Ukraine braced for another day of fighting Wednesday as invading Russian forces claimed to take full control of Kherson and advanced on the capital city of Kyiv while troops continued to ramp up attacks on urban areas.
An airstrike appeared to demolish an administrative building in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. A Ukrainian official posted footage of the devastating blast on social media.
After a day of fierce fighting in the southern city of Kherson, near the annexed region of Crimea, Russia claimed to have the entire city under control. Russian tanks rolled into the Black Sea port city earlier this week amid fierce battles.
Many panicked residents who remained in the Ukraine capital in the initial days of the war made desperate attempts to flee the city as an entire Russian army division inched closer to Kyiv and airstrikes rocked suburbs just outside the city.
Footage showed families, children, elderly people and the disabled trying to force their way onto already packed trains out of the city Tuesday, in what many believe could be their last chance to flee a Russian siege.
Fighting-age men had been ordered to stay in Ukraine to resist the Russian occupiers.
“This is big tragedy for me to leave my city,” one woman said as she clutched her dog.
“Actually I don’t know am I going to come back or not, and I don’t want to leave but it’s completely dangerous to stay here.”
Two-thirds of a million people had fled Ukraine as countless others sheltered underground. Many who remained did not have clean drinking water due to bomb damage.
“It is a nightmare, and it seizes you from the inside very strongly. This cannot be explained with words,” said Kharkiv resident Ekaterina Babenko inside a basement where she sheltered with neighbors for a fifth straight day.
“We have small children, elderly people, and frankly speaking, it is very frightening.”
As President Biden told Americans that Russia will “pay a price” for the invasion Tuesday night, a 40-mile convoy of hundreds of Russian tanks advanced on the Ukrainian capital, slowed by logistical and supply problems.
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“Nobody will forgive. Nobody will forget,” Biden said in a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin as he devoted the start of his first State of the Union address to the war, which had entered its seventh day.
The civilian death toll continued to mount Tuesday, with at least 136 Ukraine deaths confirmed by the UN human rights office. The true number of casualties was believed to be much higher.
A senior Western intelligence leader estimated that 5,000 Russian soldiers had been captured or killed, as a fierce resistance continued to catch the invaders off guard, embarrassing Moscow officials who had expected to quickly take over the country.
Russia became increasingly isolated on the national stage Tuesday as economic sanctions crippled its economy. A Kremlin official warned the West that an “economic war” could turn into a “real one.”
China distanced itself from its longtime partner and offered to help negotiate a cease-fire, but Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko appeared to signal that staunch ally Russia planned to launch an invasion of former Soviet territory Moldova from Ukraine during an address to his security council. The development came as Belarusian troops joined the war Tuesday, despite promises from the dictator that it would not fight.
Military experts worried that the red-faced country would ramp up artillery and air bombardments, which it had used to pulverize cities in Chechnya and Syria, as the country shut down media outlets that referred to the conflict as an “invasion” or “war.”
Already, Britain’s Defense Ministry said it had seen an increase in air and artillery strikes. An attack on a Kyiv television tower and Ukraine’s main Holocaust memorial near a residential neighborhood had killed five people as Russia warned people living near transmission facilities to flee their homes.
“To the world: what is the point of saying «never again» for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar? At least 5 killed. History repeating…,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted.
At least six people were killed when an administrative building on Freedom Square in Kharkiv was hit by a suspected missile.
The Slovenian Foreign Ministry said its consulate was destroyed in the blast, which blew out windows and walls of buildings in the massive square.
“This is state terrorism of the Russian Federation,” Zelensky said, calling the attack on Ukraine’s largest plaza “frank, undisguised terror” and a war crime.
“People are under the ruins. We have pulled out bodies,” said Yevhen Vasylenko, an emergency official.
Zelensky claimed almost 6,000 Russian troops have been killed since the start of Russia’s invasion.
An airstrike in Zhytomyr killed at least two people, burned three homes and damaged a hospital, the city’s mayor said. An air assault brigade in the city may have been the intended target of that attack.
The raids came as Human Rights Watch said it documented the use of a cluster bomb outside a Ukrainian hospital as residents in Kharkiv and Kiyanka reported use of the brutal devices, which scatter small bombs over a large area. Russia denied using the weapons.
Talks between Russia and Ukraine ended Monday with only an agreement to talk again.
Zelensky said Tuesday that his adversary should stop attacks before returning to the table.
“As for dialogue, I think yes, but stop bombarding people first and start negotiating afterwards,“ he said, according to CNN.
With AP wires
