Ukraine: What happened today, Sunday, March 13?
Ukrainian soldiers stand atop a destroyed bridge in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine. Picture: AP Photo/Felipe Dana
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its 18th day, news broke that a Russian rocket attack on a military base near Lviv killed at least 35 people and injured at least 134 more.
Yavoriv airbase, situated less than 25km from the Polish border, was hit at 5.45am. In total, 30 cruise missiles are believed to have stuck the base and the areas surrounding it.
The base, the biggest such facility in Western Ukraine, had been a location where foreign military trainers from the UK, the US and elsewhere previously carried out training exercises with Ukrainian forces.
“Russia has attacked the International Centre for Peacekeeping & Security near Lviv. Foreign instructors work here. Information about the victims is being clarified,” Ukrainian defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said in a post on social media.
The attack came less than 24 hours after Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Raybkov warned that Moscow would now be considering western arms shipments to Ukraine as “legitimate targets” for attacks.
Since the invasion began, western Ukraine and Lviv in particular have become a major destination for those fleeing fighting in the east of the country. Western aid has also been flowing through the region and on into the rest of Ukraine.
Russia’s strike this morning is the westernmost attack it has launched against a target in Ukraine, and the closest one has come to an EU and Nato state.
Meanwhile, fighting raged in several other areas of Ukraine overnight.
Russian forces are understood to have fired at the airport in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk, which lies about 250km from Ukraine’s border with Slovakia and Hungary.
Ukrainian authorities also said Russian airstrikes on a monastery and a children’s resort in the eastern Donetsk region hit places where monks and refugees had been sheltering, injuring 32.
Another airstrike hit a westward-bound train evacuating people from the east, killing one person and wounding another, according to Donetsk’s chief regional administrator.
In the northern city of Chernihiv, one person was killed and another injured in a Russian airstrike that destroyed a residential block.
In Mariupol, which has endured some of the gravest destruction since the invasion began, efforts to bring food, water and medicine into the port city of 430,000 and to evacuate civilians, were prevented by unceasing attacks.
The city is currently running out of its last reserves of food and water, according to its local authority.
Mariupol is currently circled by Russian forces who continue to shell the city – including civilian targets.
Ukrainian military officials claim that Russian forces are continuing to use civilian infrastructure for military needs and carrying out shelling on civilians in violation of international humanitarian law.
- A US video journalist has died and another journalist was injured when they were attacked by Russian forces in Ukraine, police in Kyiv region have said.
- US president Joe Biden is sending his national security adviser for talks with a senior Chinese official in Rome as concerns grow that China is amplifying Russian disinformation in the Ukraine war and may help Russia evade punishment from economic sanctions.
- Pope Francis has decried the “barbarianism” of the killing of children and other defenceless civilians in Ukraine and pleaded for a stop to the attacks “before cities are reduced to cemeteries”.
- A bus carrying about 50 Ukrainian refugees overturned on a major highway in north-eastern Italy at dawn on Sunday, killing one person, firefighters said.
In Ukraine’s capital, fighting also intensified, with shelling in several of the city’s major suburbs sending residents scurrying for shelter as air raid sirens wailed.
Intelligence from the UK and elsewhere has suggested that Russia may commence an all-out assault of the capital within the coming days.
Speaking from Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of trying to break his country apart, and commencing “a new stage of terror.”
“Ukraine will stand this test," he said during a video address.
Mr Zelenskyy also warned against the formation of a “pseudo-republic” in the south of his country as he revealed at least 1,300 Ukrainian troops have died so far in the invasion.
On Friday, Ukrainian officials, including Mr Zelenskyy spoke of Russia's alleged kidnapping of the mayor of Melitopol, a city in the southeast of the country. Russia has now installed a new mayor.
Today, Ukraine's foreign minister claimed that the mayor of Dniprorudne, another city in the same region as Melitopol, had also been taken by Russian forces.
Dymtro Kuleba said that Yevhen Matveyev has been “abducted” by Russian forces.
"Russian war criminals abducted another democratically elected Ukrainian mayor, head of Dniprorudne Yevhen Matveyev," Mr Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
Today, Russian war criminals abducted another democratically elected Ukrainian mayor, head of Dniprorudne Yevhen Matveyev. Getting zero local support, invaders turn to terror. I call on all states & international organizations to stop Russian terror against Ukraine and democracy. pic.twitter.com/jEPTBTLikY
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) March 13, 2022
Elsewhere, talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire again failed late on Saturday, while the US announced plans to provide another 200 million dollars to Ukraine for weapons.
Since Russia’s invasion began on February 24, more than 2.6 million people have been forced to flee across borders.
Hundreds of thousands more remain trapped in besieged cities.
Speaking on the this morning, Polish president Andrez Duda said he believes Russia could use chemical weapons as Vladimir Putin is now in “a very difficult situation” at home.
“Actually, politically, he has already lost his war and internally he is not winning it,” Mr Duda said.
Mr Duda said Russia using weapons of mass destruction would represent a “gamechanger” for both the EU and Nato.
“For sure the North Atlantic alliance, will have to sit at that table and really have to think seriously about what to do, because then it starts to be dangerous, not only for Europe, or our region, but the whole world.
Echoing Mr Duda's remarks, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Russia would pay a “severe price” if it uses chemical weapons in Ukraine.
Speaking on US TV, Mr Sullivan said that any attack on Nato would trigger a full response by the alliance, and that they were looking at the potential threat of a chemical weapons attack.
“The use of weapons of mass destruction would be a shocking additional line that Putin is crossing in terms of his assault on international law and international norms," he said.
Ireland is heading towards becoming a "war economy" whereby the price of many day-to-day items will soar, Taoiseach Micheàl Martin has warned.
"It looks very likely Ukraine will not be planting this season," Mr Martin said in London this afternoon.
"That has very serious repercussions across the continent, which will impact Ireland."
The Taoiseach says he did not "get into" UK concerns over Ireland's open-door policy on Ukrainian refugees in a meeting with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
