Russian forces seize Chernobyl workers’ settlement; violence erupts in Mariupol’s centre

The governor of Kyiv area stated on Saturday that the Russian soldiers had gained control of a town populated by workers from the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power facility, and fighting was reported in the streets of the beleaguered southern port of Mariupol.

Russia has failed to conquer any major Ukrainian city after more than four weeks of conflict, and Moscow signalled on Friday that it was scaling back its military goals to focus on land seized by Russian-backed separatists in the east.

However, heavy combat was reported in a number of locations on Saturday, implying that the crisis, which has killed thousands of people, pushed 3.7 million people abroad, and driven more than half of Ukraine’s children from their homes, may not end soon.

According to the governor of Kyiv area, Oleksandr Pavlyuk, Russian troops took the town of Slavutych, which is close to the border with Belarus and is home to Chernobyl plant workers.

He went on to say that the army had taken over the hospital and kidnapped the mayor.

Slavutych is located just outside the so-called exclusion zone around Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, and where Ukrainian workers have continued to operate even after the plant was captured by Russian soldiers shortly after the commencement of the February 24 invasion.

On the other side of the nation, Mayor Vadym Boichenko of Mariupol said that the situation in the besieged city remained serious, with street fighting in the centre.

The city has been ravaged by Russian fire for several weeks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy compared the destruction of Mariupol to the carnage inflicted on the Syrian city of Aleppo by joint Syrian and Russian forces during the civil war in his address to Qatar’s Doha Forum on Saturday.

‘They are ruining our ports,’ Zelenskiy said. Zelenskiy added that there would be severe consequences if his country, one of the world’s top grain producers, was unable to export its products. ‘The loss of Ukrainian exports will be a blow to countries all over the world,’ he stated.