Status: 09.03.2022 05:23
Ukraine reports several deaths and injuries – including civilians – after new Russian airstrikes. Meanwhile, Moscow announced another ceasefire for today in order to evacuate people via escape corridors.
According to the authorities, several people have been killed or injured in new airstrikes on cities in Ukraine. In the city of Malyn in the Zhytomyr region, three adults and two children died when bombs destroyed seven houses, according to the civil defense during the night.
At least one person died in Ochtyrka near Sumy and 14 people were injured. The Russian army shelled the town’s civilian infrastructure for two hours, said the head of the regional administration, Dmytro Shyvytskyi. The information is not independently verifiable.
According to civil defense, two people died near the city of Kharkiv, including a seven-year-old child, when a projectile hit a residential building. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 170 civilians have been killed in fighting in Kharkiv, including five children, a spokesman for the Unian agency said. Russia insists the troops are not attacking civilian targets, only military ones.
According to Mayor Serhiy Sukhomlyn, air strikes destroyed a mineral wool plant near the town of Zhytomyr.
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
Artillery shelling near Kyiv
In addition, Russian artillery shelled the outskirts of Kyiv, said Yaroslav Moskalenko, who coordinates humanitarian aid in the Kyiv region. Civilians would have had to seek refuge in air raid shelters. The supply of water, electricity and food was interrupted. In Borodyanka near Kyiv, the shelling prevented the recovery of five bodies, who came under fire in their vehicle, and 12 dead patients in a psychiatric clinic, Moskalenko said. Another 200 patients were stuck there without food or medicine.
Situation in Ukraine: Kyiv is preparing for the worst
Jan Koch, WDR, daily topics 10:40 p.m., March 9, 2022
Russia announces new escape corridors
Meanwhile, Russia has also announced the opening of several “humanitarian corridors” in Ukraine for Wednesday. From 08:00 CET local ceasefires should apply, Russian news agencies reported in the evening, citing a department of the Ministry of Defense responsible for humanitarian issues.
The first civilians had previously been taken via an official escape corridor from the embattled city of Sumy in north-eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, the fighting continued. “The first convoy of 22 buses has already arrived in Poltava,” a Kiev government official said in the evening. Poltava is around 175 kilometers south of Sumy. The people there are “safe,” said the official.
First successful evacuations
In Sumy, the Russian armed forces announced in the morning that they would set up an official escape corridor. The shelling had stopped. According to information from Kyiv, a second group of 39 buses was on its way to Poltava in the evening. It is the first successful official evacuation operation in the Ukraine war in cooperation with the Russian attackers. Several attempts to create safe escape routes for civilians from a number of besieged cities had previously failed. Moscow and Kyiv blamed each other for this.
Evacuations also continued in the Kyiv region, although humanitarian corridors were shelled, according to the head of the local administration, Oleksiy Kuleba. In the northwestern Kiev suburb of Irpin, an AFP reporter observed hundreds of people continuing to cross the river of the same name on makeshift walkways made of boards and pieces of metal. A resident reported that there was “no water, gas or electricity” and that she had to hide in the basement for days. Desperate people also tried to leave the northern suburb of Bucha.
New Russian military column on the way to Kyiv
The US Department of Defense, meanwhile, reported a new Russian military column advancing on Kyiv from the northeast. The main column from the north had come to a standstill several days ago.
An AFP reporter, meanwhile, reported miles of cars queuing from the town of Mykolaiv near Odessa in the south of the country. People there fled ongoing fighting in the region. Shots could be heard.
Eventually, the Ukrainian General Staff reported renewed fighting in Izyum to the east. The central hospital there was completely destroyed, the city administration announced. According to the Ukrainian government, 300,000 civilians are still stuck in the embattled, strategically important port of Mariupol on the Azov Sea. Evacuation attempts via humanitarian corridors had previously failed there.
According to the UN, more than two million people have fled Ukraine. The UN recently counted at least 406 civilians killed, although according to its own statements the number is probably far too low.