Conflict raged northwest of Kyiv on Saturday and other cities were encircled and under heavy shelling, while Ukrainian officials said fighting and threats of Russian air attacks were endangering attempted evacuations.
The governor of the Kyiv region said fighting and threats of Russian air attacks were continuing during evacuation attempts and the Donetsk region’s governor said constant shelling was complicating bringing aid into Mariupol.
An adviser to the Ukrainian presidency said earlier that 79 evacuation buses and two trucks with humanitarian cargo had left for Sumy on Saturday. Buses and trucks also left Zaporizhzhia for Mariupol, a video released by the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration on social media showed.
Air raid sirens blared across most Ukrainian cities on Saturday morning urging people to seek shelters, local media reported. Russian rocket attacks destroyed a Ukrainian air base and hit an ammunition depot near the town of Vasylkiv in the Kyiv region on Saturday morning, Interfax Ukraine quoted Vasylkiv Mayor Natalia Balasynovych as saying.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said a mosque in Mariupol where more than 80 people had been sheltering had also been shelled, without saying whether anyone had been killed or wounded.
Moscow has denied targeting civilians what it calls a special operation to demilitarize Ukraine and unseat leaders it refers to as neo-Nazis. It has not responded to Ukrainian challenges to provide evidence.–Agencies
