Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sounded a hopeful note Saturday as he declared that a peaceful end to the Russian invasion is possible– even as enemy ground forces took up positions about 15 miles from Kyiv’s city center and nearby villages were pounded by relentless air strikes.
“Our diplomats are working on the details of the agenda of the possible meeting of Ukrainian and Russian delegations,” a haggard-looking Zelensky said during a public news briefing. “I would like this to happen. So we can actually, not just on words, start the process of settlement, peace and the end of war.”
At the same time, he said defiantly, “We know 100% that we will win” — adding that the capital, Kyiv, could only be taken by the approaching Russian forces “if they do carpet bombings” and “destroy all of us.”
“They will have to live on this land by themselves,” he said.
But Russian forces continued to make headway in their slow grind toward Kyiv on Saturday, bombarding the capital and other Ukrainian cities with aircraft and artillery assaults.
Multiple structures in the village of Makariv just west of Kiev – including apartment buildings, schools, and a medical office — were damaged in apparent airstrikes, according to photos posted to social media.
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Evacuations of civilians from frontline towns near Kyiv were proceeding on Saturday and will continue on Sunday, regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba told local media. “We will try to get people out every day, as long as it’s possible to observe a ceasefire,” he said.
The Ukrainian port city of Mariupol was ravaged by Russian shelling on Saturday, as residents hid in its iconic mosque and elsewhere to avoid the explosions.
The city of 446,000 has endured some of Ukraine’s worst misery since Russia invaded, with unceasing barrages thwarting all attempts to bring food, water and medicine to its trapped civilians – and even interrupting efforts to bury the dead in mass graves.
“I think we can say we’re in the disaster phase now,” Alex Wade of Doctors Without Borders told CNN.
Zelensky’s hopes for a diplomatic solution were fueled by the efforts of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke with him by phone Saturday morning.
The two leaders then held a 75-minute phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin to plead for an “immediate cease-fire in Ukraine.”
While the Russian dictator remains “determined” to continue the war, a French government source, told CNN, he “does not exclude the possibility of a diplomatic solution altogether” – a glimmer of light in the increasingly grim situation on the ground in Ukraine. The diplomatic dialogue will continue, the source said.
Putin also used the call to press his claims that Ukrainian forces are guilty of “egregious violation … of international humanitarian law,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a highly placed Russian official continued the Kremlin’s saber-rattling.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said that convoys transporting military aid to Ukraine will would become “legitimate targets” for Russia’s military.
Any attempts to provide additional military assistance – such as the $14 billion in aid to Ukraine that was passed by the US Senate Thursday – would be a “dangerous” move, he said, according to The Kyiv Independent.
The United Nations has reported 1,581 civilian casualties — a total of 579 killed, including 42 children, and 1,002 injured — since the Russian invasion began 17 days ago. Ukraine’s Office of the Attorney General said 79 children have so far been killed during the invasion.
In other developments:
- Russian troops have been ordered to target civilians and children, the Kyiv Independent reported, based on to calls intercepted by the Secret Service of Ukraine. Seven people, including a child, were killed when Russians shot at a column of evacuating women and children near Kyiv, according according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense.
- About 130 US soldiers from the 87th Division Sustainment Support Battalion deployed to Europe Friday, joining the 3,800 soldiers from the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division already stationed in European nations such as Poland, Romania and Germany in response to the Russian invasion.
- Russia will hold a “referendum” in the key port city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, the only major city to fall since the invasion, according to reports. The goal is to create a so-called “people’s republic” like those established in 2014 and 2015 in the breakaway eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk that it claimed at the start of the war.
- Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense released video footage showing what it said was a drone strike on a Russian rocket launcher system. The clip shows a massive explosion that leaves no trace of the weaponry.
- Zelensky protested the abduction of Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of Melitopol, who was taken by armed men Friday. “Our demand is simple, his immediate release,” Zelensky said, as citizens in the Russian-occupied city staged a rally to support him.
The eastern Ukrainian town of Volnovakha in the Russian-claimed region of Donetsk fell to invading troops late Friday after it was slammed by mortar fire that left it in ruins, Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
But fighting continued there Saturday in an effort to keep Russian troops from encircling the town and advancing further, he added.
Images of the devastation, showing destroyed homes, apartment buildings, houses of worship, highway bridges and a hospital, emerged early Saturday.
Volnovakha, with a population of 22,000, sits in the Donbas region of Ukraine, one of the two breakaway sectors claimed by Russia at the start of the war. The pictures provide a rare glimpse into the war’s impact on that part of the country.
Russian news agency Interfax claimed that Volnovakha is under the control of pro-Russian separatist forces. Russian tanks could be seen rolling through the center of the town, Sky News said.
According to Interfax, Mikhail Mizintsev, head of Russia’s National Defense Control Center, pushed back on Ukrainian demands to evacuate civilians from the area, which has no electricity, food or water.
“Relevant humanitarian events involving the population are underway, and none of the residents are going to leave their homes,” Mizintsev said. The separatist troops “are already establishing a return to peaceful life in Volnovakha,” he claimed.
The images told a different story. Video showed residents warming themselves with fires outside damaged buildings and describing shelling of residential areas.
In his Saturday briefing, Zelensky said that 1,300 members of the country’s armed forces have been killed since the Russian invasion began last month — his first acknowledgment of a specific number of military casualties.
But he said that Russian forces have suffered “the biggest blow,” with more than 12,000 casualties so far — losing more troops in the last 17 days than it has in decades.
Three generals have been killed in the fierce fighting, according to reports, and Ukrainian forces have destroyed more than $5 billion worth of Russian military equipment.
Since Russia declared war on Feb. 24, the Russian military has lost 362 armored combat vehicles, 1,205 artillery systems, 33 airplanes, 58 helicopters, and 60 tanks, among other losses, according to Ukrinform, a Ukrainian news service.
Air raid sirens sounded throughout Kyiv early Saturday morning, as well as in the western city of Lviv, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, and in the Sumy region in the northeast of the country, local media reported.
Earlier Saturday, Russian forces destroyed an airfield in Vasylkiv, a city southwest of the capital, that the Ukrainian Air Force had been using as a base.
Eight Russian missiles struck an ammunition dump and an oil depot in the attack, Vasylkiv Mayor Natalia Balasynovych ,told BuzzFeed News.
