“The enemy is increasing the pace of the offensive operation. “The Russian occupiers are firing hard in almost every direction,” the Ukrainian military said in a statement on the situation on the main front in the east. According to officials, the focus of Russia’s main attack was near the cities of Slobozhanske and Donets, along a strategic first-line highway connecting Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, with the Russian-occupied city of Izium. The Kharkiv regional governor said Russian forces were stepping up attacks from Izium, but that Ukrainian troops were holding their ground. Kharkiv regional prosecutors say two civilians were killed and seven were injured in Russian bombings in the village of Pokotilovka. Russia denies targeting civilians. Map of military positions in eastern Ukraine Although Russian forces were repulsed from northern Ukraine last month, they are well established in the east and still hold part of the south they occupied in March. Kyiv has accused Moscow of planning a rigged independence referendum in the occupied south. Russian state media quoted an official from a self-proclaimed pro-Russian “military-political committee” in Kherson on Thursday as saying that the region would start using the Russian ruble currency from May 1. Ukrainian troops are still hiding in a steel mill in Mariupol, the ruined southeastern port where thousands of people have died under two months of Russian siege and bombing. Russian forces are pounding the plant, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the plant does not need to be invaded. Kyiv has called for a ceasefire to evacuate civilians and wounded soldiers. “They [want to] use the opportunity to capture the defenders of Mariupol, one of the main ones [elements] “The Azov regiment is one of them,” said Pavlo Kirilenko, governor of the eastern Donetsk region, in a statement referring to a group of fighters whom Moscow has defamed. “Therefore, the Russian side does not agree to any measures to evacuate the wounded [Ukrainian] troops.” Captain Svyatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, told Reuters in a video link from an unknown location below the compound: “As long as we are here and holding the defense, the city is not theirs. the tactic [now] it is like a medieval siege. We are surrounded, they no longer throw a lot of forces to break our defensive line. They carry out air raids. “ The Mariupol city council said about 100,000 people were in “mortal danger” due to Russian bombing and unsanitary conditions. He said the lack of drinking water and food was “catastrophic”. More than 5 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia launched its “special military operation” on February 24. Moscow says its goal is to disarm its neighbor and defeat the nationalists there. The West calls it a false pretext for aggressive war. In another indication that Russia may be planning to expand the scope of its conflict, Kremlin officials have risen again to denounce “terrorist acts” in the Moscow-backed breakaway region of Moldova in southern Ukraine. . “We are concerned about the escalation of tensions in Transnistria,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a weekly briefing, citing reports of shootings and explosions. “We consider these actions as terrorist acts aimed at destabilizing the situation in the region and we expect a thorough and objective investigation,” Zakharova said.
