Russian forces continued heavy shelling of Ukrainian cities on Sunday as people in both countries celebrated Orthodox Easter and US and US secretaries of state prepared to pay their first visit to Kyiv since the invasion.
“The Russian army has continued to actively shell peaceful cities in Ukraine and kill civilians,” said Lyudmila Denisova, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman. She said Russian strikes had killed four civilians in the Donetsk region and eight in Luhansk. “Three people working in a garden in Zaporozhye were killed by Russian artillery on Saturday,” Denisova said.
The Russian military said it had hit 423 Ukrainian targets overnight, including fortified positions and troop concentrations, while its fighter jets destroyed 26 Ukrainian military sites, including an explosives factory and several artillery depots.
Most of the Easter fighting focused on the eastern region of Donbass, where Ukrainian forces are concentrated and where Moscow-backed separatists controlled some pre-war territory.
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According to the Ukrainian National Police, two girls aged 5 and 14 were killed in a shelling in the town of Ocheretine, part of the industrial area.
Russian forces continued to strike the city of Kharkov, injuring three police officers and a woman, while artillery killed two men in the village of Slatine in the Kharkiv region.
Moscow forces have launched new air strikes on steel production in Mariupol, where up to 1,000 civilians have been sheltered, along with about 2,000 Ukrainian fighters.
Sergei Volina, commander of Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade in Mariupol, said in an interview with an opposition lawmaker posted on YouTube on Sunday that Russia was hitting the complex with air and artillery bombardment.
“We are taking victims, the situation is critical… we have a lot of injured men,” [some] die, it’s hard [situation] with weapons, ammunition, food, medicine… the situation is rapidly deteriorating, “Volina said, speaking from her seat at the plant.
UN crisis coordinator in Ukraine Amin Awad has called for an “immediate halt” to fighting in Mariupol to allow the evacuation of captured civilians from the battered city. “The lives of tens of thousands, including women, children and the elderly, are at stake in Mariupol,” Awad said. “We need a break in the battle right now to save lives.”
Adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Ukraine had invited Russia to talks near Mariupol Steel. “We have invited the Russians to hold a special round of talks on the ground right next to the walls of Azovstal,” said Alexei Arestovich.
Earlier in the day, Kyiv called for a truce in the beaten Mariupol for Orthodox Easter, celebrated in both Russia and Ukraine.
Even as fighting raged across the country, a military post in the eastern city of Lyman, on the front line, took the time to celebrate Easter, exchanging the usual patriotic “Glory to Ukraine!” Patriotic greeting for the “Christ is Risen!” Ritual.
“He is risen indeed!” the answer came.
In the city’s small Orthodox church, about 50 civilians withstood possible mortar fire to gather to pray at dawn.
Pilgrims are waiting to receive consecration during an Orthodox Easter service in Lyman, Ukraine. Photo: Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP / Getty Images
Meanwhile, Ukrainians paid tribute to journalist Valeria Glodan and her three-month-old daughter, who were among eight people killed in rocket attacks on the southern port of Odessa on Saturday.
Glodan had posted on Instagram just before her joy at the arrival of her baby girl. “It was the best 40 weeks so far,” she wrote on Twitter 11 weeks ago. “Our girl is already one month old. Dad got his first flowers. This is a whole new level of happiness. “
On Sunday, her husband Yuri Glodan shared a heartbreaking tribute to his wife and daughter. “My dear ones, the kingdom of heaven! You are in our hearts, “he wrote on social media.
Zelensky spoke angrily about the baby’s death during a press conference Saturday night at a Kyiv metro station.
“Try to figure it out,” he said. “The war started when the child was one month old. These are pure bastards. They are monsters. This is horrible. They don’t care. ” A future war crimes tribunal will administer justice to Russian leaders, he added.
Vladimir Zelensky arrives for a press conference at a metro station in Kyiv. Photo: Gleb Garanic / Reuters
Zelensky said he would meet with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Kyiv on Sunday. The White House declined to comment.
This will be the first high-level US trip to Kyiv since the start of the war on February 24. The visit of Blinken and Austin will come at a symbolic moment, as the war enters its third month and with fierce fighting continuing in the eastern part of the country.
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Zelensky’s aide Igor Zhovkva told NBC News on Sunday that Ukrainian authorities intend to tell Blinken and Austin about the immediate need for more weapons, including anti-missile systems, anti-aircraft systems, armored vehicles and tanks.
The United States and NATO allies have shown a growing willingness to supply heavier equipment and more advanced weapons systems. Britain has promised to send military vehicles and is considering supplying British tanks to Poland to release Warsaw-designed T-72s for Ukraine.
Zelenski gave some details about the logistics, but said he expected concrete results – “not just gifts or cakes, we expect concrete things and concrete weapons.”
In a video address Sunday from the ancient St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, Zelensky, a Jew, stressed the importance of Easter, the highest point in the Orthodox calendar.
“The great holiday today gives us great hope and unwavering faith that light will defeat darkness, good will defeat evil, life will defeat death, and therefore Ukraine will certainly win,” he said.
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