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Russia-Ukraine conflict: Russian airstrikes destroy Vinnytsia airport

Zelensky confirmed eight rockets had destroyed the Central Ukrainian facility

As the Russia-Ukraine crisis entered its eleventh day, eight rockets launched by Russia destroyed Vinnytsia airport located in Central Ukraine, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday.

Zelensky called on the Western nations and said, “The world has the power to close our skies for Russian rockets and aircraft.” He adds that Ukraine requires aircraft to make Ukrainian skies safe.

Zelensky has warned that Russia is preparing to bomb Odessa, a strategically important port city on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.

“Russian people always used to come to Odessa and they only knew warmth and generosity and what’s now? Artillery, bombs against Odessa. This will be a war crime. This will be historic crime”, Zelensky said in a broadcast address on Facebook.

Switching from speaking Ukrainian to Russian, Zelensky appealed to the Russian people to make a choice “between life and slavery.”

Furthermore, the evacuation of civilians with the help of the humanitarian corridor also seems to be hanging in balance. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that the second attempt to evacuate 200,000 civilians stranded in Mariupol in Ukraine has failed and added that the parties involved in the ceasefire agreement need to agree not just in principle but also on the details of safe passages.

“People are living in terror in Mariupol, desperate for safety. Today’s attempt to start evacuating an estimated 200,000 people has failed. The failed attempts underscore the absence of a detailed and functioning agreement between parties to the conflict,” ICRC said in a tweet.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also acknowledged that the US has “very credible” reports of war crimes in Ukraine adding that the US along with its EU allies is looking into the possibility of banning Russian oil imports and putting pressure on Russia.

Blinken, in an interview with CNN, said, “We’ve seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians, which would constitute a war crime. We’ve seen very credible reports about the use of certain weapons.”

The United States is in talks with Poland on a deal to provide fighter jets to Ukraine, a White House spokesperson confirmed.

The spokesperson also said that they are figuring out the logistics as to how the aircraft would be transferred from Poland to Ukraine. US is determining what “capabilities we could provide to backfill Poland if it decided to transfer planes to Ukraine,” added the spokesperson, reported CNN News.

On the other hand Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a phone conversation with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Russia’s military operation in Ukraine can be suspended only if Kyiv ceases military actions and fulfills Moscow’s demands.

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Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron over the phone that he was not against a trilateral meeting among Russia, Ukraine and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a third country or via teleconference, but not in Chernobyl in Ukraine, the Kremlin said.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Germany, where both sides discussed several issues, including the situation between Ukraine and Russia.

Bennett first arrived in Moscow on Saturday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. After a stop in Moscow, he concluded his visit to Germany and headed back to Israel in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Pope Francis appreciated the journalists covering the Russia-Ukraine conflict while putting their lives at risk to provide information and called for the cessation of armed attacks.