Russia bombed Lviv and struck Kyiv with rockets on Saturday, hitting a factory repairing tanks. The attack followed the sinking of Moscow’s flagship in the Black Sea on Thursday, after which Russia promised to launch more large-scale attacks on Ukraine. Ukraine said one of its missiles caused the Moskva to sink, but Moscow said the ship sank while being towed into a stormy sea following a fire caused by an ammunition explosion and that more than 500 sailors had been evacuated. Damage control after Russian attack in Kharkov (AP) The United States believes Moskva was hit by two Ukrainian missiles and that there were Russian casualties, although a senior US official said the numbers were unclear. Holding in Mariupol Home to 400,000 people before the invasion of Russia, the city of Mariupol has been reduced to rubble. Thousands of civilians have lost their lives and tens of thousands remain trapped. The Ukrainian military says the Russian navy is active in the Sea of Azov in a bid to block the port city, where ground fighting has intensified as Ukraine says it is trying to break the Russian siege. “The situation in Mariupol is difficult and harsh. “Fighting is taking place at the moment,” said Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk. “The Russian army is constantly calling for additional units to invade the city.” A residential building was destroyed during the conflict in the southern port of Mariupol (Reuters) He said the Russians had not fully occupied the port city, but if they did, it would be the first major Ukrainian city to come under their control. The Russian Defense Ministry said it had taken over the city’s Illich steel plant, but the report could not be confirmed. The Ukrainian defenders are mainly believed to be able to withstand Azovstal, another huge steelworks. Both plants are owned by Metinvest, a company owned by Ukraine’s richest businessman, which is the backbone of the country’s industrial east. The company said it would never allow its businesses to operate under Russian occupation. “Evacuation as much as possible” Russia is sending additional troops to try to oust Ukrainian forces from Donbas, an area covering two provinces in the southeast, which Moscow has demanded will be fully ceded to pro-Russian separatists it has supported since 2014. Ukraine says it has so far restrained its Russian origins there, although one person was killed and three wounded in bombings in Luhansk, one of the two provinces where Russia is trying to advance, Governor Serhiy Gaidai said in an online post. Relatives mourn fallen soldiers in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kiev (AP) A gas pipeline was damaged on the front line near the cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, which were without gas and water, Governor Gaidai said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “Evacuate as much as possible,” he said. The buses were ready for those who wanted to leave. “Important” victories Ukraine has so far won the upper hand in the early stages of a war that many Western military experts predicted would lose quickly. President Zelensky claimed that between 19,000 and 20,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in the war so far, while Moscow said in its latest casualty report in March that 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed and 3,825 wounded. The Ukrainian president said the military situation in the south and east was “still very difficult”, while praising the work of his armed forces. “The successes of our army on the battlefield are really important, historically important. But again it is not enough to cleanse our earth from the invaders. “We will defeat them a little more,” he said in a video after midnight, again calling on allies to send heavier weapons and an international embargo on Russian oil. President Zelensky has called on US President Joe Biden to designate Russia as a “terrorist state”, a regime already granted to North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Syria, the Washington Post reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. the conversation between the two presidents. A White House spokesman responded: “We will continue to look at all options to increase pressure on Putin.”
