Heavily populated southern cities along the Black Sea and Sea of Azov were among primary targets as Russia’s campaign threatened to cut off shipping. Hennadiy Lahuta, governor of Kherson Oblast, said the government building in the Black Sea port city of Kherson, with a population of almost 280,000, was seized by Russian troops. Units were also bearing down on Mykolaiv, 40 miles to the northwest and home to almost half a million Ukrainians, The New York Times reported. U.S. officials said Russia had fired 480 missiles at Ukraine.
Russian forces failed to capture Mariupol, a city of 450,000 on the Azov Sea, and had “resorted to a blockade, creating a humanitarian disaster,” the Ukrainian military said. Food, water and even electricity have been cut off, women and children halted from evacuating. In the vital energy-producing southern city of Enerhodar, a hub on the Dnieper River, Ukrainian forces were battling Russian troops on the city’s outskirts, Mayor Dmytro Orlov said.
The Ukraine military said four large landing ships and three missile boats were moving through the Black Sea in the direction of the Odesa and its 1 million residents. Russian sailors were firing on civilian ships and taking prisoners, according to the military.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service has said more than 2,000 civilians have died, though it was impossible to verify the claim. The U.N. human rights office said it had recorded 227 deaths, including 15 under age 18, and 525 injured, since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24.
