Conflicts & War

Huge Russian convoy descends on Kyiv as shelling kills dozens of soldiers

Kyiv, Mar 1 (EFE).- A huge Russian military convoy inched closer to Kyiv on Tuesday as day six of Moscow’s invasion began with the shelling of a northeastern military base that killed dozens of Ukrainian soldiers, and a missile strike hit the center of Kharkiv.

The latest photos of Moscow’s armored convoy descending on Ukraine’s capital shows it is larger than initially thought.

According to new satellite images from Maxar Technologies, the convoy northwest of Kyiv stretches from near Antonov air base, about 30 kilometers from the center of the capital, for 64 kilometers (40 miles) and consists of armored vehicles, tanks, artillery and other vehicles.

Images taken earlier Monday gave the impression the vehicles stretched around 27km.

Kyiv has fended off a Russian takeover for five days, while residents have been preparing molotov cocktails.

In the northeast city of Okhtyrka, more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers, as well as civilians, were killed in Russian shelling of a military base, the head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration, Dmytro Zhyvytskyy, wrote on Facebook.

He added that since the early hours of Tuesday, the situation in the north of the region was more or less stable, but Konotop and Lebedyn, also in Sumy region, were besieged.

Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv was under attack again on Tuesday morning, with a missile hitting a local government building.

Videos posted to social media of the aftermath showed blown-out windows, debris and charred vehicles.

“Barbaric Russian missile strikes on the central Freedom Square and residential districts of Kharkiv,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is unable to break Ukraine down. He commits more war crimes out of fury, murders innocent civilians. The world can and must do more. INCREASE PRESSURE, ISOLATE RUSSIA FULLY!” he wrote.

Overnight, the southern city of Kherson also came under attack, according to local officials.

“Kherson assault has begun. According to eyewitnesses, the enemy is advancing from the airport to the Nikolaev highway and a ring near the cold storage plant,” Ukraine’s State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection reported on its Telegram channel.

Earlier, the regional state administration of Kherson, a city of almost 300,000 people situated where the Black Sea meets the Dnieper River, reported a concentration of Russian soldiers near the district of Shumen.

In addition, they blocked streets and installed a checkpoint, according to the same source.

At around midnight, before the start of the assault, Kherson Mayor Igor Kolikhayev said on Facebook that the Russian army had erected checkpoints at the entrances to the city.

Later reports indicated the city was surrounded.

Also in the south, in Mariupol, the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection said that the city was still under the control of the Ukrainian army, but as a result of Russian air strikes, it was mostly without power.

In Kyiv region, a projectile fired by Russia hit a private maternity hospital, according to the Adonis center’s CEO Vitaly Girin on Facebook.

“A shell hit the maternity hospital, causing huge damage, but the building is standing. Everyone has been evacuated (…) Everyone is in secured place and safe,” he wrote. EFE

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