Ukraine’s president urged civilians
\non Saturday to evacuate the frontline Donetsk region, the scene of fierce
\nclashes with the Russian military, as Kyiv called on the Red Cross and UN to
\ngain access to its soldiers being held by Moscow’s forces.<\/p>\n
The eastern Donetsk region has faced the brunt of Russia’s offensive since
\nits assault on Kyiv failed weeks into the invasion launched on February 24.<\/p>\n
President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in his daily address that thousands of
\npeople, including children, were still in the region’s battleground areas,
\nwith six civilians killed and 15 wounded on Friday, according to the Donetsk
\ngovernor.<\/p>\n
“There’s already a governmental decision about obligatory evacuation from
\nDonetsk,” Zelensky said, underscoring authorities’ calls to leave the
\nbesieged region in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
“Leave, we will help,” Zelensky said. “At this stage of the war, terror is
\nthe main weapon of Russia.”<\/p>\n
Official Ukrainian estimates put the number of civilians still living in the
\nunoccupied area of Donetsk at between 200,000 and 220,000.<\/p>\n
A mandatory evacuation notice posted Saturday evening said the coming winter
\nmade it a matter of urgency, particularly for the more than 50,000 children
\nstill in the region.<\/p>\n
“They need to be evacuated, you cannot put them in mortal danger in the
\nwinter without heating, light, without the ability to keep them warm,” Kyiv’s
\nMinistry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories said in a
\nstatement.<\/p>\n
Zelensky, in his address, also once more pressed the international community,
\nespecially the United States, to have Russia officially declared a “state
\nsponsor of terrorism”.<\/p>\n
He reiterated the call a day after a jail holding Ukrainian prisoners of war
\nin Kremlin-controlled Olenivka was bombed, leaving scores dead, with Kyiv and
\nMoscow trading blame.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Ukrainian human rights official Dmytro Lubinets said on national
\ntelevision he had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
\nand the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission to go to Olenivka.<\/p>\n
The ICRC has made a request but has not yet obtained authorisation from the
\nRussians, he said.<\/p>\n
– ‘Egregious provocation’ –<\/p>\n
Russia’s defence ministry accused Kyiv of striking the Olenivka prison with
\nUS-supplied long-range missiles, in an “egregious provocation” designed to
\nstop captured soldiers from surrendering.<\/p>\n
It said Saturday that the dead included Ukrainian forces who had surrendered
\nafter weeks of fighting off Russia’s brutal bombardment of the sprawling
\nAzovstal steelworks in the port city of Mariupol.<\/p>\n
The defence ministry said 50 Ukrainian prisoners were killed and 73 were
\ntaken to hospital with serious injuries.<\/p>\n
“All political, legal and moral responsibility for this bloody massacre of
\nUkrainians lies with Zelensky personally, his criminal regime and Washington,
\nwhich backs them,” it said.<\/p>\n
Zelensky laid the blame squarely on Russia.<\/p>\n
“This was a deliberate Russian war crime, a deliberate mass murder of
\nUkrainian prisoners of war,” he said.<\/p>\n
Members of the Azov regiment were among those who surrendered at Azovstal.<\/p>\n
Azov regiment commander Mykyta Nadtochiy said he considered the attack on the
\njail to have been “an act of public execution”.<\/p>\n
– Gazprom cuts off Latvia –<\/p>\n
Also on Saturday, Russian energy giant Gazprom suspended gas supplies to
\nLatvia, in the latest tightening of gas provision to European Union states,
\nwhich have accused Russia of squeezing supplies in retaliation for Western
\nsanctions imposed over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Conexus Baltic Grid confirmed to Latvia’s LETA news agency that Gazprom had
\ninformed it of the suspension of deliveries, but said other suppliers were
\ncontinuing them.<\/p>\n
“Today, Gazprom suspended its gas supplies to Latvia… due to violations of
\nthe conditions” of purchase, the company said on Telegram.<\/p>\n
Latvia’s Economy Minister Ilze Indriksone told LETA that his country “was not
\ncounting on natural gas flows from Russia.”<\/p>\n
Gazprom drastically cut gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline
\non Wednesday to about 20 percent of its capacity. It had reduced gas flows to
\nEurope twice in June.<\/p>\n
The Russian state-run company had earlier announced it would choke supply to
\n33 million cubic metres a day — half the amount it has been delivering since
\nservice resumed last week after 10 days of maintenance work.<\/p>\n
Gazprom cited the halted operation of one of the last two working turbines
\nfor the pipeline due to the “technical condition of the engine”.<\/p>\n
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has blamed EU sanctions for the limited
\nsupply.<\/p>\n
The EU this week agreed a plan to reduce gas consumption in solidarity with
\nGermany, where the Nord Stream pipeline runs to, warning of Russian
\n“blackmail”.<\/p>\n
– Grain fields set alight –<\/p>\n
Russian strikes continued to rain down on Ukrainian towns and cities on
\nSaturday.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian authorities said Russian bombardments targeting the south and east
\nof the country had left one dead in southern Mykolaiv and one dead in eastern
\nBakhmut.<\/p>\n
The death toll from a strike on a Mykolaiv bus stop on Friday climbed to
\nseven after two men died in hospital, he added.<\/p>\n
In the eastern city of Kharkiv, three Russian S-300 missiles struck a school,
\nmayor Igor Terekhov said on Telegram, adding that the main building was
\ndestroyed.<\/p>\n
A Ukrainian spokesman said his country’s forces had set fire to grain fields
\naround Mariupol so they could not be used by the Russians.<\/p>\n
“The Mariupol resistance forces set fire to the fields with grain so that it
\nwould not be stolen by the occupiers,” Sergiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the
\nOdessa regional military administration said.BSS\/AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukraine’s president urged civilians on Saturday to evacuate the frontline Donetsk region, the scene of fierce clashes with the Russian military, as Kyiv called on the Red Cross and UN to gain access to its soldiers being held by Moscow’s forces. The eastern Donetsk region has faced the brunt of Russia’s offensive since its assault […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-4","category-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29213"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29217,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29213\/revisions\/29217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}