I’Russian army said Tuesday, April 5 to have shot down two Ukrainian helicopters seeking to evacuate leaders of a nationalist battalion defending the besieged port of Mariupol, while calling once again on these defenders to lay down their arms.
“This morning, April 5, around Mariupol, a new attempt by the kyiv regime to evacuate leaders of the nationalist Azov battalion was aborted. Two Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters, trying to reach the city from the sea, were shot down by man-portable anti-aircraft systems,” Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said. The latter assured that Moscow had proposed Tuesday morning to the Ukrainian fighters to lay down their arms and leave the city “via an agreed route” towards the territory under kyiv control.
According to him, the Ukrainian army, however, “ignored” this proposal. “Since kyiv is not interested in the possibility of saving the lives of its military, Mariupol will be freed from the nationalists,” added Igor Konashenkov. Last week, he had already assured that the Russian army had shot down over the Sea of Azov a Ukrainian helicopter that had come to evacuate commanders of the Azov battalion, which has been fiercely defending Mariupol for weeks.
Washington announces an additional $100 million in security aid to Ukraine
On Tuesday, the United States announced on Tuesday that it would release additional security aid to Ukraine of up to $100 million to deal with the Russian invasion. This is “to meet an urgent Ukrainian need for additional Javelin anti-tank systems, which the United States has provided to Ukraine and which it has so effectively used to defend our country”, said in a press release the holder. – Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby.
“The world was shocked and horrified by the atrocities committed by Russian forces in Bucha and across Ukraine,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a separate statement, referring to the Ukrainian town where discovered dozens of corpses after the withdrawal of Russian troops. “The United States, alongside our allies and partners, strongly supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he added.
The head of American diplomacy said that this additional assistance brought to 1.7 billion dollars the American security aid allocated to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24.
Zelensky calls on the UN to act “immediately” against Russia
Earlier in the day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday urged the UN to act “immediately” against Russia in view of its “war crimes” committed according to him in Ukraine, calling in particular for its exclusion from the Security Council, while that Moscow rejects any accusation of abuses. After the shock wave caused by the discovery last weekend of numerous corpses in Boutcha, near kyiv, where Ukraine accuses the Russians of massacres, the European Union and Washington have intensified their economic and diplomatic pressure against the Russia in the hope of making him let go.
“Now we need Security Council decisions for peace in Ukraine,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a solemn speech by video broadcast live in the hall of the institution in New York. He asked the UN to hold Russia “responsible” for its “war crimes” perpetrated according to him in Ukraine since its invasion on February 24.
For this, he added, Russia must be excluded from the Security Council, of which it is one of the five permanent members with the right of veto, or the UN system must be reformed so that “the right of veto does not does not mean the right to kill”. The Ukrainian president then had a video broadcast before the Security Council showing very raw images of people killed in Ukraine.
