“As a result of the fire, ammunition was fired at the Moskva missile cruiser. “The ship was severely damaged,” the Russian Defense Ministry was quoted as saying by the state-run TASS news agency, adding that the cause of the fire was being determined and that the crew had been evacuated. A Ukrainian official said earlier that Moskva had been hit by two anti-ship missiles, but gave no evidence. “The Neptune missiles guarding the Black Sea caused very serious damage to the Russian ship,” Maksym Marchenko, governor of Odessa, wrote in the Telegram. Moscow gained notoriety early in the war when it called on Ukrainian border troops defending the strategic Snake Island – a small protrusion into the Black Sea – to surrender, but defiantly refused. Last month, Ukraine said it had destroyed a large Russian landing aid ship, the Orsk, in the smaller Azov Sea northeast of the Black Sea. Moscow did not comment on what happened to the ship. The military failure for Russia comes as Ukraine warns that Moscow is stepping up efforts in the south and east, as it claims to have taken full control of the besieged port of Mariupol. “Rocket bombardment and artillery shelling continue. “New columns of equipment are being introduced,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his overnight speech. More than 1,000 Ukrainian Marines defending the besieged city of Mariupol have surrendered and the port has been seized, Moscow said as the presidents of four countries bordering Russia arrived in Kyiv in support of Ukraine. In one of the most critical battles of the war, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that on Wednesday 1,026 soldiers of the 36th Ukrainian Marine Brigade, including 162 officers, had “voluntarily laid down their arms” near the city’s iron and steel plant. He later said that the “commercial port” of Mariupol was under the full control of Russian forces. There was no independent confirmation of the allegations. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said it had no information about the surrender and the Ukrainian military administration said only that Russian forces were attacking the Azovstal industrial area and the port. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who says his forces play a key role in the battle, has urged the last Ukrainians in Azovstal to surrender. The 26th Marine Brigade had announced on Monday that it was preparing for a final battle in Mariupol. The city, the main target not yet under Russian control in the eastern Donbass region, has been besieged and largely in ruins during the seven-week-long Moscow invasion. The city mayor said 21,000 civilians had lost their lives and more than 100,000 remained there awaiting evacuation. Its occupation would be the first fall of a major Ukrainian city and would help Russia secure a land route between the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in Donbass and Crimea, which Moscow occupied and annexed in 2014. Map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday new US $ 800 million military aid to Ukraine. He said this would include artillery, armored personnel carriers and helicopters. Biden added that “it will contain many of the highly effective weapons systems we have already provided and new capabilities adapted to the wider attack that Russia expects to launch in eastern Ukraine.” The presidents of Poland and the Baltic states headed by train to the Ukrainian capital on Wednesday to show support for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his troops in what Polish Presidential Adviser Jakub Kumoch called “this crucial moment for the country.” ». The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, the Estonian Alar Karis, the Lithuanian Gitanas Nausėda and the Latvian Egils Levits met in the Polish town of Rzeszów near the Ukrainian border. “Heading to Kyiv with a strong message of political support and military assistance,” Nauseda wrote on Twitter from the station. The agenda of the visit of the leaders of four NATO member states – who fear that they could face Russian attacks if Ukraine falls – was not disclosed for security reasons, but local media reported that the heads of state visited Borodyanka, near Kyiv. Nauseda said the city was “imbued with pain and suffering” after “Ukrainian civilians were killed and tortured there and homes and other civilian infrastructure were bombed.” He said: “It is hard to believe that such atrocities could be committed in 21st century Europe, but that is the reality. “This is a war we must win.” Zelensky told Estonian lawmakers on Wednesday, without elaborating, that Russia was using phosphorus bombs in Ukraine. Ukrainian forces in Mariupol said a drone had dropped a poisonous substance on the city, but there was no independent confirmation that Russia had used banned chemical weapons. As Russian troops have largely withdrawn from the Ukrainian capital amid fierce resistance and logistical problems, Western officials and analysts say the invading force is preparing for a major offensive in the east. Military experts say local support, logistics, ground in the area and the appointment by Moscow of a new senior general, Aleksandr Dvornikov, could improve the performance of a force that the British Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday that so far ” was hampered by an inability to come together and coordinate. “ The command of the armed forces of Ukraine stated that the Russian forces were fully prepared for a new attack in the areas of eastern Donetsk and southern Kherson. “In Donetsk and Taurus [Kherson] “directions, according to the available information, the enemy is ready for offensive actions,” the armed forces said in a post on Facebook. He later said in a statement that Russia was trying to mobilize up to 70,000 people in Donetsk. In other developments:
Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the refusal of French President Emanuel Macron to call the assassinations in Ukraine “genocide” and his reference to the Russians as “brotherly” peoples. Senior US officials are considering whether to send a top cabinet official to Kyiv as a high-level representative in solidarity with Ukraine, a source familiar with the situation said on Wednesday. The news was first broadcast by Politico. Fiji police on Thursday investigated the arrival of a luxury yacht owned by a Russian oligarch, interrogating his captain about how he brought the yacht to the Pacific island nation without customs clearance. Fiji newspapers reported that police had seized the Amadea superyacht belonging to Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov – which has been sanctioned by the United States, Britain and the European Union for its Russian invasion of Ukraine – and arrested him. of. Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to the report
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to the report
