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Russian forces pounded Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region on Saturday but failed to capture three target areas, Ukraine’s military said, while Moscow said Western sanctions on Russia and arms shipments to Ukraine were impeding peace negotiations.
The Russians were trying to capture the areas of Lyman in Donetsk and Sievierodonetsk and Popasna in Luhansk, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in a daily update. “Not succeeding – the fighting continues,” it said.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, in remarks published early on Saturday, said lifting Western sanctions on Russia was part of the peace talks, which he said were difficult but continued daily by video link.
Lavrov said that if the US and other Nato countries were truly interested in resolving the Ukrainian crisis, they should stop sending weapons to Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that there was a high risk the talks would end because of what he called Russia’s “playbook on murdering people”.
Three bodies with hands tied found near Bucha
Ukrainian police on Saturday reported finding three bodies with their hands tied behind their backs as Washington slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “depravity”.
The bodies were found on Friday in a pit near Bucha, a town close to Kyiv that has become synonymous with allegations of Russian war crimes.
“The victims’ hands were tied, cloths were covering their eyes and some were gagged. There are traces of torture on the corpses, the Kyiv region police said in a statement on Saturday. All three men had been shot in the ear, it said.
The war has turned cities to rubble, killed thousands and forced 5 million Ukrainians to flee abroad.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Friday briefly choked with emotion as he described the destruction in Ukraine and slammed Putin’s “depravity”.
Ukrainians fight to hold back Russian advance
Ukrainian forces fought village by village on Saturday to hold back a Russian advance through the country’s east, while the United Nations worked to broker a civilian evacuation from the last Ukrainian stronghold in the bombed-out ruins of the port city of Mariupol.
An estimated 100,000 civilians remain in the city, and up to 1,000 are living beneath a sprawling Soviet-era steel plant, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukraine has not said how many fighters also are in the plant, the only part of Mariupol not occupied by Russian forces, but the Russians put the number at about 2,000.
Russian state news outlets reported on Saturday that 25 civilians had been evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks, though there was no confirmation from the UN or Ukrainian officials. Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency said 19 adults and six children were brought out of the plant, but gave no further details about the exchange.
14 Ukrainians including pregnant woman freed
Fourteen Ukrainians including a pregnant soldier have been freed in the latest prisoner exchange with Russian forces, Ukraine said on Saturday.
Also, a Russian missile strike at the airport in the southwestern port of Odesa – a city that has so far been relatively unscathed in the war – has damaged the runway and it can no longer be used, the Ukrainian military said on Saturday.
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