March 5, Ukraine resists to Russia’s all-out war for 10 days. Here’s what’s key.
Russia intensifies air strikes on civilians, ignores evacuation corridors. The Russian troops continue to target civilians. On March 5, an airstrike on Bila Tserkva, in Kyiv region hit 20 individual houses. Despite the agreements reached to evacuate civilians from Mariupol and Volnovakha in Donetsk region, the Russian troops fired toward the evacuation corridors. The evacuation was postponed.
Russian troops take civilians hostage. In Hostomel, a site of fierce fighting outside Kyiv since the first days of the war, the Russian troops took hostage at least 40 civilians. Connection with them was lost, military correspondent Andriy Tsaplienko said in Telegram.
The Russian troops seized Pokrovske apartment complex. “Yesterday (March 4) they entered the building and put guard outside. Starting this morning, connection is lost with the 40 people that were hiding in the basement. One of the phone calls was answered by unknown people,” Tsaplienko said.
Relatives could not reach them on the phone on March 4. In the basement, they had an electric generator and food.
Terrorism, Russia’s new tactics. Commenting to Novoe Vremya on Russia’s airstrikes on the critical infrastructure, Mykola Sunhurovskyi, director of military programs at the Razumkov Center said: “Vladimir Putin is a terrorist. His tactics is to spread panic with massive losses and force the Ukrainian government to make concessions, to capitulate.”
Kherson, role model for civic bravery. On March 5, thousands rallied on Kherson’s Svobody square demanding that the Russian troops leave the city in Ukraine’s South. “Kherson is Ukraine!” people chanted. Video.
Ukraine’s air operations successful, Austrian analyst. Austrian military analyst Tom Cooper underscored recent successful air operations of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
“It looks like it’s raining in Ukraine today,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “A Mi-24s was shot down, then a Su-30SM, a Su-34, another Su-34, a Mi-28, a Mi-35 and two Mi-8s – most of these in the Bashtanka region of the Mykolaiv Oblast.”
“CASE 1. Su-34, ‘Red 24’, shot down over Chernihiv. One crewmember was certain Major Krasnoruchev. Is not going to ring any bells to most of you. It does ring an alarm bell for me – because he was so proudly standing next to Assad (and Putin) for photographers, back in 2016.”
“Now pay attention: the jet he flew was repeatedly photographed while wearing the insignia of the Akhtubinsk State Flight Test Centre (also known as Valery Chkalov 929 GLIT). And it was hit while flying quite high: about 1,000m at least. Means, this was neither a ‘lucky’, nor ‘easy’ kill: this character is the ‘elite’ of the VKS,” the analyst said.