Four Russian generals have been killed since the invasion began,as senior officers are forced to go to the frontline to confront the low morale among their troops,US and UK military intelligence sources said.
Fighting remains intense in the settlements to the west and east of Kyiv,but neither side has made significant gains for days. Russia has suffered heavy casualties around the capital,while thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been evacuated from these settlements.
The Sydney Morning Herald andThe Age visited an evacuation site near Irpin,just west of the capital where some of the deadliest fighting has occurred. Some residents said almost nobody was left in Irpin and it was now just an urban battlefield contested by Ukrainian and Russian forces.
Ukrainian soldiers on the ground still insist that they can continue holding off the Russian invasion for months,but also concede that they need more help from the West.
The loss of the four Russian generals since the invasion began on February 24 has led to questions over why senior members of the Russian military are operating so close to the frontline.
According to Western intelligence,the generals are having to lead,scout and physically put themselves in the line of fire because of low morale.
There hasn’t been independent verification of Ukraine’s claim that 7000 Russian soldiers have been killed,but British and American intelligence believe that number to be “plausible” and that Russia is trying to stand up more troops.
Along with hitting Mariupol,Russia is also believed to be planning to launch an amphibious assault on the coastal city of Odesa as it continues its quest to cut Ukraine off from the ocean. But some analysts say this could be a bogus attack to distract the Ukrainian army so that it can launch a renewed offensive in the east of the country.
In city after city,hospitals,schools and buildings where people sought safety from the bombardment have been attacked. On Friday rescue workers searched for survivors in the ruins of the Mariupol theatre that served as a shelter when it was blown apart by a Russian air strike on Thursday. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova announced on Friday that 130 people had been rescued so far from the rubble of a theatre.
Video and photos provided by the Ukrainian military showed that the building had been reduced to a roofless shell,with some exterior walls collapsed.
“We are trying to survive somehow,” said one Mariupol resident,who gave only her first name,Elena. “My child is hungry. I don’t know what to give him to eat.”
Civilian casualties are mounting. The UN human rights office said on Friday that it has recorded a total of 816 civilians killed and 1333 injured since the fighting began on February 24,though it only reports counts that it can verify and believes the figures vastly understate the actual toll. Ukrainian officials say thousands have been killed.
In Merefa,near the north-east city of Kharkiv,at least 21 people were killed when Russian artillery destroyed a school and a community centre,a local official said.
In the northern city of Chernihiv,dozens of bodies were brought to the morgue in just one day,killed amid heavy Russian air attacks and ground fire,the governor,Viacheslav Chaus,told Ukrainian TV.
Ukraine’s emergency services said a mother,father and three of their children,including three-year-old twins,were killed when a Chernihiv hostel was shelled. Civilians were hiding in basements and shelters across the embattled city of 280,000.
Ukrainian officials said 10 people were killed the day before while waiting to buy bread in Chernihiv. An American man was among them,his sister said on Facebook.
“The city has never known such nightmarish,colossal losses and destruction,” Chaus said.
The United Nations political chief,Under Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo,called for an investigation into civilian casualties,reminding the UN Security Council that international humanitarian law bans direct attacks on civilians.
She said many of the daily attacks battering Ukrainian cities “are reportedly indiscriminate” and involve the use of “explosive weapons with a wide impact area”. DiCarlo said the devastation in Mariupol and Kharkiv “raises grave fears about the fate of millions of residents of Kyiv and other cities facing intensifying attacks”.
Cars,some with the “Z” symbol of the Russian invasion force in their windows,drove past stacks of ammunition boxes and artillery shells in a neighbourhood controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
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The World Health Organisation said it has verified 43 attacks on hospitals and health facilities,with 12 people killed and 34 injured.
with AP
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