Ukrainian leaders fear repeat of Mariupol horrors in Donbas region
Separatists backed by Russia have pounded the eastern area.
Separatists backed by Russia have pounded the eastern area.
Leonid Vasyukevich made the comments at a meeting of the Primorsk regional Legislative Assembly.
Russia has claimed full control of the Azovstal steel plant in the city.
The Azovstal steel plant became a symbol of Ukrainian tenacity and its fall delivers Russian President Vladimir Putin a badly wanted victory.
President Vladimir Putin was told by ministers that the Azovstal steelworks have been ‘completely liberated’.
It comes as the battle for the steel plant in Mariupol is winding down.
It comes as a US Senate delegation led by Republican leader Mitch McConnell met with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine’s capital.
Sgt Vadim Shyshimarin, 21, is accused of shooting a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the head in the north-east village of Chupakhivka.
Sweden is expected to follow suit within days amid fears triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Finland’s president and prime minister said on Thursday that the Nordic country should apply ‘without delay’ for membership in the Western alliance.
He lost the 1994 presidential election to former prime minister Leonid Kuchma.
The national holiday marks Russia’s greatest triumph, over Nazi Germany in 1945.
The mood in Russia this year is very different, because Russian troops are fighting and dying again.
Moscow was aiming to complete its conquest of Mariupol in time for Victory Day celebrations on Monday.
Some 2,000 Ukrainian fighters, by Russia’s most recent estimate, are holed up in a vast maze of tunnels and bunkers beneath the Azovstal steelworks.