Russian forces bombed this Monday a shopping center in Kyiv and, for the first time in 26 days of war, housing in odessatwo strategic points on the map of the Russian offensive near Mariupolport city to which tried unsuccessfully to force them to surrender after more than two weeks of siege.
In the capital, at least eight people were killed in a bombing last night of a shopping center that also destroyed six homes in the Podilsk district, in which there are two schools and two kindergartens, the mayor said on Telegram, Vitaly Klitschko.
The spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashénkovstated that the shopping center served as warehouse for rocket launchers and ammunitionand was inoperative, so it was destroyed by “high-precision long-range weapons”.
Klitschko then decreed a 35-hour curfew in the capital and its metropolitan area.
Despite the lack of progress, kyiv remains Russia’s “main military target”indicated today the British Ministry of Defense, which affirmed that the bulk of the Russian troops have stalled more than 25 kilometers from the capital.
On the southeast and south flank, Russian naval forces continue “blockading the Ukrainian coast and launching missile strikes against Ukrainian targets”according to British military intelligence.
Control of the Ukrainian coast is essential for Russia in its goal of establishing a land corridor from the Donbas to the annexed Crimean peninsulapassing through Mariupol (Sea of Azov).
This Monday the landing ship “Orsk”, of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy, docked in the port of Berdyansk, a city controlled by Russia and only 77 kilometers from Mariupol.
He arrived with a load of war equipment to reinforce the Russian military group.
This Monday, for the first time so far during the war, the strategic port city of Odessa -of 990,000 inhabitants-, suffered shelling of residential buildings with artillery fired from the seasaid the Mayor’s Office on Telegram.
“They are residential buildings where civilians live. Let the alienated Russians know, who are told by their country’s leaders that nothing like this happens here,” Mayor Gennady Trukhanov said.
“We will not leave Odesa and we will fight for our city”he stressed.
So far the Odessa region has suffered missile attacks from Russian ships near Tuzla, west of the besieged city, damaging critical infrastructure but not homes.
In Mariupol, where Russia said on Friday that Donetsk separatist militias are fighting Ukrainian “nationalists” in the city, Russia tried today to force the Ukrainian Army to surrender.
The Russian Defense Ministry gave Ukrainian forces and “foreign mercenaries” two hours on Monday to leave the city without weapons or ammunition, after the adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, Oleksiy Arestovychadmitted that Ukraine has no chance to send reinforcements.
The unsuccessful attempt came even when the leader of the Donetsk separatists, Denis Pushilinconsidered today that the taking of the city “It’s not a matter of two or three days, or even a week”.
The Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchukrefused a surrender, and replied to Russia that, “instead of wasting time on eight pages of letters, just open a humanitarian” corridor.
According to Vereshchuk, so far 45,000 people have managed to leave the besieged citywhere some 350,000 citizens are still trying to survive the siege without electricity, heating and water.
The Red Cross said today that it still does not have access to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
The commander of the Azov regiment, created in 2014 in Mariupol, Denis Prokopenkopointed to CNN that the number of civilians killed in the city so far in the war amounts to more than 3,000.
The Mayor’s Office of Mariúpol denounced today, in addition, that some residents “are forcibly deported to Russia” or pro-Russian Donbas and that these people have their Ukrainian passports confiscated.
In turn, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Oleg Nikolenkostated in a tweet that only last Saturday 2,389 Donbas children were “forcibly relocated”something prohibited by international law.
The Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Iryna Venediktovaannounced the opening of an investigation.
Meanwhile, on the diplomatic front, negotiations between Russia and Ukraine continue.
According to the head of the parliamentary faction of the ruling party El Servador del Pueblo, David Arhamiathe meeting of the delegations lasted an hour and a half, after which the working groups continued negotiating, according to Ukrainian Pravda.
The Prime Minister of Israel, Naftali Benetwhich is trying to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, declared today that there is “progress” in the negotiationsalthough the parties still have many disagreements and are still far from reaching a ceasefire.
According to the newspaper Jerusalem Postthe Israeli prime minister assured that Russia would have given up deposing Zelensky and demilitarizing Ukrainewhile kyiv would have promised not to join NATO.
The Ukrainian leader affirmed this Sunday that is “prepared” to negotiate with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putinto end the war, but ruled out recognizing the independence of Donbas and Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
“The degree of progress in the negotiations is probably not what is desired or what is required by the dynamics of the situation for the Ukrainian side,” said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov.