The battles being fought in eastern Ukraine could determine the country’s fate, a defence ministry spokesman has said, as Russian forces were conducting an all-out assault to encircle Ukrainian troops in twin cities straddling the Siverskyi Donets River in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian Defence Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said Russian forces had not given up attempts to cross the river. Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig reports from Kramatorsk, Ukraine. – Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe – Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish – Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera – Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/ #UkraineWar #Donetsk #Soledar
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia’s military action in Ukraine was “unavoidable” and pledged that its goals in the conflict will be achieved. His comments on Tuesday came after he flew into Russia’s far east Amur region where he met Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The visit marked Putin’s first known trip outside Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, sending tens of thousands of troops into the neighbouring country. Putin and Lukashenko visited the Vostochny Cosmodrome to mark Russia’s annual Cosmonautics Day, commemorating the first crewed space flight made in 1961 by the Russian Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari reports from Moscow. – Subscribe to our […]
A warning, this report contains images that viewers may find disturbing. Ukrainian forces have buried hundreds of people in a mass grave in a commuter town outside Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, after retaking control of the area from Russian troops, according to an official. “In Bucha, we have already buried 280 people in mass graves,” Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk told the AFP news agency by phone on Saturday. He said the heavily destroyed town’s streets are littered with corpses. Bucha has seen fierce fighting during the past few weeks and had been under Russian occupation for about a month until it was retaken this week. Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi reports from the […]
Ukraine’s Azov battalion has been the main force defending the city of Mariupol. The group has a reputation for fighting fiercely, but it has also said to hold far-right views. In 2016 the United Nations accused it of violating international humanitarian law. In 2019, 40 US congress members unsuccessfully tried to designate the Azov as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation. Russian President Vladimir Putin referenced the presence of such units within the Ukrainian military as one of the reasons for launching his so-called “special military operation – to de-militarise and de-Nazify Ukraine”. The unit has denied it adheres to Nazi ideology as a whole, but Nazi symbols such as the swastika […]
Russian forces have intensified their bombardment of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol as street fighting has raged on Tuesday, a day after Mariupol authorities rejected Moscow’s ultimatum to surrender, Ukrainian officials said. Russian shelling is turning the southern city into the “ashes of a dead land”, the city council said on Tuesday. Russia’s RIA news agency said Russian forces and units of Russian-backed separatists had taken about half of the city, citing a separatist leader. Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi reports from the western city of Lviv, Ukraine – Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe – Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish – Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera – Check our website: […]
Russian forces have pushed deeper into Ukraine’s besieged and battered port city of Mariupol where heavy fighting shut down a major steel plant and local authorities pleaded for more help. The fall of Mariupol, the scene of some of the war’s worst suffering, would mark a crucial battlefield advance for the Russians, who are largely bogged down outside key cities more than three weeks into the biggest land invasion in Europe since World War II. “Children, elderly people are dying. The city is destroyed and it is wiped off the face of the earth,” Mariupol police officer Michail Vershnin said on Saturday from a rubble-strewn street in a video addressed […]
A 35-hour curfew has been imposed on Kyiv amid a “difficult and dangerous moment” after several Russian strikes in the capital, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko. The curfew from 8pm (18:00 GMT) on Tuesday until 7am (05:00 GMT) on Thursday was a “decision of the military command”, Klitschko, a former boxing champion, said on Tuesday. The announcement came as Russia launched fresh attacks in Ukraine’s capital, which has nearly been encircled by Russian troops in the third week of the invasion that has caused the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull reports from Lviv in western Ukraine. – Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe – Follow […]
Russia says military convoys taking lethal aid into Ukraine are fair targets. The declaration threatens to draw Poland into the conflict since it is the main entry point for weapons. Polish intelligence services say they are looking out for so-called false flag operations that could destabilise the entire region. Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi reports from Przemysl in eastern Poland. – Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe – Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish – Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera – Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/ #UkraineWar #RussiaUkraineWar #Poland
Air raid sirens have rung out across the country – as Russian troops continue their assault. The conflict is now in its seventeenth day, and thousands of Ukrainians are under attack. Russian forces have been accused of killing seven civilians, when an evacuation convoy was hit near Kyiv. Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler reports from Lutsk in northwest Ukraine. – Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe – Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish – Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera – Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/ #UkraineWar #Kyiv #RussiaUkraineWar
Satellite images show Russian tanks breaking away from a long column and moving into positions around Ukraine’s capital Kyiv. Al Jazeera’s @Step Vaessen reports from Kyiv, Ukraine. – Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe – Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish – Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera – Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/ #AlJazeeraEnglish #Russia #RussianArmy #Ukraine
