The residents of the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine and near the border with Poland, woke up this Monday to the impacts of missiles from Russian forces that have caused at least seven deaths.
According to the regional leader, Maksym Kozytsky, four missiles were fired at military installations. Three hit warehouses and another a garage where automobiles were being maintained.
“The enemy wants to destroy us as a nation“, said the mayor of the city, Andriy Sadovyi.
More explosions occurred over the weekend in kyiv, the capital, in Kharkiv, to the north , and in Mykolaiv, in the south of the country.
These are attacks that occur weeks after Russia said to concentrate its military offensive in the Donbas region, to the east of the country, under the pretext of defending the significant Russophone population in that area.
- “The battle through Donbas will be long and bloody, more similar to World War II maneuvers than to what happened in kyiv”
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In recent days, the focus of the war has also been on the siege in Mariupol, an important port in southern Ukraine where local forces are reluctant to hand over the city despite the ultimatum imposed by the Russians.
This Monday there will also be no humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians for the second consecutive day after Ukrainian and Russian officials failed to reach an agreement on the matter.
Monday’s attacks surprised many residents of Lviv, a city that has so far not suffered from war on the same scale as other Ukrainian cities.
One of the surprised locals was Valya, from 70 years old, who assumed she would be safe despite hearing the air raid alarms.
Ever since she was born, Valya has lived in a house near the explosions. She then she heard the detonations that destroyed her window.
“I fell. Everything was shaking. I was very scared”, she said.
Valya went out in her pajamas, dazed, until a neighbor ordered her to go down to a basement.
“ I was lucky that this was only the wave and not the rocket”, he stated.
What is happening in Mariupol?
The defenders of the besieged city of Mariupol will fight to the end against Russian forces, according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.
This port city has not fallen even though Moscow has given an ultimatum to the last fighters to surrender.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says that Russia has chosen to raze Mariupol to the ground. And local officials assure that the Russian forces have announced that they will arrest anyone who enters or leaves the city.
The capture of this entire city is seen as a great strategic prize for Russia, leaving it in control of a vast area of southern and eastern Ukraine.
“ They will fight to the end”
In an interview with the American network ABC, Shmyhal declared that the Ukrainian forces had ignored the ultimatum of Russia to surrender this Sunday.
“The city has not fallen. Our military forces are still there, our soldiers, and they will fight to the end. And they are still in Mariupol,” he said.
The Russian army claims to control almost all of Mariupol, while Ukraine’s Azov Battalion still holds out in Azovstal, a huge steel factory overlooking the Sea of Azov.
Justin Crump, a military expert at the Sybilline security consultancy, told the BBC that there could be between 500 Y 800 Ukrainian soldiers resisting in the city.
“The steel factory has nuclear bunkers, tunnels. It is made to survive a nuclear conflict. They are well prepared for the defense”, Crump.
“They have had more than 50 days to fortify it and build escape routes. I suspect that unless they are wiped out they will be around for a long time. It is credible that there is guerrilla resistance”, added the expert.
Desperation for civilians
Ukraine has demanded that the Russian forces open humanitarian corridors from Mariupol to allow civilians and wounded Ukrainian troops to leave, but it has not been for weeks these types of large-scale evacuations occur.
The situation is desperate for the civilians of the city, with houses destroyed and water shortages.
While the defenders of Mariupol continue to hold out, Ukrainian officials continue to deny any possibility of territorial concessions for Russia.
In an interview broadcast on CNN on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky ruled out the idea of leaving for Moscow to seize parts of eastern Ukraine to stop the conflict.
“Ukraine and its people have it Sure. We have no right to anyone else’s territories, but we are not going to give up ours“, he said.
Other events
Ukraine says five people were killed in shelling in Kharkiv East Sunday and that two others died in Zolote, in the Luhansk region, where residents have been asked to evacuate.
In the south, in Mykolaiv, where fighters have been holding the Russian advance in the port of Odessa, the governor assures that there have been constant missile attacks.
The Russian authorities, For their part, they confirmed the death of Major General Vladimir Frolov , deputy commander of the 8th Army, the last of several senior officers to die in the conflict.
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