Explosions in Russian District as Transnistria Exodus Begins; Lavrov Evokes Hitler

Fighting raged in the east as the war lurches into its tenth week, with the Los Angeles Times reporting that Russia said Sunday it had struck 800 targets overnight and early Sunday with missile and artillery fire, marking an intensified battle tempo. 

Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, arrives for his meeting with U.S. speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, at Kyiv April 30, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP

A weekend of bright photo opportunities in Ukraine — from Angelina Jolie ordering coffee in Lviv to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and fellow House Democrats meeting President Zelensky in Kyiv — has already dimmed as explosions rocked a Russian province and panic took hold in the Moldovan breakaway state of Transnistria. 

The contrast underscores the growing complexities and conflicting realities of war in a country now literally torn between East and West. 

Ms. Pelosi’s brief meeting with Mr. Zelensky was largely symbolic, as President Biden’s request for an additional $33 billion to bolster Ukraine’s fight against Russia came two days prior and bipartisan support for military assistance to Kyiv has been strong. 

No less heartfelt was the surprise weekend visit to Lviv by Ms. Jolie, who is a special envoy to the UN Refugee Agency. The Hollywood siren met with displaced Ukrainians who have sought refuge in the western city near the country’s border with Poland, including children wounded in Russia’s devastating strike on the Kramatorsk railway station last month.

Fighting raged in the east as the war lurches into its tenth week, with the Los Angeles Times reporting that Russia said Sunday it had struck 800 targets overnight and early Sunday with missile and artillery fire, marking an intensified battle tempo along a crescent-shaped front line stretching 300 miles between southeast and northeast. 

On Saturday Russian missile strikes took out a new runway at Odessa’s airport, which Ukrainian authorities said rendered it inoperable. Reuters reported that Russia’s defense ministry said it had destroyed a hangar containing weapons and ammunition supplied to Ukraine by the United States and European countries. It was not clear if this was the same attack. 

Meanwhile in Kharkiv on Sunday the governor, Oleh Sinegubov, implored civilians to shelter in place because of constant Russian shelling. 

Ukraine also was striking back, and not just with the morale boost from some of America’s leading ladies. The governor of Russian’s Belgorod region said via Telegram that he witnessed two explosions overnight. They follow reports of a fire at a Russian defense ministry facility in the same region on Sunday. Last month the Kremlin accused Ukraine of mounting a helicopter attack on a fuel depot in Belgorod, for which Kyiv denied responsibility. 

The latest round of cross-border attacks, which according to another Russian official include a strike on a railway bridge near the border with Ukraine, have neither been confirmed nor denied by Kyiv. 

Russia’s loss of military top brass continues, too. In what London’s Daily Express calls a “disaster” for Vladimir Putin, a 10th Russian general was reportedly killed, this one during fighting near the city of Izyum in the northeastern region of Kharkiv. The newspaper reported that Major General Andrei Simonov was killed after his command post came under artillery fire by Ukrainian forces on Saturday. That bombardment is also said to have taken out more than 30 Russian armored vehicles, including tanks. 

Trouble in Transnistria

Tensions in Transnistria, the Russian-backed separatist region of Moldova that borders Ukraine, are mounting after a series of explosions there last week, the first of which targeted an administrative building at the de facto capital, Tiraspol. 

The Guardian reported that for some residents the attacks, which may have been Russian false-flag operations, signaled it was time to get out. The newspaper reported that people have started to flee to the Moldovan capital, Chișinău, as well as to other countries such as Poland, and that there were long lines of traffic on the Transistrian side of the border.

Some 1,500 Russian troops are stationed in Transnistria and 20,000 tons of ammunition are stored in Cobasna, said to be the largest ammunition depot in eastern Europe. Last week shots were fired near the depot but as with the other attacks, exactly who initiated them was not clear. Neither are the Kremlin’s intentions with respect to Moldova, but fears that the poor European country will be sucked into the war on Ukraine are mounting. 

Over the weekend Russian cyberattacks targeted several state institutions in Moldova. The country’s security information service said that the Russian group Killnet  carried out the attacks, that “it specializes in carrying out denial of service attacks on countries that, in their opinion, support Ukraine,” and that “in recent days the websites of state organizations in Romania have been attacked.” 

Moldova shares a long border with Romania. Reports in Russian media in recent days of Romania moving war materiel to its border with Ukraine are difficult to confirm. When The New York Sun questioned Israel’s ambassador to Bucharest about this possibility, he had no comment.

Lavrov’s Hitler Remarks Condemned

Russia’s cantankerous foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, knows how to stir the pot — but has he been smoking it too? In response to an Italian journalist’s question casting doubt on the Russian claim that it is trying to “denazify” Ukraine even though the country’s democratically elected president is Jewish, Mr. Lavrov replied, “So what if Zelensky is Jewish. The fact does not negate the Nazi elements in Ukraine. I believe that Hitler also had Jewish blood.” He added that “some of the worst anti-Semites are Jews.”

The remarks came in the same week that Israel commemorates the Holocaust, as the Times of Israel reported. The head of Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, Dani Dayan, called Mr. Lavrov’s remarks “false, delusional and dangerous, and worthy of all condemnation.” The comments were also condemned on Monday by the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, and led Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid, to summon Russia’s ambassador to Jerusalem to the Israeli foreign ministry. 

Mr. Zelensky, for his part, responded to a question about the Azov Brigade by likening the Russians to Nazis. “Today the Azov Brigade is part of the National Guard, of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, that is, professional soldiers who are defending Mariupol,” he told the Greek newspaper Kathimerini. “On the contrary, it is the Russians who are behaving like Nazis.”

The question was prompted by a recorded message of an ethnic Greek fighter with the Azov Brigade that accompanied Mr. Zelensky’s own message to the Greek Parliament last month, sparking controversy in Athens. “Trust in the Russian side’s promises and commitments is zero,” Mr. Zelensky also said. “Putin used to say that he would never attack Ukraine … and they have used banned phosphorus bombs in Mariupol, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya and elsewhere.”


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