The Azov battalion holed up in the Azovstal factory in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol reported that one of its fighters was killed and 6 others were wounded, in targeting a car intended to evacuate civilians from the besieged compound for weeks by Russian forces.

Azov forces accused the Russian side of continuing what it described as violating all agreements and not adhering to security guarantees during the evacuation of civilians.

And Andrey Yermak, director of the Ukrainian president's office, had said that, to date, about 500 civilians have been evacuated from Mariupol and Azovstal, and described the new evacuation process as "complicated."

Yesterday, Thursday, the Russian General Staff announced the opening of safe corridors for civilians to leave the Azovstal steel complex - the last pocket in which Ukrainian soldiers are holed up in the city of Mariupol (southeast of Ukraine) - for a period of 3 days, from eight in the morning until six in the evening Moscow time. (Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays).

British estimates

In the same context, British military intelligence said that Russian President Vladimir Putin might want to achieve a symbolic victory by completing control of the Azovstal complex on May 9, as she put it.

British intelligence added that Russian forces continue their ground attack on the Azovstal factory in Mariupol for the second day.


On Thursday evening, President Putin confirmed that "the Russian army is always ready to ensure the evacuation of civilians" from Azovstal, where about 200 of them are still trapped with Ukrainian fighters in this compound.

The capture of all of Mariupol will be a great victory for Russia as the ninth of this month approaches, the day Moscow holds a major military parade in memory of the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

The Ukrainians assert that Russian forces are also preparing to stage a parade that day in Mariupol, a port city that had a pre-war population of about 500,000 and was destroyed during two months of Russian siege and bombardment.

Since the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine on February 24, Moscow has only been able to declare its control over one important city, Kherson (south).

Bombing and battles

In Odessa, a spokesman for the regional military forces published pictures that he said were of the Ukrainian Air Force targeting positions of Russian forces on Snake Island off the coast of Odessa on the Black Sea.

The pictures show what was said to be the firing of missiles at targets near the control tower on the island.

In turn, the head of the Ukrainian military authorities of Dnipropetrovsk said that their forces had shot down a Russian drone over the Dnipro River.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army broadcast pictures that it said were scenes of targeting Russian forces in the Severodonetsk region of Lugansk Province (east of the country).

The Ukrainian forces have succeeded so far in repelling the Russian attack on a number of (European) fronts.

On the other hand, media affiliated with the pro-Moscow separatists in Lugansk said that Russian forces stormed the town of Vojvodovka in the vicinity of the city of Severodonetsk in Lugansk province.

The sources added that fierce battles are taking place inside the town, the control of which paves the way for the Russian forces towards Severodonetsk.

The separatists also said that they are now in control of most of the strategic neighborhoods of the city of Poposnaya (west of Lugansk), and that the battles are still going on inside, as they put it.

Russian ad

Also in the field developments, the Russian Defense Ministry spoke of its forces destroying the Ukrainian S-300 air defense system in Donetsk and the Tochka U in the Zaporozhye region.

The Russian forces also destroyed, according to the Ministry of Defense, a huge ammunition depot using high-precision missiles at the "Energomash Spetstal" plant in Kramatorsk.

For its part, the Ukrainian General Staff said that Russian forces are working to complete their control of Donetsk and Lugansk provinces and maintain the corridor leading to Crimea.

The Ukrainian staff added that several towns and villages between Mykolaiv and northern Kherson (south of the country) were bombed, and warned of what it described as the threat of a Russian naval landing on the coasts northwest of the Black Sea.

Kherson

As for the city of Kherson to the south, Kirill Strimosov, deputy head of the Russian Civil Military Committee for the administration of Kherson Province, said that during the current year, residents of the province will be able to obtain Russian citizenship.


In turn, the Secretary of the General Council of the ruling United Russia party, Andrei Torchak, said that Russia entered the Kherson region forever, and there should be no doubt about that, as he put it.

Torchak also said - during his visit to Kherson and meeting with some residents of the city - that there will be no return to the past, and that his country will work to develop the rich Kherson region, as he described it.

Torchak was also accompanied on a visit to Kherson by the president of the separatist "Donetsk Republic", Denis Pushlin.

Kherson Province, with a population of about one million and 100 thousand people and an area of ​​28 thousand and 500 square kilometers, is considered a strategic location for Ukraine and Russia as well.

Kherson, which overlooks the Black Sea, was the first major Ukrainian city to fall into the hands of Russian forces, and it played a crucial role in the control of those forces over southern Ukraine.

During the past weeks, Kyiv repeatedly warned Moscow against organizing a referendum on the independence of Kherson and declaring it a republic along the lines of Donetsk and Lugansk.