Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy continued his tireless campaign to drum up international support and rally his compatriots, warning that the coming week would be important and tense.
“Russia will be even more afraid. It will be afraid of losing. It will be afraid of having to recognize the truth,” Zelenskiy said in a video address broadcast late at night.
“Russian troops will carry out even greater operations in the east of our state. They can use even more missiles against us, even more aerial bombs. But we are preparing for their actions. We will respond.”
Air raid sirens were heard across Ukraine early Monday.
“It is likely that the enemy, in order to disrupt the supply of goods to the places of hostilities, will continue to strike at transport infrastructure facilities in Ukraine in order to destroy them or put them out of service,” the army said. General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Russian forces are continuing their offensive to establish full control over the southern city of Mariupol, seeking to storm a steelworks and the seaport, he added.
Russia could also carry out provocative actions in the region of Transnistria, in the Republic of Moldova, in order to accuse Ukraine of aggression against a neighboring state, the general staff said, without providing evidence.
Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, said infrastructure, including food stores, had been targeted by Russian “informants”, also without providing evidence. Reuters could not confirm these claims.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said he would meet Putin on Monday in Moscow for the Russian leader’s first face-to-face meeting with a European Union counterpart since the Russian invasion began on February 24.
“We are militarily neutral, but (have) a clear position on the Russian war of aggression against #Ukraine,” Nehammer wrote of Austria on Twitter https://twitter.com/karlnehammer/status/1513193093784297476. “It must stop! We need humanitarian corridors, a ceasefire and a full investigation into war crimes.”
Russia’s invasion forced about a quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million people from their homes, turned cities to rubble, and killed or injured thousands.
It failed to take any major cities, but Ukraine says Moscow gathered forces in the east of the country for a major offensive and urged the population to flee.
A series of powerful explosions were heard in the city of Kharkiv, northeast Ukraine, and Mykolaiv, near the Black Sea in the south of the country, Ukrainian media reported on Sunday.
Earlier, missiles destroyed the airport in the city of Dnipro, said Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the central region of Dnipropetrovsk.
The Russian Defense Ministry said high-precision missiles destroyed the headquarters of the Ukrainian Dnipro Battalion in the town of Zvonetsky.
Reuters could not immediately confirm these reports.
CALLS OF ARMS
Since Russia’s invasion, Mr Zelenskiy has appealed to Western powers to provide more defense aid and punish Moscow with tougher sanctions, including embargoes on its military exports. ‘energy.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told ABC News, “We’re going to provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs to push back the Russians and stop them from taking more towns and villages.”
Mr Zelenskiy said he had confidence in his own armed forces, but “unfortunately I am not sure that we will receive everything we need” from the United States.
“They must supply weapons to Ukraine as if they were defending themselves and their own people,” Zelenskiy said in an interview broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program. “They have to understand that. If they don’t step up, it will be very difficult for us to resist that pressure.”
Mr Zelenskiy said earlier on Twitter that he had spoken on the phone with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about additional sanctions, as well as increased defense and financial support for his country. Zelenskiy also discussed with Ukrainian officials kyiv’s proposals for a new EU sanctions package, his office said.
On Friday, the EU banned imports of Russian coal among other products, but has not yet touched imports of oil and gas from Russia.
CIVILIAN DEATHS
The growing number of civilian casualties has triggered widespread international condemnation and new sanctions.
Ludmila Zabaluk, head of the department in the village of Dmytriv, north of the capital kyiv, said dozens of civilian bodies had been found in the area.
“There were more than 50 people dead. They shot them at close range. There is a car where a 17-year-old child was burned, only bones remain. A woman had half of her head blown off. A a little further on, a man lying near his car was burned alive.”
Reuters could not immediately confirm these reports.
Moscow has dismissed war crimes charges brought by Ukraine and Western countries. She has repeatedly denied targeting civilians in what she calls a “special operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” her southern neighbour. Ukraine and Western countries have dismissed these accusations as a groundless pretext for war.
On Sunday, the World Bank predicted that the war would lead to a 45% collapse in Ukraine’s economic output this year, with half of its businesses closed, grain exports mostly halted by the Russian naval blockade and the destruction making economic activity impossible in many regions.
The bank predicted that Russia’s GDP would contract by 11.2% this year due to Western sanctions.