KVIV, Ukraine
A Ukrainian military official
said street battles have begun and evacuation is impossible in the town of
Kreminna. That’s one of only two spots where the Ukrainians said the Russians
managed to break through on Monday along a front stretching for hundreds of
miles.An interior ministry sapper collects unexploded shells, grenades and other devices in Hostomel, close to Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 18, 2022.
Luhansk regional military
administrator Serhiy Haidai said the town came under heavy artillery overnight,
setting seven residential buildings on fire, and that the Olympus sports
complex where the nation’s Olympic team trains was targeted.
Haidai later said on Ukrainian
TV that Russians took control of the city after “leveling everything to the
ground,” so his guys retreated to regroup and keep on fighting. “It simply
makes no sense to stand in one place, to die for everyone, without causing
significant damage to the enemy,” he said.
In other developments, the Russian
forces are attacking along a broad front, over 300 miles (480 kilometers) long,
Ukrainian officials said Monday.
Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s forces were increasing assaults in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions —
both of which are part of the Donbas — as well as in the area of Zaporizhzhia,
they said.
“The occupiers attempted to
break through our defenses,” said Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s
national security council. “Fortunately, our military is holding out. They
passed through only two cities — this is Kreminna and another small town.”
He added: “We are not giving
up any of our territories.”
Russia also bombarded the
relative safe haven of Lviv and a multitude of other targets across Ukraine in
what appeared to be an intensified bid to grind down the country’s defenses.
Moscow said its missiles
struck more than 20 military targets, including ammunition depots, command
headquarters and groups of troops and vehicles, while its artillery hit an
additional 315 targets and its warplanes conducted 108 strikes. The claims
could not be independently verified.
Also, the Russia has begun dropping bunker-buster bombs on a Mariupol steel plant where Ukrainians are refusing to surrender, the commander of the Azov Regiment of the National Guard said Monday.
Denys Prokopenko, whose
soldiers have been holding out against Russian forces in the key southern port
city, said in a video message that the bombs are dropping even though civilians
are sheltering in the plant’s tunnels.
“Russian occupational forces,
and their proxy ... know about the civilians, and they keep willingly firing on
the factory,” he said.
Russia estimated that 2,500
Ukrainian troops and about 400 foreign mercenaries were dug in. The U.S. said
nearly a dozen Russian battalion tactical groups have been tied up trying to
defeat them.A part of a missile with a sign in
Russian reading "Filter FT-1 Pressurization"
lies on the ground after night shelling in
Kramatorsk,Ukraine, Monday, April 18, 2022.
The head of the city’s patrol
police, Mikhail Vershinin, told Mariupol television on Sunday that many
civilians including children are hiding in the plant, seeking shelter from
Russian shelling and forces occupying other parts of the city.
Ukraine estimates that 21,000
people have been killed in Mariupol. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk
warned Russia on social media that refusing to open humanitarian corridors will
justify war crimes trials. The Russians, for their part, said “neo-Nazi
nationalists” have hampered evacuations.
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