Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday (March 6) said Russian forces were preparing to bombard the city of Odessa on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.
“Rockets against Odessa? This will be a war crime,” he said in a televised address.
Russian forces have made progress in southern Ukraine since their February 24 invasion, overrunning the city of Kherson and besieging the port of Mariupol, but Odessa has so far been largely spared.
More than 1.5 million refugees have crossed from Ukraine into neighboring countries since Russia invaded, the head of the United Nations’ refugee agency reported Sunday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for the failure and warned that the country’s ongoing resistance since Russia invaded its ex-Soviet neighbor on Feb. 24 is putting the country’s future as a nation in jeopardy.
“If they continue to do what they are doing, they are calling into question the future of Ukrainian statehood,” the Russian leader said Saturday. “And if this happens, it will be entirely on their conscience.”
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Putin also hit out at Western sanctions that have crippled Russia’s economy and sent the value of its currency tumbling. likening to “declaring war.”
With the Kremlin’s rhetoric growing fiercer and a reprieve from fighting dissolving, Russian troops continued to shell encircled cities.
During the first 11 days of the conflict, Russian forces from Belarus have also advanced on the capital Kyiv from the northwest and northeast, while another group bombarded the northern city of Kharkiv.
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Previous meetings held in Belarus had led to a cease-fire agreement to create humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of children, women and older people from Ukrainian cities, where pharmacies have run bare, hundreds of thousands face food and water shortages, and the injured have been succumbing to their wounds.
The West has broadly backed Ukraine, offering aid and weapons and slapping Russia with vast sanctions. But the fight itself has been left to Ukrainians, who have expressed a mixture of courageous resolve and despondency.
“Ukraine is bleeding,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a video released Saturday, “but Ukraine has not fallen.”
(With inputs from agencies)
