Zelenskiy likens Russian 'filtration camps' to Nazi concentration camps
Volodymyr Zelenskiy used his evening address to describe Russia as a terrorist state and liken its actions in Mariupol to those of the Nazis.
Speaking on Saturday night in a video message posted on Facebook, Zelenskiy said those responsible for atrocities would be held to account. He referred to missile strike in Odesa on Saturday which killed 8 people, including a three-month old baby girl.
“How did she threaten Russia? It seems that killing children is just a new national idea of the Russian Federation,” Zelenskiy said. The missiles were launched by Russian strategic aircraft from the Caspian Sea region, he added. Ukraine managed to shoot down two missiles, but five more missiles hit the city.
“We will identify all those responsible for this strike.... Everyone who gives these orders, everyone who fulfils these orders. No matter how long it takes us, all these bastards will be responsible for every death they caused,” he said.
He added that new information continued to emerge regarding crimes by Russian forces against Mariupol residents. “New graves of people killed by the occupiers are being found. We are talking about tens of thousands of dead Mariupol residents. Negotiations of the occupiers on how they conceal the traces of their crimes are recorded,” he said.
Zelenskiy said Russia was continuing the activites of “filtration camps”, where Russian forces are sending Ukrainian citizens, before forcibly relocating them to Russia.
“The honest name for them is in fact different, concentration camps. Like those built by the Nazies in the past. Ukrainians from these camps, the survivors, are sent further into the occupied territories and to Russia,” he said. “They also deport children hoping that they will forget where there home is and where they are from.”
Zelenskiy said Russia’s actions were enough to show the world that the Russian army was a terrorist organisaiton.
He had spoken to UK prime minister Boris Johnson on Saturday, he said, thanking him for support, and was now preparing to meet US representatives.
President Joe Biden has said unity among Ukraine’s allies has sent a strong message to Russia: that it will “never succeed” in dominating all of Ukraine.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he will meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday, the most senior US officials to visit Kyiv since the war began.
.@POTUS: Our unity at home, our unity with our Allies and partners, and our unity with the Ukrainian people is sending an unmistakable message to Putin: He will never succeed in dominating and occupying all of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/V4ltUz5EAW
AFP has published some analysis on what medium and long-term objectives Russia is likely pursuing.
It asks: how far will Russia go in new phase of Ukraine assault?
In March, the Russian army said it was focusing on the two Donbas regions, Donetsk and Lugansk where pro-Russian rebels have been active since 2014.
On Friday, Russian Major General Rustam Minnekaev was quoted as saying that “one of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over the Donbas and southern Ukraine”, adding this would provide “a land corridor to Crimea”, the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
But this ambition brings challenges, according to Michel Goya, a former French army colonel.
“The deeper Russian forces go into Ukraine, the more vulnerable they are,” he said on Twitter.
Pascal Ausseur, director of the FMES strategic studies institute, said the Russian army may well be hoping to establish an axis running from Kherson on the banks of the Dnipro River, to the city of the the same name to the north and then to Izyum in the east.
Experts no longer believe Russia has any designs on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.
“They realised that the Blitzkrieg option didn’t work out,” said Ausseur. “So they returned to the traditional Soviet bulldozer model: If you can’t break the will of your enemies, you grind them down.”
“They will Mariupol-ise the operation,” Ausseur said.
While Western aid to Ukraine has been boosted, armoured personnel vehicles could take weeks or months to arrive, AFP says.
Few observers now expect the conflict to be over soon. Alexander Khramchikhin, of the Moscow-based Institute for Political and Military Analysis, said the fighting could even go on for years.
“Russia has so far achieved none of its objectives, and it’s not easy to see how it will achieve them in the future,” he told AFP.
Yuriy Ignat, a Ukrainian air force spokesman, said Ukraine shot down three Russian planes, five missiles and nine drones over the past 24 hours, reports the Kyiv Independent.
Yuriy Ignat, a Ukrainian air force spokesman, said Ukraine shot down three Russian planes (according to preliminary estimates those are Su-25, Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft), five missiles and 9 UAVs over the past 24 hours.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 24, 2022
Here are some images from across Ukraine over the past 24 hours.
Residents stand covered by blankets next to their houses damaged by Russian shelling in Odesa, Ukraine, Saturday, April 23, 2022. Ukrainian officials reported that Russia fired at least six cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odesa, killing five people. Photograph: Max Pshybyshevsky/AP
Children play with giant soap bubbles, in the city of Leopolis, Ukraine. Photograph: Miguel Gutiérrez/EPA
A school classroom dusty and deserted after the bombing in Shevchenkove. Photograph: Vincenzo Circosta/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock
Friends and family attend funeral services for Mark Bobrovytsky, 59, Halyna Bobrovytskyi, 59, and Maksym Bobrovytsky, 25 at a cemetery in Borodyanka, Ukriane on Saturday, April 23, 2022. They died in they apartment in Borodyanka after a Russian air strike. Photograph: Ken Cedeno/UPI/REX/Shutterstock
At 10pm in the Odesa region, Ukrainian military shot down two more Russian cruise missiles, according to Ukraine’s Air Command “South”. The missiles were launched from the Black Sea by a Russian ship, it said.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will visit Turkey on Monday before travelling to Moscow and Kyiv, the UN said.
Guterres will meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has hosted peace negotiations, before visiting Moscow on Tuesday to visit Russian President Vladmir Putin.
Zelenskiy likens Russian 'filtration camps' to Nazi concentration camps
Volodymyr Zelenskiy used his evening address to describe Russia as a terrorist state and liken its actions in Mariupol to those of the Nazis.
Speaking on Saturday night in a video message posted on Facebook, Zelenskiy said those responsible for atrocities would be held to account. He referred to missile strike in Odesa on Saturday which killed 8 people, including a three-month old baby girl.
“How did she threaten Russia? It seems that killing children is just a new national idea of the Russian Federation,” Zelenskiy said. The missiles were launched by Russian strategic aircraft from the Caspian Sea region, he added. Ukraine managed to shoot down two missiles, but five more missiles hit the city.
“We will identify all those responsible for this strike.... Everyone who gives these orders, everyone who fulfils these orders. No matter how long it takes us, all these bastards will be responsible for every death they caused,” he said.
He added that new information continued to emerge regarding crimes by Russian forces against Mariupol residents. “New graves of people killed by the occupiers are being found. We are talking about tens of thousands of dead Mariupol residents. Negotiations of the occupiers on how they conceal the traces of their crimes are recorded,” he said.
Zelenskiy said Russia was continuing the activites of “filtration camps”, where Russian forces are sending Ukrainian citizens, before forcibly relocating them to Russia.
“The honest name for them is in fact different, concentration camps. Like those built by the Nazies in the past. Ukrainians from these camps, the survivors, are sent further into the occupied territories and to Russia,” he said. “They also deport children hoping that they will forget where there home is and where they are from.”
Zelenskiy said Russia’s actions were enough to show the world that the Russian army was a terrorist organisaiton.
He had spoken to UK prime minister Boris Johnson on Saturday, he said, thanking him for support, and was now preparing to meet US representatives.
The Ukrainian president has praised Britain’s efforts in training his military amid accusations the UK blocked requests to strengthen Kyiv’s defences after Russia’s first strike eight years ago, reports PA Media.
Here is further detail from PA Media’s report:
Volodymyr Zelensky told a press conference in Kyiv that the UK, along with the US, was supplying the “biggest military aid” in its struggle against Moscow’s invading forces.
This comes as a former defence secretary accused previous Downing Street operations of being reluctant to support Kyiv in the aftermath of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s annexing of Crimea in 2014.
Michael Fallon told The Sunday Times that, when serving under former Conservative prime minister David Cameron, he was told to turn down requests for assistance in upgrading Ukraine’s defences despite the Ministry of Defence wanting “to do more”.
“We were stymied and we were blocked in Cabinet from sending the Ukrainians the arms they needed,” Mr Fallon told the newspaper.
“Some in the Cabinet felt extremely strongly that we should do nothing to further provoke Russia.
“I felt that was absurd. The Russians didn’t need any provoking. They were already there, sending people across the border.”
In the run-up to and during the current incursion, London has emerged as one of Ukraine’s closest allies in terms of supplying Nato-class weapons.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War has released its latest analysis, warning that Russian forces will likely increase the scale of ground offensive operations in the coming days, “but it is too soon to tell how fast they will do so or how large those offensives will be.”
It predicts that Russia will likely continue attacking southeast from Izyum, west from Kreminna and Popasna, and north from Donetsk City via Avdiivka or another axis. Russian forces will attempt to starve out the remaining defenders of the Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol and will not allow trapped civilians to evacuate, it adds.
Here are the key takeaways from ISW’s assessment released on Friday evening:
1. “Russian forces continued their pressure on the Azovstal facility in Mariupol.
2. Russian troops drawn from the retreat from Kyiv are re-entering combat in eastern Ukraine.
3. Russian forces from around Mariupol are redeploying to the vicinity of Donetsk City and are likely to enter combat again soon and without rest or refit.
4. Russia continued conducting small-scale ground offensives at multiple points along the front from Izyum to Zaporizhia Obla.”
April 23 Assessment Highlight:#Russia is continuing their pattern of operations: committing small collections of units to dispersed attacks along multiple axes and refusing to accept necessary operational pauses to set conditions for decisive operations.https://t.co/ah2GipKfN0pic.twitter.com/63tzV51O9C
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has criticised a decision by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to visit Moscow on Tuesday, before heading to Kyiv, reports AFP.
“It is simply wrong to go first to Russia and then to Ukraine,” Zelensky told reporters in the Ukraine capital. “There is no justice and no logic in this order,” he added.
“The war is in Ukraine, there are no bodies in the streets of Moscow. It would be logical to go first to Ukraine, to see the people there, the consequences of the occupation,” he said.
Guterres is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, then visit Zelensky on Thursday.
Guterres has had little contact with either leader. Putin has refused to meet with Guterres after he accused Russia of violating the UN charter by sending troops into Ukraine.
This is Rebecca Ratcliffe, taking over from my colleague Vivian Ho.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held a press conference today in an underground subway station, speaking at length about possible peace negotiations with Russia and announcing that US defense secretary Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, will travel to Kyiv to meet with him on Sunday.
Zelenskiy made clear that if Russia kills any Mariupol defenders or goes forward with the independence referendum in the partly occupied southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine will suspend peace negotiations with Moscow.
Zelenskiy got emotional speaking about the earlier missile attack on Odesa that injured 18 and killed eight, including a three-month-old baby, her mother and her grandmother.
The only aim of Russian missile strikes on Odesa is terror. Russia must be designated a state sponsor of terrorism and treated accordingly. No business, no contacts, no cultural projects. We need a wall between civilization and barbarians striking peaceful cities with missiles.
The United Kingdom’s ministry of defense has released an intelligence update detailing accusations that Russia is planning to conscript Ukrainian civilians in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
A number of special monitoring mission staff members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have been detained in Donetsk and Luhansk.
It’s Orthodox Easter weekend and many Ukrainians cannot celebrate the way they have in years past. But Vladimir Putin marked the high holiday alongside Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin by attending a midnight Easter mass put on by the Russian Orthodox Church - a move that drew ire from many in Ukraine.
Mother, daughter and granny. All three killed today in Odesa. Happy Easter, Mr.putin. The Heaven will never accept you. pic.twitter.com/rmbRR0FuXQ
