A series of predawn blasts shook Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv Tuesday morning, leading to a mandatory 35-hour curfew announced by the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, who warned the area was in the middle of a “difficult and dangerous moment.”
As residents sheltered in place or made a run for it to a bomb shelter, the leaders of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia crossed the Ukraine border by train to express “unequivocal support for Ukraine” and offer financial help to the war-torn nation.
The visit comes as Russia steps up its assault on its Eastern European neighbor and the humanitarian crisis deepens, with the number of Ukrainians forced to flee their country surpassing the 3 million mark. In the three weeks since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion, thousands of men, women, and children have lost their lives, and port cities such as Mariupol have been cut off from the world, its citizens dying due to a lack of food, clean water, heat, electricity, and medical help. Bodies there are now being buried in mass graves.
BOTCHED ASSESSMENT OF UKRAINE’S WILL TO FIGHT MIRRORS AFGHAN INTEL FAILURES
“Ukraine is on fire,” United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned. “The impact on civilians is reaching terrifying proportions.”
In western Kyiv, explosions blew out windows and ignited a huge fire after a flurry of strikes hit a 15-story apartment building, killing at least one person. Explosions around the city also caused structural damage, with shock waves from a blast tearing through the entrance of a downtown subway station that had been used as a bomb shelter and another igniting a fire in the northern part of the city, the Associated Press reported.
In central Ukraine, two missile strikes destroyed the runway and damaged the terminal building of the Dnipro airport, Valentin Reznichenko, the head of the regional administration, said. Military analysts have described Dnipro as a strategic target for Russian forces.
As the sun rose in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, rescuers began pulling bodies from the rubble after relentless Russian attacks on residential buildings in the city’s historic square and a major thoroughfare.
An iconic pub named after Ernest Hemingway was decimated by Russian shelling, the Independent reported.
Images shared on social media showed that part of Old Hem was torn down with smoke billowing from it. The pub, founded in 2012, catered to young creative minds in the city and had been a favorite among artists and poets. The pub had portraits of Mark Twain, Charles Bukowski, and Sergei Dovlatov plastered on its walls. Two people who were reportedly living in apartments above the bar died in the attack, according to the Kharkiv prosecutor’s office.
CZECH, POLISH, AND SLOVENIAN PRIME MINISTERS TO VISIT ZELENSKY IN KYIV WAR ZONE
In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed directly to Russian soldiers and citizens disgusted by the war, telling soldiers that those who surrender will be treated with dignity.
He also told them that Ukrainian intelligence could listen in on their communications and that it knew about some misgivings they had about the invasion.
“You will not take anything from Ukraine,” he said. “You will take lives.”
Zelensky also praised a Russian state television employee who yesterday burst onto a live broadcast of Moscow’s most-watched news show holding up an anti-war poster.
He also told Russians there was a chance they could turn the grim situation around.
“As long as your country has not completely closed itself off from the whole world, turning into a very large North Korea, you must fight,” he said. “You must not lose your chance.”
As Putin’s war continued down its path of death and destruction, world powers have continued their efforts to punish Moscow.
Britain said Tuesday it would ban exports of high-end luxury goods to Russia, including high-end fashion and art, while hitting Russian products like vodka with stiff new tariffs that represent a 35-percentage point increase. The move strips Russia of a World Trade Organization benefit known as “most-favored nation status,” which allows for preferential tax rates.
Japan’s government announced it would be freezing the assets of 17 more Russian politicians, big-wig tycoons, and their relatives, bringing the total number of Japan’s asset freezes to 61.
The European Union announced the 27-nation bloc has approved a fourth set of harsh sanctions to isolate Moscow from the world further.
Meanwhile, the Russian central bank announced it would stop the purchase of gold starting Tuesday amid a spike in demand from people who have seen the ruble nosedive since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24.
Unlike most of the Western world, India said it is in talks with Moscow to increase oil imports in an effort to keep prices from spiraling further.
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“I myself have had a conversation with the appropriate levels of the Russian Federation,” India’s petroleum minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, told lawmakers Monday.
The move comes as India tries to balance its relationship with Russia, its biggest supplier of weapons, amid aggressive actions on its border from China.
