New Delhi: As the armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia has been going on for more than a month, the Ukrainian forces have started to reclaim the cities overtaken by Russian forces, the news agency AP reported from Kyiv.
However, the reclaim is not easy amidst the fears of landmines and dead bodies left behind by the Russian forces.
As per an AP report, the Ukrainian forces pulled out bodies of civilians off the streets on Saturday cautiously using cables out of fear that Russian forces might have left booby traps before leaving, or even rigged the bodies to explode.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his nightly video address on Saturday, said that departing Russian troops were creating a “catastrophic situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment, and even the bodies of those killed.”
While the Ukrainian soldiers are cautiously moving the remenants and the bodies, locals told AP that a least six of the bodies moved by them were civilians killed by departing Russian soldiers without provocation.
The Russian forces are retreating from Ukraine while building military strength in eastern Ukraine.
However, despite the visible shift of troops, it is not easier for the people to come back to their homes, especially for more than four million Ukrainians who fled the country.
“It's still not possible to return to normal life, as it used to be, even at the territories that we are taking back after the fighting. We need to wait until our land is demined, wait till we are able to assure you that there won't be new shelling,” Zelensky said during his nightly video address, though his claims about Russian mines couldn't be independently verified.
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross tried to carry out its humanitarian work in Mariupol on Saturday. Mariupol was destroyed by Russian airstrikes in March leaving behind a humanitarian crisis.
The city was attacked and still has nearly 100,000 civilians present in it, down from a population of 430,000. Those left behind are facing a dire shortage of food, water, fuel, and medicine, AP reported.
“Our presence will put a humanitarian marker on this planned movement of people, giving the convoy additional protection and reminding all sides of the civilian, humanitarian nature of the operation,” the Red Cross said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a journalist with the news agency AFP reported that an explosion was heard in the southwestern city of Odessa at around 6 am as per local time on Sunday.
At around 6:00 am local time the blasts sent up at least three columns of black smoke with flames visible in the strategic Black Sea port, AFP reported.
Earlier, President Zelenskyy had said Ukrainian troops retaking areas around Kyiv and Chernihiv are not allowing Russians to retreat without a fight, but are shelling them. They are destroying everyone they can.