Ukraine . The shadow of civilian massacres, following the horrors documented in Bucha, Borodyanka, and other areas of Ukraine, is looming once again over the war: nearly 500 people were found in a mass grave with their hands tied and a bullet in their head, denounced Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kiev, while the conflict has now been raging for 80 days and shows no signs of slowing down.
On the contrary, the Russians, having been forced to retreat from Kharkiv, are more focused than ever on gaining complete control of Donbass , but the defense forces are resisting and slowing them down. Bombs continue to fall even on the Mariupol steelworks, where complicated negotiations are underway to evacuate at least the wounded.
Turkey has offered a ship for the transfer to Istanbul, including the military. While the first war crimes trial involving a very young Russian soldier has begun in Kiev, the Archbishop of Kiev has told yet another glimpse of the drama that the Ukrainian people are experiencing. A mass grave was recently found with hundreds of people, said Monsignor Shevchuk speaking at a conference of the CEI:
“Murdered in a cruel way, in the same way that innocent people were murdered during Stalin’s time,” his harsh words. The horror of the executions of civilians is only the tip of the iceberg of a conflict that at this stage appears crystallized, because neither side is able to prevail. On the north-eastern front, the Ukrainians have reconquered important positions and, according to US military analysts, “it seems that they have won the battle of Kharkiv.”
The mayor of the country's second city, Ihor Terekhov, confirmed that the Russians had withdrawn and that citizens were gradually returning. In the wake of this push, Kiev's troops launched a counteroffensive further south, towards Izium: a key area for Russian supply lines to the hottest theater of fighting, Donbass.
The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed that Putin's Army is reorganizing to focus on its "main objective", namely "establishing full control of the territories of Donetsk and Lugansk provinces and Kherson and ensuring the stability of the land corridor with Crimea". In Lugansk, according to Governor Serhiy Gaidai, the Russians have not yet managed to surround the city of Severodonetsk, while fighting is intense in the border areas, in Popasna. On the Black Sea there is still no peace for Mariupol.
Ukrainian soldiers resisting in Azovstal have denounced that the Russians continue to attack the steel plant with all means, including infantry sorties. In the meantime, negotiations are underway for the evacuation of at least 60 people, the most seriously injured and doctors. Because Moscow - claims the government in Kiev - does not accept total evacuation. Turkey, which is continuing to try to mediate, has offered a ship to take all the injured, including soldiers, out of the steel plant and take them to Istanbul.
The wives of the fighters, after the visit to the Pope and the appeal to the Turkish leader Recep Tayyp Erdogan, also turned to the Chinese President Xi Jinping to help them get them out of the steelworks safely. The war does not stop even in the Odessa area, around the Snake Island. According to the governor Serhiy Bratchuk, the Russian fleet command is trying to deploy air defense systems on the island to establish control over the trade routes in the northwestern part of the Black Sea and to transfer the amphibious groups to Transnistria: a bridgehead, in view of a possible expansion of the conflict even further west, towards Moldova.
