The Russian military continues to shell Ukrainian targets unabated. According to Russian sources, 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers surrendered in Mariupol. Meanwhile, Ukraine reports the shooting down of a Russian Su-25.
Despite all appeals and talks, hostilities in Ukraine continue unabated. Ukrainian troops reported shooting down a Russian Su-25 ground attack aircraft. Overall, however, the activity of the Russian Air Force has declined due to the bad weather, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Facebook.
At the same time, civilian objects in the Kharkiv and Zaporizhia regions were attacked with rockets. The artillery shelling of the eastern Ukrainian metropolis of Kharkiv will also continue. According to the local governor, Oleg Synegubow, at least 27 people were killed and another 22 injured within one day. A two-year-old boy was among the fatalities, Synegubow said. The information cannot be independently verified.
Russia reports surrender of 1000 soldiers
According to the General Staff, Ukrainian positions in the besieged port city of Mariupol in south-eastern Ukraine are also being bombed. The Russian troops would continue their attacks in the port area and in the Azovstal steelworks.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry has released a report that more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers have laid down their arms and taken prisoner. There are said to be 1,026 members of the 36th Marines Brigade, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
Konashenkov said there were 162 officers and 47 women among the prisoners. Accordingly, the fighters surrendered to the units of the Russian army and the pro-Russian separatists from the Donetsk region, to which Mariupol belongs, in battles for a large metal processing plant. This information is also not independently verifiable.
“This is not life. This is survival”
The media recently reported that around 3,000 Ukrainian fighters were still holding their ground in Mariupol. That number would have dropped by a third.
Despite the destruction of many houses, civilians are still holding out in Mariopol, as Deputy Mayor Serhiy Orlov told the daily themes on Tuesday. People stayed in basements and shelters to avoid the shelling. “This is not life. This is survival,” Orlov said. The Ukrainian administration of the Donetsk region, to which Mariupol belongs, said on Tuesday that more than 20,000 people were estimated to have been killed there.
Ukraine reports hundreds dead in capital suburbs
Hundreds of bodies have now been found in suburbs around the capital Kyiv. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry estimates that more than 700 people were killed. In the areas that had been occupied by Russian troops for days, more than 200 people were still missing, the ministry said.
According to the authorities, more than 400 bodies were found in Butscha alone. “We have 403 dead who were brutally tortured and murdered,” said Bucha’s mayor Anatoly Fedoruk. According to him, the bodies of another mass grave with 56 dead are currently being exhumed. At least 16 people are still missing. That number could increase as minesweepers comb the area.
According to the General Prosecutor’s Office, French experts from the gendarmerie and the French army’s medical service began their work. “The evidence collected will be used in national investigations and also handed over to the International Criminal Court,” said Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova. With a mobile laboratory for DNA analysis, the experts are supposed to stay in the place for 15 days.
Selenskyj speaks of Russian phosphorus bombs
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of using phosphorus bombs. This is terror against the civilian population, he said in a video address to the Estonian parliament. So far there has been no independent confirmation of the use of phosphorus bombs. Zelenskyj also calls for instruments to be found that would increase the pressure on Russia to end the forced deportation of Ukrainians. Sanctions against Russia must be continued.
Proposal for the exchange of prisoners
Zelenskyi made a proposal to the Kremlin to exchange the arrested pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk: “I propose to the Russian Federation to exchange their boys for our boys and girls in Russian captivity.” The politician and oligarch Medvedchuk is considered the closest ally of Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. He escaped from his house arrest shortly before the outbreak of war in February and was arrested by the Ukrainian secret service SBU on Tuesday.
“No one in the world understands” such a plan
In a late-night video speech, Zelenskyy responded to Putin’s statements that the war was going according to plan. “Honestly, no one in the world understands how such a plan could be drawn up,” said Zelenskyy. What good is a plan that envisages the death of tens of thousands of your own soldiers, asked the head of state. It is clear that the number of Ukrainians killed in Moscow is not of interest anyway.
Zelenskyy quoted Ukrainian figures that 20,000 Russian soldiers had already been killed. Western estimates put the number of deaths in the thousands. The Kremlin itself speaks only of heavy losses.
