Kyiv, Ukraine: The presidents of four countries on Russia’s doorstep visited Ukraine on Wednesday in a show of support for the embattled country, after Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to continue his bloody offensive until its “full completion.’’
The presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — all NATO countries that worry they may face Russian attack in the future if Ukraine falls — travelled by train to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
In one of the most crucial battles of the war, Russia said more than 1,000 Ukrainian troops had surrendered in the besieged port of Mariupol, where Ukrainian forces have been holding out in pockets of the city. The information could not be verified.
The European leaders visiting Ukraine planned to deliver “a strong message of political support and military assistance,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said.
Nauseda, Estonian President Alar Karis, Poland’s Andrzej Duda and Egils Levits of Latvia also planned to discuss investigations into alleged Russian war crimes, including the massacre of civilians. Nauseda said the leaders had visited Borodyanka, one of the towns near Kyiv where evidence of atrocities has been found.
“This is where the dark side of humankind has shown its face,” he wrote on Twitter. “Brutal war crimes committed by the Russian army will not stay unpunished.’’
According to the BBC, Aiden Aslin, a British man fighting in the Ukrainian military in Mariupol, called his mother and a friend to say he and his comrades were out of food, ammunition and other supplies and would surrender.
Residents in Yahidne, a village near the northern city of Chernihiv, said Russian troops forced them to stay for almost a month in the basement of a school, only allowing them outside to go to the toilet, cook on open fires _ and bury those who died in a mass grave.
In one of the rooms, the residents wrote the names of those who perished during the ordeal. The list counted 18 people.
“An old man died near me and then his wife died next,’’ said resident Valentyna Saroyan. “Then a man died who was lying there, then a woman sitting next to me. ... She died as well. Another old man looked so healthy, he was doing exercises, but then he was sitting and fell. That was it.’’
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials detained fugitive Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, who is both the former leader of a pro-Russian opposition party and a close associate of Putin. Medvedchuk was under house arrest before the war began and disappeared shortly after hostilities broke out.
