Ukraine urges Easter truce for Mariupol

Kyiv – Ukraine on Sunday called for a truce in battered Mariupol for Orthodox Easter, celebrated in both Russia and Ukraine, as fighting rages throughout the east and south of the country.

Kyiv also said Moscow was targeting the Azovstal steel plant in besieged Mariupol, where Ukrainian forces remain holed up, and asked for special talks with Russia to free its trapped military. “Russia is continuously attacking the Mariupol Azovstal. The place where our civilians and military are located is shelled with heavy air bombs and artillery,” presidential advisor Mikhaylo Podolyak, said on Twitter.

Russian President Vladimir Putin this week ordered his forces not to attack the plant, but to lay siege to it instead.

But Podolyak claimed Russia is building up forces for an “assault.” “The Russian Federation should think about the remnants of its reputation,” he said. He called on Moscow to “announce a real Easter truce in Mariupol” and create an “immediate humanitarian corridor for civilians.” Podolyak also asked Moscow to “agree to a ‘special round of negotiations’ so that we take/exchange our military”.

A day earlier Ukraine said Russian forces had “thwarted” an attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol. Fighting raged in other parts of the country on Sunday, dashing any hope for an Easter cease-fire. The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said two children were killed in an eastern village by Russian fire.

“The lives of two children from the Ocheretyn community were taken away by the Russian occupiers this Easter morning,” he said on Telegram. The children, both girls, were five and 14. Kyrylenko urged locals to evacuate.

The Ukrainian Army earlier on Sunday said Russia’s offensive in the east and south of he country had “intensified” and alleged Moscow was also targeting civilian infrastructure.

“The enemy continues to partially blockade Kharkiv,” Kyiv’s military said, referring to Ukraine’s second city near the Russian border. It said there were ongoing “battles” near the eastern cities of Rubizhne and Popasna.