Lauren Moye, FISM News
Missiles launched from Russian ships in the Caspian and Black seas struck Ukraine early this morning as the nearly month-long war continues to rage. Ukrainian soldiers and civilians continue to bravely defend their nation from Russian invaders, even as “several thousand” Mariupol residents were deported by Russia this week. Meanwhile, one Turkish diplomat described hope for a ceasefire after new discussions on “critical issues” between the countries.
The presidential office this morning stated that the Ukrainian military sees a high risk of attack from the direction of the Belarus border. This means the nation would be fighting battles from all cardinal directions. Previously, the battles were focused primarily in the Northern, Eastern, and Southern regions.
The war has proved especially brutal for civilian casualties. The U.N. Human Rights office announced that, as of Friday, 847 Ukrainian civilians had been killed during the invasion which has seen Russia drop cluster bombs in highly populated areas and bomb-besieged cities. 112 of these casualties were children according to the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office.
Today, citizens are hopeful that seven humanitarian corridors will remain open and peaceful so that they can evacuate front-line areas of the war. Although Russia has denied intentionally targeting civilians, previous corridors have failed amid continued conflict. Ukraine and Russia both blamed each other for these failures.
This weekend also saw Russian forces bomb a Mariupol art school that was sheltering 400 residents. The city’s council did not announce casualties from this incident, although they did report that there were people trapped under the resulting rubble.
“To do this to a peaceful city… is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Additionally, Mariupol’s local government said through Telegram on Saturday night that “several thousand” of the city’s residents had been forcefully taken into Russia.
The parallels between what the Russians are doing to Ukraine today and what Hitler did to Jews during the holocaust led to strong words from Zelenskyy to Israel earlier today. “We can ask why we can’t receive weapons from you, why Israel has not imposed powerful sanctions on Russia or is not putting pressure on Russian business. Either way, the choice is yours to make, brothers and sisters, and you must then live with your answer, the people of Israel.”
Israel has so far refused to sell their Iron Defense Dome system.
Russian news agencies have reported on the busses full of people entering Russia as “refugees” from the war.
Despite this, the Turkish foreign minister expressed that he was “hopeful for a ceasefire” soon based on progress in peace talks between the two nations.
Mevlut Cavusoglu met with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts – Sergei Lavrov and Dmytro Kuleba respectively – earlier this month without any success. He met with the foreign ministers again this week and described a “rapprochement in the positions of both sides on important subjects, critical subjects.”
Cavusoglu did not elaborate on what had shifted to cause his optimism. He did say, “We can say we are hopeful for a ceasefire if the sides do not take a step back from the current positions.”