The offensive on the Ukrainian capital enters its sixth day with signs that Putin is preparing a strong attack on Kiev. Satellite images recorded on Monday (28) show a 64 km long Russian military convoy heading towards the city from the north.
The images are from the American aerospace technology company Maxar, which had recorded earlier on Monday that the convoy was 27 km long.
According to the company, the caravan has hundreds of armed vehicles, tanks, towed artillery and logistical support vehicles.
In addition, Maxar says it has identified other troops and attack helicopters stationed in southern Belarus, just 32 km from the Ukrainian border.
Although delegations from Russia and Ukraine met on Monday in Gomel, Belarus, to negotiate, the group did not reach an agreement. Meanwhile, reports of brutal actions in cities like Kiev and Kharkiv, the country’s second largest, continued to pile up.
Explosions in various parts of the country continued into the early hours of Monday after five full days of conflict. Kiev remains under pressure from Russian bombings and incursions that began in the northwest, at the Antonov airport in Hostomel (25 km from the city), and also in the northeast, after Putin’s forces took control of the Chernobyl plant, 110 km from the capital.
From there, the siege of Kiev was consolidated, and the periphery of the capital began to see the movement of Russian troops in a reconnaissance movement for the following days of combat, increasingly closer to the center. The resistance of Ukrainian forces has managed to at least slow down Russian troops.
The center is also home to the Mariinsky Palace, seat of the government of Volodymyr Zelensky, who asked the population to resist, even with Molotov cocktails. On Friday night (25), he published a video in which he said that the Russians would try to take Kiev the following morning.
“We cannot lose the capital. I speak to our defenders, men and women on all fronts: tonight, the enemy will use all its forces to breach our defenses in the most vile, harsh and inhumane way,” he said.
As Russian troops approached, residents of Kiev began digging trenches to delay the invaders’ advance.
In Kharkiv, at least 11 people died on Monday during bombings, according to Oleh Sinehubov, head of the Regional State Administration. He, however, recognizes that the deaths can reach dozens. As of Sunday (27), there were 352 civilian casualties across the country, including 14 children, according to the Interior Ministry.
Also according to Sinehubov, the attacks are hitting residential areas of the city, where there are no Ukrainian army positions or strategic infrastructure. “This is happening in broad daylight, when people go to the pharmacy, to shop or drink water. It’s a crime,” he said.
Human rights groups such as the NGOs Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International point out that Russia is using cluster bombs in the attacks. This type of ammunition releases smaller projectiles in the act of explosion, amplifying the area of ​​damage and, consequently, the risk of death and injury.
In addition, some of these projectiles can act as small bombs that, if not detonated immediately, become, in practice, a kind of land mine —thus extending the time of exposure to risks in the affected areas.
This Monday, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said he will seek approval from the ministry to proceed with the investigation into alleged war crimes in Ukraine. The process, he said, should cover a period that begins with the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.
