Russian President Vladimir Putin believes he is winning the war in Ukraine according to Austrian leader Karl Nehammer, whose comments were published this weekend as more rockets rained down on Kharkiv on Easter Sunday.
The latest barrage of missiles to hit the besieged city of Kharkiv has left at least five people dead and more than a dozen injured, Ukrainian officials have said.
The bombardment of rockets slammed into blocks of flats and left broken glass, debris and the part of at least one rocket scattered on the street. Firefighters and residents scrambled to douse flames in several buildings that caught fire.
Maksym Khaustov, the head of the Kharkiv region’s health department confirmed the deaths following a series of strikes that AFP journalists on the scene said had ignited fires throughout the city and tore roofs from buildings hit in the attacks.
Like Mariupol, the north-east city of Kharkiv has been an ongoing target of Russian aggression since the early days of the invasion and has seen conditions deteriorate ahead of the eastern offensive.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who met Putin last week in Moscow, said he thinks the Russian president believes the war is necessary for his country’s security.
‘I think he is now in his own war logic,’ Nehammer said in an interview with NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’, portions of which were released Saturday. I think he believes he is winning the war.’
Adding to tit-for-tat sanctions imposed since the invasion began, Russia said Saturday it was banning entry to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and several other top officials.
Russian President Vladimir Putin believes he is winning the war in Ukraine according to Austrian leader Karl Nehammer, whose comments were published this weekend as more rockets rained down on Kharkiv on Easter Sunday (pictured)
Strikes in Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv in the north east of the war-scarred country has left five dead and 13 injured
The latest barrage of rockets which reigned down on the city of Kharkiv on Sunday has left at least five people dead and more than a dozen injured, Ukrainian officials have said. Pictured: Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at an apartment building
Pictured: An injured woman lies on the sidewalk during a Russian bombardment in Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine
The foreign ministry accused London of ‘unprecedented hostile actions’, in particular referring to sanctions on senior Russian officials, and ‘pumping the Kyiv regime with lethal weapons’.
Moscow’s new entry blacklist includes Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.
Johnson paid a surprise visit to Kyiv a week earlier, and was filmed walking through the capital’s empty streets with Zelensky.
Britain has been part of an international effort to punish Russia with asset freezes, travel bans and economic sanctions, while several Western countries have supplied Ukraine with extensive weaponry.
Russia warned the United States this week of ‘unpredictable consequences’ if it sends its ‘most sensitive’ weapons systems to Ukraine.
Its defence ministry claimed Saturday to have shot down a Ukrainian transport plane in the Odessa region, carrying weapons supplied by Western nations.
Zelensky meanwhile issued a fresh warning about the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons as the conflict wears on – echoing comments by CIA director William Burns this week.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier told CNN that Russia would only use nuclear weapons in the context of the Ukraine conflict if it were facing an ‘existential threat’.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian soldiers vowed to ‘fight until the end’ after Russia issued a chilling warning to the final troops defending the besieged city of Mariupol – but Volodymyr Zelensky warned the Kremlin is trying to ‘destroy everyone there’.
A city in ruins: Thick grey smoke rises over an apartment building after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine on Easter Sunday
A man stands in a destroyed building in the residential area that was hit by the Russian artillery shelling, in Kharkiv
A damaged apartment in the residential area that was hit by the Russian artillery shelling in Kharkiv, northeast Ukraine
Pictured: Ukrainian servicemen run for cover as explosions are heard during a Russian attack in downtown Kharkiv
Russia gave Ukrainian soldiers an ultimatum to ‘surrender or die’, urging them to lay down their arms by 6:00 am Moscow time (0300 GMT) and to evacuate before 1:00pm, on Sunday after the Russian Defence Ministry claimed their troops had cleared the urban area of the city – with only a small unit of Ukrainian fighters remaining in the giant Azovstal steelworks in the south-eastern port.
In a statement, the defence ministry said: ‘The Russian Armed Forces offer the militants of nationalist battalions and foreign mercenaries from 6am (Moscow time) on April 17, 2022, to stop any hostilities and lay down their arms. All who lay down their arms are guaranteed that their lives will be spared.’
But with the last Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol refusing to surrender and accept Russia’s now-expired ultimatum, the Ukrainian MP for Odesa, Oleksiy Goncharenko, told BBC News the last defenders will ‘fight until the end’.
He said: ‘I spoke with them yesterday, and I know that they’re going to fight until the end.’
Goncharenko referred to the continuing siege of Mariupol as ‘a real genocide’ and said it was considered that ‘more than 20,000 people’ have been killed in the port city.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Kremlin ‘is deliberately trying to destroy everyone who is there’ and asked the West for more heavy weapons immediately to have any chance of saving the port city on the Sea of Azov as Russian air strikes continue.
‘Either our partners give Ukraine all of the necessary heavy weapons, the planes, and without exaggeration immediately, so we can reduce the pressure of the occupiers on Mariupol and break the blockade,’ he said, ‘or we do so through negotiations, in which the role of our partners should be decisive.’
Pictured: Firefighters work to extinguish fire at an apartments building after a Russian attack in Kharkiv on Easter Sunday
Pictured: A man runs back into his burning building after a Russian bombardment in Kharkiv on Easter Sunday
A medical worker with men carry a body of a killed civilian to an ambulance in the area that was hit by artillery shelling
Were it to fall, it would be the the first major city to be taken by Russian forces since the invasion began on February 24.
In Kyiv, renewed Russian air strikes hit an armaments factory, despite Moscow shifting its military focus to gaining control of the eastern Donbas region and forging a land corridor to already-annexed Crimea.
‘During the night, high-precision, air-launched missiles destroyed an ammunitions factory near the settlement of Brovary, Kyiv region,’ Russia’s defence ministry said, the third such air strike near the capital in as many days.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged Russian forces to allow evacuations from Mariupol, which Moscow’s forces claim to have brought under their control, though Ukrainian fighters remain holed up in the city’s fortress-like steelworks.
Earlier, Mr Zelensky had told Ukrainian journalists that the situation in Mariupol, which has come at a horrific cost to trapped and starving civilians, could scuttle attempts to negotiate an end to the war.
A Russian Defence Ministry spokesman said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces had been driven out of most of the city and remained only in the Azovstal steel mill, where tunnels allow the defenders to hide and resist until they run out of ammunition.
The Russians already control what is left of the city after weeks of bombardment. Striking the steel plant to take the rest is part of Russia’s preparations for the anticipated assault in eastern Ukraine.
President Zelensky has admitted the situation in Mariupol remains ‘extremely severe’ and called on the west to provide the country with heavy weaponry
Moscow gave Ukrainian soldiers an ultimatum to ‘surrender or die’ by 3am GMT on Sunday after the Russian Defence Ministry claimed their troops had cleared the city – with only a small unit of Ukrainian fighters remaining in the giant Azovstal steelworks in the south-eastern port. Pictured: Illich Steel and Iron Works in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine
Experts say the fall of Mariupol, seen as strategically vital for Russian plans to attack eastern Ukraine , is inevitable. But holdouts in their underground bases hope to make conquering the Sea of Azov port as hard as possible for the attackers. Pictured: An explosion is seen in an apartment building after Russian’s army tank fires in Mariupol