Russian troops launched a deadly offensive in eastern Ukraine on Saturday as President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the 500th day of the war with a demonstration of defiance, sharing a video of himself visiting the Black Sea island that has become a staunch symbol of his country's resistance to invasion.
In a type of attack that has become very familiar, at least eight civilians were killed and 13 others injured when Russian troops shelled the central city of Lyman in the eastern region of Donetsk around 10 a.m., Ukraine's Interior Ministry said. in a statement in the Telegram messaging app.
Rescue efforts are continuing, according to officials, who said a house and shop were damaged. At the scene, bloodstains, broken glass and an overturned motorcycle marked the site of the attack.
The midday attack is a somber reminder of the toll it took in Ukraine during the 500 days of war. Mr Zelensky paid tribute Saturday to all those who have lost their lives, using the backdrop of Snake Island to underscore Ukraine's resolve.
At the start of the war in February, an audio recording captured by Ukrainian border guards on the island, 20 miles off the coast of Odesa. Defying orders for the Russian warships to surrender, the sentinels responded with a torrent of unforgettable profanity that became a rallying cry immortalized on postage stamps and billboards across the country.
In a video posted on Saturday, Zelensky honors the “heroes” who fought for Snake Island, calling the battle that finally forced the Russian troops to withdraw last June “one of the most important” since the full-scale invasion.
“Even though this is a small piece of land in the middle of our Black Sea, it is a great proof that Ukraine will regain every piece of its territory,” Mr. Zelensky says in the video, which shows him climbing from a boat and across a rocky landscape to place blue and yellow flowers on a memorial.
It was not immediately clear when the video was recorded: The Ukrainian leader in Türkiye on Saturday, a trip described as an attempt to rally support for his country's bid to join NATO.
But in keeping with the theme of defiance, he left Istanbul on Saturday with something deeply personal and of symbolic value to many Ukrainians. Mr Zelensky said on Twitter that five commanders from the country's Azov Battalion, which defended the port city of Mariupol during the 80-day Russian siege, would return with him.
The fighters' fierce resistance from inside the sprawling steelworks made them national celebrities but also a valuable gift to the Kremlin when they surrendered to Russian forces in May. They were then sent to Türkiye in a prisoner exchange negotiated by Ankara. Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly promised to release them along with all the Ukrainian prisoners of war.
“We came home from Turkey and brought home our heroes,” he wrote on Twitter on Saturday, sharing a video showing him embracing five men, who was later shown a phone call with footage from Snake Island.
The move was the symbolic climax of a week of diplomatic meetings that ended in Turkey, part of a tour of NATO countries ahead of next week's alliance summit.
The war has reshaped Ukraine's relations with the world, adding momentum to its bid to join NATO and turning Zelensky into a diplomatic juggernaut. He has used global attention to help Ukraine push billions in military aid to fend off Russian invaders, and his country, armed with Western-supplied weapons, is in the early stages of a meticulous campaign to retake occupied territory.
Kyiv views membership in NATO as the main guarantee of its security; his application in September to join the alliance was made against the backdrop of a full-scale Russian invasion.
While Zelensky has acknowledged that Ukraine will not be joining NATO anytime soon, given that such a move would force the mutual defense alliance into direct military conflict with Russia, he has repeatedly urged its members to set a timetable for accession. In recent months, he has expressed hope that next week's summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, can bring some clarity.
With days to go before the meeting, Mr. Zelensky launched a diplomatic push to press his case. He traveled to Bulgaria and the Czech Republic on Thursday and then Slovakia and Turkey on Friday, where he met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In a televised press conference Saturday morning in Istanbul after his meeting with Zelensky, Erdogan said that “Ukraine deserves to become a member of NATO without hesitation.”
But President Biden, who is scheduled to attend the summit during a trip to Europe next week, told CNN in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday that Ukraine's acceptance into NATO will likely have to wait until after the war.
“I don't think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family right now, at this moment, in the middle of a war,” Biden said, according to excerpt published by CNN.
At the same time, Biden defended what he called the “incredibly difficult” decision to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions, which are banned by many of America's closest allies and which have been known to cause severe injuries months or even years after the fighting ended. . Both Russia and Ukraine have used the weapon during the war.
In the end, the president decided that taking away Ukraine's weapons would leave it powerless against Russia. He said it was a temporary measure to contain Ukraine until production of conventional artillery shells could be increased.
“The Ukrainians are running low on ammunition,” Mr. Biden said in a statement interview with CNN.
Officials in Kyiv welcomed the move, with Ukraine's defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, saying the weapon would be “very helpful” and would only be used “on the ground” against the Russian military, not in urban areas. “It's important to pay attention,” he said wrote on Twitter, that Russian troops had “blindly used cluster munitions since Day 1” of the invasion.
That point seems to resonate with a lot of people in Ukraine, where Kharkiv is trending on Twitter as people point to the Russian use of cluster munitions there at the start of the war.
Underlining the continuing threat, Ukraine's attorney general said that cluster munitions, a weapon shunned by many countries, were used in Saturday's Lyman attack. Physical evidence reviewed by a New York Times journalist at the site of the Lyman attack appears consistent with Ukraine's assessment that cluster munitions were used.
Ukrainian troops were about a month into their counteroffensive, a slow and bloody advance aimed at driving Russian troops out of the south and east of the country. Despite being backed by training and sophisticated new weapons from Western allies, Kyiv's forces have made little gain, and the heavy fighting has cost the Ukrainians an undisclosed number of casualties, along with some of its newest tanks and armored vehicles.
While the counter-offensive rages, Russian forces continue to fire missiles and launch drones at Ukrainian towns and villages behind the front lines.
On the eve of the 500th day, the United Nations said that it has been confirmed the deaths of more than 9,000 civilians – including more than 500 children – since the full-scale invasion, called it a “grim milestone” in a war that “continues to inflict terrible casualties”. It warned that the true number of dead was likely much higher.
The casualty toll rose again Saturday in Lyman, where shortly after the strike the scavengers and the few remaining civilians in town went about their day, apparently used to the occasional violent episode traveling to their homes from the front line 10 miles away. .
Anzhela, an employee at a local shop who declined to give her full name for security reasons, said she was in the shop when the strike occurred.
“The wall saved us so thank God we are okay,” he said, adding: “But outside, a man was injured next to the shop. The man just came out, and what happened next we don't know.”
Just hours after the victims were taken away, a second barrage of rockets hit the city center. The number of victims, if any, was not immediately clear.