Ukraine said Saturday it has regained control of the Kyiv region, with Russian troops retreating from around the capital and Chernigiv city, as evidence emerged of possible civilian killings in areas the invading forces have been occupying.
AFP reporters saw at least 20 bodies on a single street in the town of Bucha near the capital city, including one with his hands tied, and the body of a missing photographer was discovered in a nearby village.
“All these people were shot,” Bucha’s mayor Anatoly Fedoruk told AFP, adding that 280 other bodies had been buried in mass graves in the town.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to raise economic pressure on Russia, the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania announced Saturday that they had stopped all imports of Russian natural gas.
As it withdraws from some northern areas, Russia appears to be focusing on eastern and southern Ukraine, where it already holds vast swathes of territory.
“What is the aim of the Russian forces? They want to seize both Donbass and the south of Ukraine,” Zelensky said in a video address late Saturday. “What is our goal? To defend our freedom, our land and our people.”
But Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak warned on social media that “without heavy weapons we won’t be able to drive (Russia) out”.
Ukraine authorities nevertheless offered citizens elements of good news Saturday in claiming progress against the Russians more than five weeks after Moscow’s invasion triggered Europe’s worst conflict in decades.
“Irpin, Bucha, Gostomel and the whole Kyiv region were liberated from the invader,” deputy defence minister Ganna Maliar said on Facebook, referring to towns that have been heavily damaged or destroyed by fighting.
Putin ordered tanks into Russia’s pro-Western neighbour on February 24, and Ukraine estimates 20,000 people have been killed in the war so far.
More than 10 million have had to flee their homes.
Pope Francis spoke of “icy winds of war” again sweeping over Europe as he brought up the conflict Saturday at the outset of his trip to Malta — and made what appeared to be a barely veiled reference to Putin.
“Once again, some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts,” the pope said, adding he was still considering a visit to Ukraine’s capital.
Here are the LIVE updates on Russia-Ukraine War:
Get TheSpuzz UpdatesTurn on notifications to receive alerts as this story develops.
Russian naval forces continue to blockade the Ukrainian coast on the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, preventing resupply by sea, British military intelligence said on Sunday.
Russia retains the capability to attempt an amphibious landing, but such an operation is likely to be increasingly high risk due to the time Ukrainian forces have had to prepare, the Ministry of Defence tweeted in a regular bulletin.
“Mines within the Black Sea pose a serious risk to maritime activity,” it said.
The report said the origin of the mines was unclear and disputed but that they were almost certainly the result of Russian naval activity in the area, demonstrating how its invasion of Ukraine is affecting neutral and civilian interests.
Air strikes rocked Ukraine’s strategic Black Sea port Odessa early Sunday morning, according to an interior ministry official, after Kyiv had warned that Russia was trying to consolidate its troops in the south.
“Odessa was attacked from the air,” Anton Herashchenko, adviser to the interior minister, wrote on his Telegram account.
“Fires were reported in some areas. Some of the missiles were shot down by air defence.”
An AFP reporter heard explosions in the southwestern city at around 6:00 am (0300 GMT).
The blasts sent up at least three columns of black smoke with flames visible apparently in an industrial area.
A soldier near the site of one of the strikes said it was likely a rocket or a missile.
The attack comes as Russian forces appeared to be withdrawing from the country’s north.
A series of explosions were heard and smoke was seen in Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa in the early hours of Sunday, a Reuters witness said.
There was no official information about the attack.
Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvedaravicius was killed on Saturday in Ukraine’s Mariupol, where he had long documented the besieged port city, according to colleagues and a media report.
“Our friend Artdocfest participant, Lithuanian documentary writer Mantas Kvedaravicius, was murdered today in Mariupol, with a camera in his hands, in this shitty war of evil, against the whole world,” the Russian film director Vitaly Mansky, the founder of a festival of documentary movies Artdocfest, said on Facebook.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Kvedaravicius was known, among other works, for his conflict-zone documentary “Mariupolis”, which premiered at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival.
Almost 300 people have been buried in a mass grave in Bucha, a commuter town outside Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, its mayor told AFP Saturday after the Ukrainian army retook control of the key town from Russia.
“In Bucha, we have already buried 280 people in mass graves,” mayor Anatoly Fedoruk told AFP by phone. He said the heavily destroyed town’s streets are littered with corpses.
AFP saw at least 20 bodies — men in civilian clothes — lying in a single street in Bucha on Saturday.
Ukraine’s top negotiator in peace talks with Russia said Saturday that Moscow had “verbally” agreed to key Ukrainian proposals, raising hopes that talks to end fighting are moving forward.
Negotiator David Arakhamia told Ukrainian television channels that any meeting between Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin would “with a high probability” take place in Turkey.
“The Russian Federation has given an official answer to all positions, which is that they accept the (Ukrainian) position, except for the issue of Crimea (annexed by Russia in 2014),” Arakhamia said.
He said that while there was “no official confirmation in writing”, the Russian side said so “verbally”.
The bodies of at least 20 men in civilian clothes were found lying in a single street Saturday after Ukrainian forces retook the town of Bucha near Kyiv from Russian troops, AFP journalists said.
One of the bodies of the men had his hands tied, and the corpses were strewn over several hundred metres (yards) of the residential road in the suburban town northwest of the capital.
The cause of death was not immediately clear although at least one person had what appeared to be a large head wound.
Ukraine Live: Red Cross Says Still Trying To Get People Out Of Mariupol
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Saturday said the operation to help people leave the besieged city of Mariupol was continuing, hours after Russia said it had failed and blamed the organization. Russia’s defence ministry said aid convoys had not been able to reach Mariupol on Friday or Saturday and blamed “destructive actions” by the ICRC, Interfax news agency said.