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Ukrainian officials accused Russia of violating temporary truce agreements in the southern cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha. In Mariupol, where the mayor yesterday warned that the port city was facing a “humanitarian catastrophe,” the city council on Saturday advised citizens to evacuate, before reversing course and urging people to hunker down because, they said, Russian forces continued to shell the city.
Volnovakha, a city of roughly 21,000, also endured “heavy artillery” assaults during the cease-fire, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said. Russia denied breaking the truce, accusing Ukraine of using civilians as “human shields.”
Also Saturday, a powerful explosion struck a residential area in Bila Tserkva, 50 miles south of Kyiv. Local officials said they suspected a Russian rocket attack. Several people were injured, but there were no immediate reports of fatalities.
The U.N. human rights office said Friday that at least 331 civilians had been killed so far during the conflict, while Ukraine’s emergency services put the number of civilian fatalities much higher, at more than 2,000. Nearly 1.3 million people have been evacuated by train since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Oleksandr Kamyshin, chairman of Ukrainian Railways, said Saturday.
As Russia tries to advance on several fronts, pummeling cities and towns with heavy weapons, Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksii Reznikov warned Saturday in a Facebook post that “the main effort of the invaders has been focused on encircling Kyiv.” The city’s defenders, he added, “continue to fight back the enemy’s offensive and inflict losses up on its offensive groupings.”
The main threat to the city appears to be a massive Russian convoy, some 40 miles long, approaching Kyiv from the west and believed to be about 20 miles from the capital and stuck near a cargo airport. Western officials have said the convoy has stalled because of resistance from Ukrainian troops as well as logistical setbacks, including shortages of fuel. But military analysts have not ruled out tactical reasons for the delay in moving the convoy forward, as Moscow waits for its forces to advance other fronts.
In a media briefing earlier this week, John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said Ukrainian resistance and “logistical and sustainment” challenges had hampered the convoy’s progress. But the U.S. also believed that “the Russians are deliberately, actually, regrouping themselves and reassessing the progress that they have not made and how to make up for lost time.”
A briefing from the Institute for the Study of War Friday concluded that while the convoy’s progress from the west remained slow, “Russian troops have moved more rapidly from the east and are arriving in the capital’s outskirts on the Sumy axis,” referring to a city about 180 miles east of Kyiv.
The Sumy axis “is currently the most successful and dangerous Russian avenue of advance on Kyiv,” the authors said, adding that the Russian forces had likely proceeded along terrain that is “flat and sparsely populated, offering few good defensive positions.” As the Russians drew nearer to Kyiv, they “may begin to encounter the sorts of challenges that have slowed their comrades’ advances on the west bank of the Dnipro, depending on the strength and capability of Ukrainian forces attempting to defend on the east,” referring to the river that divides Kyiv.
Fahim reported from Istanbul, and Francis from London. Alexander Stetsenko in Kyiv, and Loveday Morris in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine, contributed.
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