Defiant Ukrainians have dealt “powerful blows” to invading Russian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday — but while a new effort to create humanitarian corridors out of several besieged cities gave hope to some civilians, fears grew that the northern city of Chernihiv could become the conflict’s “next Mariupol.”
Zelensky beamed into Qatar’s Doha Forum, making another plea for the United Nations and world powers to help his embattled nation.
He compared the destruction of the southern port of Mariupol to the destruction wrought on the city of Aleppo in the Syrian war.
“They are destroying our ports,” Zelensky warned. “The absence of exports from Ukraine will deal a blow to countries worldwide.”
“The future of Europe rests with your efforts,” he added.
Meanwhile, Russians turned their attacks on the western city of Lviv, the nation’s cultural capital, 50 miles from the Polish border, which is housing countless displaced Ukrainians and acts as a major conduit for weapons and humanitarian shipments from Europe and the US.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said missile strikes wounded five people and inflicted “significant damage” on “infrastructure facilities,” and a fuel storage facility.
“I think with these strikes the aggressor wants to say hello to President Biden who is in Poland,” Sadovyi later told reporters. Biden had earlier called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “butcher” while visiting with refugees in Warsaw.
In Chernihiv, Ukrainian soldiers desperately tried to help civilians get out — and food and medicine get in — beneath a bombardment that has continued since the war began a month ago.
A hotel in Chernihiv destroyed by shelling. Oleh Holovatenko/REUTERS
A map shows Chernihiv and other areas that are under threat by Russian troops.
A market destroyed in Chernihiv. National Police of Ukraine via REUTERS
Women from Kharkiv are reunited with their friend from Chernihiv after fleeing to Romania. Clodagh Kilcoyne/REUTERSCitizens in the town about 90 miles north of Kyiv have hunkered down in bomb shelters for weeks.
“In basements at night, everyone is talking about one thing: Chernihiv becoming next Mariupol,” said linguistics scholar Ihar Kazmerchak, 38.
“Ravaged houses, fires, corpses in the street, huge aircraft bombs that didn’t explode in courtyards are not surprising anyone anymore,” he said. “People are simply tired of being scared and don’t even always go down to the basements.”
Chernihiv Mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko said more than 200 civilians have died and just 120,000 to 130,000 residents remain in the city, less than half its normal population of 290,000. At least 44 severely wounded people, including three children, could not be evacuated for treatment Saturday.
In other developments:
- Former Russian president Dmitri A. Medvedev, now vice chairman of Russia’s Security Council, repeated that the country was prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US and Europe if its existence was threatened. The comments came as NATO doubled the number of its troops in Eastern Europe and Biden said during a speech in Poland, “Don’t even think about moving on one single inch of NATO territory.”
- Russian forces entered the city of Slavutych, west of Chernihiv, and seized a hospital in the town where workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant live. Mayor Yuri Fomichev was briefly taken hostage, but appeared in public later. The troops reportedly withdrew to the edge of the city after thousands of angry protesters filled the streets outside the hospital.
- Another Russian general was killed in an airstrike on an airbase near Kherson. The seventh to die in battle since the invasion, Lt. Gen. Yakov Rezantsev had reportedly told troops that it would take just “hours” to conquer Ukraine.
- Turkey’s defense ministry said a “mine-like” object was “neutralized” at the northern entrance to the Bosporus Strait after a fisherman noticed it bobbing in the water. The discovery of the possible naval mine followed warnings that mines laid at Ukrainian ports could break free in bad weather.
- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu appeared for the first time in two weeks, following intense speculation that he had a heart attack or other health problems. The ministry released an undated clip of him meeting with senior generals about supplying troops in Ukraine.
- The Odessa Zoo opened for the first time since the war, welcoming hundreds of families. Many stores also reopened as the Black Sea port city, spared shelling in recent weeks, moved a step toward normalcy.
Ukranian forces had some success driving the invaders out of part of the southern city of Kherson Saturday.
Natalya Vakula, 44, rests in a hospital in Brovary, on the outskirts of Kyiv, after being injured in Chernihiv. Rodrigo Abd/APUkraine’s defense forces have “dealt powerful blows to the enemy” and caused “significant losses” to Russia’s troops, Zelensky said in a video shared on social media.
The Ukrainian president hailed his country’s armed forces as “heroic.”
He claimed 16,000 Russian troops killed, more than 10 times the 1,351 soldiers Russia admits it lost. NATO estimates 7,000 to 15,000 died in the first four weeks — potentially as many as Russia lost in a decade of war in Afghanistan.
Despite their heroics, more than a quarter of Ukraine’s population of 44 million is displaced.
The United Nations confirmed 1,081 civilian deaths, including 136 children, and 1,707 injuries, including 199 children, but said the toll is likely higher. More than 100,000 people left Ukraine on Friday, joining the more than 3.7 million refugees who fled since the war started.
British officials said the Russian military continues to besiege multiple other Ukrainian cities, including Chernihiv, a 1,000-year old community known for ancient monasteries and churches, along with Kharkiv and Sumy in the east.
“It is likely Russia will continue to use its heavy firepower on urban areas as it looks to limit its own already considerable losses, at the cost of further civilian casualties,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in its latest intelligence briefing on the war.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said a new agreement would allow 10 humanitarian corridors to be set up on Saturday to evacuate civilians from those front-line hot spots, including Kyiv, and some cities in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. She said they were “working on” additional corridors for of Slavutych and nearby towns.
A rescuer covers the body of a person who was killed by shelling. via REUTERSRussian forces were not letting buses through their checkpoints near Mariupol, forcing citizens to escape using private cars.
More than 100,000 people still need to be evacuated from the devastated port city, where Mayor Vadym Boichenko said street fighting continued. Food and water are running low and citizens are beginning to suffer starvation and dehydration, Deputy Mayor Sergey Orlov told the BBC.
Boichenko said he spoke with the French ambassador to Ukraine about a plan to evacuate civilians. French President Emmanuel Macron was expected to discuss the plan, which also involves Greece and Turkey, with Putin.
