VLADIMIR PUTIN has allegedly destroyed an entire CITY of 21,000 people in eastern Ukraine, while his troops are accused of shooting down fleeing women and children, killing seven.
The city and administrative centre of Volnovakha has been completely destroyed as a result of Russia’s annihilation, according to its regional governor, as the battle for Ukraine intensifies.
Separatists backed by Russia claimed control of the strategic city, which is roughly the size of Truro in Cornwall, on Friday.
The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said most civilians in Volnovakha had fled, but there was little left of the city.
“In general, Volnovakha with its infrastructure as such no longer exists,” he told reporters today.
Images of Russian soldiers and armoured vehicles in Volnovakha showed them surrounded by burnt-out buildings in the completely destroyed city.
It comes after a defiant Volodymyr Zelensky declared that Russia will only take Kyiv if Vladimir Putin’s troops “raze it to the ground,” as the Ukrainian capital braces for a siege.
As Russian forces close in on the capital, brave Ukrainian soldiers set up tank traps in the streets to repel invaders.
Putin’s troops are closing in on the city, believed to be just 15 miles away, as terrified Ukrainians flee their homes.
Meanwhile, Russia has been accused of killing seven people, including a child, who were attempting to flee the warzone on Saturday.
According to Ukraine’s intelligence service, Russian troops opened fire on a convoy of civilian evacuees from the Kyiv region’s village of Peremoha.
“After the attack, the occupiers forced the remnants of the column to turn back to Peremoha and are not letting them out of the village,” they said in a statement.
“Russians opened fire on a column of women and children attempting to flee the village of Peremoha in the Kyiv region along an agreed-upon ‘green’ corridor.” Seven people were killed, including a child.”
Ukraine later corrected their claim that the evacuees were not in an agreed-upon corridor, with a statement explaining that people had attempted to flee on their own, “so they began evacuating without the ‘green corridor’ agreed upon by the parties.”
Since its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has denied targeting civilians and has blamed Ukraine for repeated blunders in efforts to evacuate people from the worst-affected areas, including the southern port city of Mariupol.
Putin’s airstrikes have trapped thousands of people in besieged cities and forced 2.5 million Ukrainians to flee to neighbouring countries.
Tragically, Zelensky stated earlier on Saturday that the conflict had resulted in the annihilation of some small Ukrainian towns, accusing Putin of waging a “war of annihilation.”
However, the Ukrainian president today warned that the Russians would only be able to take control of Kyiv if they “razed it to the ground,” as he confirmed that around 1,300 of his troops had been killed since the conflict began.
In other news, a Russian rocket destroyed a Ukrainian airbase near a city in Kyiv Oblast today, amid escalating conflict around the capital, with footage showing a ferocious fire at the site.
An ammunition depot was also hit, according to Vasylkiv Mayor Natalia Balasynovych, with footage on social media showing smoke billowing from the scene.
According to Kyiv Oblast police, a fire broke out at the depot after it was hit by six Russian missiles.
Air raid sirens wailed across the capital and other cities this morning, with reports of explosions in the strategic city of Dnipro, as well as Mykolaiv, Nikolaev, and Kropyvnytskyi.
But, despite the fact that the war has been going on for 17 days, Ukrainian forces are still defending the country.
