Russian missiles have struck the western Ukrainian city of Lviv and other targets around the embattled country as the Kremlin called on Kyiv’s allies to stop sending weapons to its military.
Officials said the missiles damaged three electricity substations and two water pumping stations in Lviv, which is just 70km from the Polish border and a major conduit for Ukrainians fleeing fighting further east and for weapons arriving via Poland. Some areas of the city were without power on Tuesday evening following the explosions.
Russian rockets also struck the Kirovohrad region, 700km east of Lviv, and intense shelling continued in the Donbas region and near the major city of Kharkiv, where Moscow’s military is focusing its attacks after being beaten back from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Diplomacy aimed at halting a conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and displaced more than 10 million appears to be deadlocked and no breakthrough was made on Tuesday when Russian president Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
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The Kremlin reported that Mr Putin said “EU member countries ignore the crimes committed by the Ukrainian forces, and massive shelling of cities and communities in the Donbas region resulting in civilian casualties.
‘Stopping arms deliveries’
“The West could help stop these atrocities by influencing the Kyiv government, as well as stopping arms deliveries to Ukraine.”
Mr Macron’s office said he “called on Russia to live up to its responsibilities as a permanent member of the [United Nations] security council by putting an end to this devastating aggression” and expressed “deep concerns over Mariupol and the situation in Donbas”.
A two-month Russian siege and relentless bombing of Mariupol has destroyed the port city on the Azov Sea and trapped many hundreds of Ukrainian troops and local residents in its sprawling Azovstal steel plant, where conditions are dire. More than 100 civilians who were evacuated from the factory finally reached the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday.
“We’re scared that after the evacuation of civilians, the [soldiers] will be left there. We don’t see any sign of help,” said Ksenia Chebysheva, whose husband is among Ukrainian troops inside Azovstal.
Pascal Hundt, of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which facilitated the evacuation with the United Nations, said: “We would have hoped that more people would have been able to join the convoy and get out of hell . . . There are many, many people that really wish to leave and were trapped by the hostilities. We believe to alleviate the suffering of these people, many more such operations should take place and this is an urgent call”.
Vadym Boichenko, the mayor of Mariupol who left the city weeks ago, said about 200 civilians are still in Azovstal and 100,000 are in the ruined city, where Ukraine accuses Russia of killing some 20,000 people and trying to hide evidence of alleged “war crimes” in mass graves.
Mr Boichenko said “almost 40,000” Mariupol residents – 10 per cent of its pre-war population – had been “deported” to Russia and to areas of eastern Ukraine now controlled by its forces.