiv and building its troop strength in eastern Ukraine.
The visible shift did not mean the country faced a reprieve from more than five weeks of war or that the more than 4 million refugees who have fled Ukraine will return soon. Zelenskyy said he expects departed towns to endure missile and rocket strikes from afar and for the battle in the east to be intense.
Read: Russians leave Chernobyl; Ukraine braces for renewed attacks
In his nightly video address Saturday, the Ukrainian leader said the country’s troops were not allowing the Russians to retreat without a fight: “They are shelling them. They are destroying everyone they can.”
Russia, Zelenskyy said, has ample forces to put more pressure on Ukraine’s east and south.
“What is the goal of the Russian troops? They want to seize the Donbas and the south of Ukraine,” he said. “What is our goal? To defend ourselves, our freedom, our land and our people.”
Moscow’s focus on eastern Ukraine also kept the besieged southeastern city of Mariupol in the crosshairs. The port city on the Sea of Azov is located in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years. Military analysts think Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to capture the region after his forces failed to secure Kyiv and other major cities.
The International Committee of the Red Cross had hoped to evacuate Mariupol residents Saturday but had not yet reached the city. A day earlier, local authorities said the Red Cross was blocked by Russian forces.
An adviser to Zelenskyy, Oleksiy Arestovych, said in an interview with Russian lawyer and activist Mark Feygin that Russia and Ukraine had reached an agreement to allow 45 buses to drive to Mariupol to evacuate residents “in coming days.”
The Mariupol city council said earlier Saturday that 10 empty buses were headed to Berdyansk, a city 84 kilometers (52.2 miles) west of Mariupol, to pick up people who managed to get there on their own. About 2,000 made it out of Mariupol on Friday, some on buses and some in their own vehicles, city officials said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said 765 Mariupol residents on Saturday used private vehicles to reach Zaporizhzhia, a city still under Ukrainian control that has served as the destination for other planned evacuations.
Among those escaping was Tamila Mazurenko, who said she fled Mariupol on Monday, made it to Berdyansk that night and then took a bus to Zaporizhzhia. Mazurenko said she waited for a bus until Friday, spending one night sleeping in a field.
“I have only one question: Why?” she said of her city’s ordeal. “We only lived as normal people. And our normal life was destroyed. And we lost everything. I don’t have any job, I can’t find my son.”
Read: War in Ukraine fuels fears among draft-age Russian youths
Mariupol has been surrounded by Russian forces for more than a month and suffered some of the war’s worst attacks, including on a maternity hospital and a theater that was sheltering civilians. Around 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city, down from a prewar population of 430,000, and they face dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.
Zelenskyy said a significant number of Russian troops were tied up in Mariupol, giving Ukraine “invaluable time ... that is allowing us to foil the enemy’s tactics and weaken its capabilities.”
The city’s capture would give Moscow an unbroken land bridge from Russia to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014. But its resistance also has taken on symbolic significance during Russia’s invasion, said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Ukrainian think tank Penta.
“Mariupol has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, and without its conquest, Putin cannot sit down at the negotiating table,” Fesenko said.
About 500 refugees from eastern Ukraine, including 99 children and 12 people with disabilities, arrived in the Russian city of Kazan by train overnight. Asked if he saw a chance to return home, Mariupol resident Artur Kirillov answered, “That’s unlikely, there is no city anymore.”
In towns and cities surrounding Kyiv, signs of fierce fighting were everywhere in the wake of the Russian redeployment. Destroyed armored vehicles from both armies lay in streets and fields along with scattered military gear.
Ukrainian troops were stationed at the entrance to Antonov Airport in suburb of Hostomel, demonstrating control of the runway that Russia tried to storm in the first days of the war.
Inside the compound, the Mriya, one of the biggest planes ever built, lay wrecked underneath a hangar pockmarked with holes from the February attack.
“The Russians couldn’t make one like it so they destroyed it,“ said Oleksandr Merkushev, mayor of the Kyiv suburb of Irpin.
Irpin has seen some of the fiercest battles, and Merkushev said Russian troops “left behind them many bodies, many destroyed buildings, and they mined many places.”
A prominent Ukrainian photojournalist who went missing last month in a combat zone near the capital was found dead Friday in the Huta Mezhyhirska village north of Kyiv, the country’s prosecutor general’s office announced. The prosecutor general’s office attributed Maks Levin’s death to two gunshots allegedly fired by the Russian military and said an investigation was underway.
Elsewhere, at least three Russian ballistic missiles were fired late Friday at the Odesa region on the Black Sea, regional leader Maksim Marchenko said. The Ukrainian military said the Iskander missiles did not hit the critical infrastructure they targeted in Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port and the headquarters of its navy.
Ukraine’s state nuclear agency reported a series of blasts Saturday that injured four people in Enerhodar, a southeastern city that has been under Russian control since early March along with the nearby Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman said via Telegram that the four were badly burned when Russian troops fired light and noise grenades and mortars at a pro-Ukraine demonstration.
The head of Ukraine’s delegation in talks with Russia said Moscow’s negotiators informally agreed to most of a draft proposal discussed during face-to-face talks in Istanbul this week, but no written confirmation has been provided. However, Davyd Arakhamia said on Ukrainian TV that he hopes that draft is developed enough so that the two countries’ presidents can meet to discuss it.
COVID in UK at record levels with almost 5 million infected
The prevalence of COVID-19 in the U.K. has reached record levels, with about 1 in 13 people estimated to be infected with the virus in the past week, latest figures from Britain's official statistics agency showed.
Some 4.9 million people were estimated to have the coronavirus in the week ending March 26, up from 4.3 million recorded in the previous week, the Office for National Statistics said Friday, The latest surge is driven by the more transmissible omicron variant BA.2, which is the dominant variant across the U.K.
Hospitalizations and death rates are again rising, although the number of people dying with COVID-19 is still relatively low compared with earlier this year. Nonetheless, the latest estimates suggest that the steep climb in new infections since late February, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson scrapped all remaining coronavirus restrictions in England, continued well into March.
Also read: Global Covid cases near 490 million
The figures came on the day the government ended free rapid COVID-19 tests for most people in England, under Johnson's “living with COVID” plan. People who do not have health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the coronavirus now need to pay for tests to find out if they are infected.
“The government's ‘living with COVID’ strategy of removing any mitigations, isolation, free testing and a considerable slice of our surveillance amounts to nothing more than ignoring this virus going forwards,” said Stephen Griffin, associate professor at the University of Leeds' medical school.
“Such unchecked prevalence endangers the protection afforded by our vaccines,” he said. “Our vaccines are excellent, but they are not silver bullets and ought not to be left to bear the brunt of COVID in isolation.”
Also read: Manipal Hospital offers services to its overseas patients as Covid situation improves in India
More than 67% of people 12 years old and above in the U.K. have had their booster or third dose of the coronavirus vaccine. From Saturday parents can also book a low-dose vaccine for children between 5 to 12 years old in England.
James Naismith, a biology professor at the University of Oxford, said he believed that except for those who are completely shielded or not susceptible to the virus, most people in the country would likely be infected with the BA.2 variant by the summer.
“This is literally living with the virus by being infected with it," he said.
Zelenskyy: Russians create 'complete disaster' with mines
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned his people early Saturday that retreating Russian forces were creating “a complete disaster” outside the capital as they leave mines across “the whole territory,” including around homes and corpses.
He issued the warning as the humanitarian crisis in the encircled city of Mariupol deepened, with Russian forces blocking evacuation operations for the second day in a row. Meanwhile, the Kremlin accused the Ukrainians of launching a helicopter attack on a fuel depot on Russian soil.
Ukraine denied responsibility for the fiery blast, but if Moscow’s claim is confirmed, it would be the war’s first known attack in which Ukrainian aircraft penetrated Russian airspace.
“Certainly, this is not something that can be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for the continuation of the talks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, five weeks after Moscow began sending upwards of 150,000 of its own troops across Ukraine’s border.
Russia continued withdrawing some of its ground forces from areas around Kyiv after saying earlier this week it would reduce military activity near the Ukrainian capital and the northern city of Chernihiv.
“They are mining the whole territory. They are mining homes, mining equipment, even the bodies of people who were killed,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation. “There are a lot of trip wires, a lot of other dangers.”
Ukraine’s military said it had retaken 29 settlements in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions.
Still, Ukraine and its allies warned that the Kremlin is not de-escalating to promote trust at the bargaining table, as it claimed, but instead resupplying and shifting its troops to the country’s east. Those movements appear to be preparation for an intensified assault on the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region in the country's east, which includes Mariupol.
Zelenskyy warned of difficult battles ahead as Russia redeploys troops. “We are preparing for an even more active defense,” he said.
He did not say anything about the latest round of talks, which took place Friday by video. At a round of talks earlier in the week, Ukraine said it would be willing to abandon a bid to join NATO and declare itself neutral — Moscow’s chief demand — in return for security guarantees from several other countries.
The invasion has left thousands dead and driven more than 4 million refugees from Ukraine.
Mariupol, the shattered and besieged southern port city, has seen some of the worst suffering of the war. Its capture would be a major prize for Russian President Vladimir Putin, giving his country an unbroken land bridge to Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014.
On Friday, the International Committee for the Red Cross said it was unable to carry out an operation to bring civilians out of Mariupol by bus. City authorities said the Russians were blocking access to the city.
“We do not see a real desire on the part of the Russians and their satellites to provide an opportunity for Mariupol residents to evacuate to territory controlled by Ukraine,” Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol's mayor, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
He said Russian forces “are categorically not allowing any humanitarian cargo, even in small amounts, into the city.”
Around 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city, down from a prewar 430,000. Weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting have caused severe shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.
“We are running out of adjectives to describe the horrors that residents in Mariupol have suffered,” Red Cross spokesperson Ewan Watson said.
On Thursday, Russian forces blocked a 45-bus convoy attempting to evacuate people from Mariupol and seized 14 tons of food and medical supplies bound for the city, Ukrainian authorities said.
Zelenskyy said more than 3,000 people were able to leave Mariupol on Friday.
He said he discussed the humanitarian disaster with French President Emmanuel Macron by telephone and with the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, during her visit to Kyiv.
“Europe doesn’t have the right to be silent about what is happening in our Mariupol,” Zelenskyy said. “The whole world should respond to this humanitarian catastrophe.”
Elsewhere, at least three Russian ballistic missiles were fired late Friday at the Odesa region on the Black Sea, regional leader Maksim Marchenko said. The Ukrainian military said the Iskander missiles did not hit the critical infrastructure they targeted.
Odesa is Ukraine’s largest port and the headquarters of its navy.
As for the fuel depot explosion, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said two Ukrainian helicopter gunships flew in extremely low and attacked the civilian oil storage facility on the outskirts of the city of Belgorod, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the Ukraine border.
The regional governor said two workers at the depot were wounded, but the Rosneft state oil company denied anyone was hurt.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, said on Ukrainian television: “For some reason they say that we did it, but in fact this does not correspond with reality."
Later, in an interview with Fox, Zelenskyy refused to say whether Ukraine was behind the attack.
On the outskirts of Kyiv, where Russian troops have withdrawn, damaged cars lined the streets of Irpin, a suburban area popular with young families, now in ruins. Emergency workers carried elderly people on stretchers over a wrecked bridge to safety.
Three wooden crosses next to a residential building that was damaged in a shelling marked the graves of a mother and son and an unknown man. A resident who gave her name only as Lila said she helped hurriedly bury them on March 5, just before Russian troops moved in.
“They were hit with artillery and they were burned alive,” she said.
An Irpin resident who gave his name only as Andriy said the Russians packed up their equipment and left on Tuesday. The next day, they shelled the town for close to an hour before Ukrainian soldiers retook it.
“I don’t think this is over,” Andriy said. “They will be back.”