Ukrainian city - The African Mirror

May

2023

Russian attack on Ukrainian clinic kills two and wounds 30, Kyiv says

A Russian missile hit a clinic in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, killing two people and wounding 30 in an attack that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called a crime against humanity. Video footage showed a devastated building with smoke pouring out of it and rescue workers looking on. Much of the upper floor of what appeared to be a three-storey building had been badly damaged. A covered corpse lay in the road nearby. "Another (Russian) missile attack, another crime against humanity," Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter. He said a psychological clinic and a veterinary clinic had been hit, and added: "Only…

May

2023

By ELIZABETH PIPER

Traitor next door? Fear stalks Kherson after Russian occupation ends

WORLD

VALENTYNA Haras says she isn't a traitor. Nonetheless, her garden walls in the Ukrainian city of Kherson are covered with graffiti marking her out as a Russian collaborator. "Rashist" - a Ukrainian blend of Russian fascist - is scrawled in red paint. Accusatory "Z"s - symbols of support for Moscow's war machine - are daubed liberally. Fear and suspicion stalk the streets of Kherson, a southern port that was occupied by Russian troops for over eight months before they were driven out by Ukrainian forces in November. The city is now the focus of relentless Russian bombardment. Six months on…

May

2023

By FELIX LIGHT, CALEB DAVIS and ANDREW OSBORN

Russian mercenary chief says fighters to leave Ukraine’s Bakhmut to ‘lick wounds’

WORLD

YEVGENY Prigozhin, leader of Russia's Wagner Group mercenary force, said in a dramatic announcement on Friday that his forces would pull out of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut that they have been trying to capture since last summer. Prigozhin said they would withdraw on May 10 - ending their involvement in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war - because of heavy losses and inadequate ammunition supplies. He asked defence chiefs to insert regular army troops in their place. "I declare on behalf of the Wagner fighters, on behalf of the Wagner command, that on May 10, 2023, we…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

Russia close to encircling Ukraine’s Bakhmut after months of fighting

WORLD

LEONARDO BENNASATTO and LISI NIESNER RUSSIAN artillery pounded the last routes out of Bakhmut, aiming to complete the encirclement of the besieged Ukrainian city and bring Moscow closer to its first major victory in half a year after the bloodiest battle of the war. The head of Russia's Wagner private army said the city, which has been blasted to ruins in Russia's more than seven-month onslaught, was almost completely surrounded with only one road still open for Ukraine's troops. Reuters observed intense Russian shelling of routes leading west out of Bakhmut, an apparent attempt to block Ukrainian forces' access in…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

Russians tighten noose on Ukraine’s Bakhmut, Putin warns of Western espionage

WORLD

DAN PELESCHUK RUSSIAN forces pressed forward their weeks-long drive to encircle and capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, where the commander of Ukraine's ground forces described the situation as "extremely tense". Taking Bakhmut, the scene of some of the war's bloodiest battles, would be Russia's first major prize in more than six months and open the way to seizing the last remaining urban centres in the Donetsk region, one of four Moscow claims to have annexed in its "special military operation" in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the FSB security service on Tuesday to bolster security in the four regions…

Jan

2023

By The African Mirror

Scale of alleged torture, detentions by Russian forces in Kherson emerges

WORLD

ANTHONY DEUTSCH, ANNA VOITENKO and OLENA HARMASH OKSANA Minenko, a 44-year-old accountant who lives in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, said she was repeatedly detained and tortured by occupying Russian forces. Her husband, a Ukrainian soldier, died defending Kherson’s Antonivskyi bridge on the first day of full-scale war, she said. During several interrogations in the spring, Russian forces submerged her hands in boiling water, pulled out her fingernails and beat her in the face with rifle butts so badly she needed plastic surgery, according to Minenko. “One pain grew into another,” said Minenko, speaking while at an improvised humanitarian aid…

Nov

2022

By The African Mirror

Russia abandons Ukrainian city of Kherson in major retreat

WORLD

MARK TREVELYAN RUSSIAN Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered his troops to withdraw from the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson and take up defensive lines on the opposite bank of the River Dnipro. The announcement marked one of Russia's most significant retreats and a potential turning point in the war, now nearing the end of its ninth month. In televised comments, General Sergei Surovikin, in overall command of the war, reported to Shoigu that it was no longer possible to keep Kherson city supplied. "Having comprehensively assessed the current situation, it is proposed to take up defence along the left (eastern)…

Jul

2022

By The African Mirror

Multiple Russian strikes kill at least two in Ukrainian city of Sloviansk – officials

WORLD

SIMON LEWIS RUSSIAN forces struck a market and a residential area in the city of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine, killing at least two people and injuring seven, according to officials. A Reuters reporter on the scene saw yellow smoke billowing up from an auto supplies shop at the market, and flames engulfed rows of market stalls as firefighters tried to extinguish the blaze. It was not immediately clear what munitions had been used in the attack on the frontline city in the Donetsk region, or how many people had been at the market when it was hit. "Russians again deliberately…