Russia’s top diplomat has admitted the Kremlin’s overarching goal in Ukraine was to oust President Volodymyr Zelensky – as Vladimir Putin’s forces continued to pound the neighboring country with artillery barrages and airstrikes.
Ukraine’s presidential office said on Monday that at least two civilians had been killed and 10 injured in Russian shelling in the past 24 hours.
In the disputed region of eastern Donetsk – the center of the Russian offensive – Russian artillery hit the towns of Avdiivka, Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka. An airstrike on Bakhmut damaged at least five houses.
“The Russians are using scorched earth tactics all over Donbass. They fire from the ground and from the air to wipe out entire towns,” Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in televised remarks.
Another airstrike damaged a residential building in Mykolaiv near the Black Sea, leaving several people trapped under rubble and others injured, including a 16-year-old boy, according to a local official.
The Russians also hit the Kharkiv region. In the town of Chuhuiv, an airstrike destroyed a local club and rescuers pulled several people from under the rubble.
Kharkiv Governor Oleh Sinyehubov denounced the attack as “senseless barbarism”, saying: “It looks like a deadly lottery when no one knows where the next strike will come from. »
As Russian forces continued to strike Ukrainian cities, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with fellow diplomats in Cairo and openly pleaded for the removal of the democratically elected Ukrainian leader.
Speaking at an Arab League summit on Sunday, Putin’s lackey said Moscow was determined to help Ukrainians “free themselves from the burden of this absolutely unacceptable regime”.
Lavrov accused Zelensky’s government and its Western allies of spearheading propaganda aimed at making Ukraine “become Russia’s eternal enemy”.
“Russians and Ukrainians would continue to live together. We will certainly help the Ukrainian people to get rid of the regime, which is absolutely anti-people and anti-historic,” he said.
Lavrov’s remarks were a U-turn from the Kremlin line at the start of the war, when he repeatedly stressed that Russia was not seeking to overthrow Zelensky’s government, even as troops in Moscow closer to Kyiv.
Russia then withdrew from the capital and focused on capturing Ukraine’s industrial Donbass region to the east. The fighting is now in its sixth month.
Lavrov argued that Russia was ready to broker a deal to end hostilities in March when Kyiv changed tack and declared its intention to rout Russia on the battlefield. He said the West encouraged Ukraine to keep fighting.
“The West insists that Ukraine should not start negotiations until Russia is defeated on the battlefield,” Lavrov said.
With post wires