Ukraine Denies having Bombed Fuel Storage Facility in Russia but Moscow not Amused

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, April 2: Even as Russia and Ukraine resumed peace talks via video on Friday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s studied silence over shelling of a fuel storage facility on the Russian soil, has cast shadow on the success of talks to end the war despite Ukraine denying it was behind the air strike.

Talks to stop the fighting in Ukraine resumed on Saturday, as another desperate attempt to rescue civilians from the encircled city of Mariupol failed and the Kremlin accused the Ukrainians of launching a helicopter attack on a fuel depot on Russian soil. Ukraine denied responsibility for the fiery blast, but if Moscow’s claim is confirmed, it would be the war’s first known attack in which Ukrainian aircraft penetrated Russian airspace.

The Kremlin warned that what it described as a helicopter attack on a fuel depot inside Russia would hamper negotiations. “This is not something that can be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for the continuation of negotiations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

The air strike hit energy giant Rosneft’s fuel storage facility in Belgorod, 40 kilometres inside Russia from the Ukraine border. But Zelensky refused to be drawn whether Ukraine was behind the attack. He told the media, “I’m sorry, I do not discuss any of my orders as commander in chief.” Earlier, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council denied allegations from Moscow that two Ukrainian helicopter gunships had struck the facility in the city of Belgorod north of the border at around dawn Friday.

On the contrary, Zelensky said Russia was consolidating and preparing “powerful strikes” in the east and south, joining Western assessments that Moscow’s troops were regrouping, not withdrawing. He warned his people early Saturday that retreating Russian forces were creating “a complete disaster” outside the capital city of Kyiv as they leave mines across “the whole territory,” including around homes and corpses. He issued the warning as the humanitarian crisis in the encircled city of Mariupol deepened, with Russian forces blocking evacuation operations for the second day in a row.

Ukraine said Russian forces were making a “rapid retreat” from northern areas around the capital Kyiv and the city of Chernigiv as the Red Cross prepared for a fresh evacuation effort from the besieged southern port of Mariupol. Ukraine said Russian forces were concentrating in the east and south, a day after thousands of people from Mariupol and surrounding Russian-held areas escaped in a convoy of buses and private cars. “Russia is prioritising a different tactic: falling back on the east and south,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said on social media. He said that while Russian forces appeared to be pulling back from Kyiv and Chernigiv, their aim was to “control a vast stretch of occupied territory and set up there in a powerful way”.

Podolyak said Russian forces would “dig in there, set up air defence, drastically reduce losses and dictate terms. Moscow’s aim was to “drastically reduce losses & dictate terms”, he said on Twitter on Saturday. “Without heavy weapons we won’t be able to drive (Russia) out.”

Zelensky meanwhile repeated his plea for the West to provide greater military support. “Just give us missiles. Give us airplanes,” he said. “You cannot give us F-18 or F-19 or whatever you have? Give us the old Soviet planes. That’s all… Give me something to defend my country with.” The Pentagon later said it was allotting $300 million in “security assistance” to bolster Ukraine’s defence capabilities, adding to the $1.6 billion Washington has committed since Russia invaded in late February.

The strategic port town of Mariupol has been an important Ukrainian hold-out, suffering weeks of Russian shelling, with at least 5,000 residents killed, local officials said. The estimated 160,000 who remain face shortages of food, water and electricity. “We have managed to rescue 6,266 people, including 3,071 people from Mariupol,” Zelensky said in a video address earlier on Saturday.

Dozens of buses carrying Mariupol residents who had escaped the devastated city arrived Friday in Zaporizhzhia, 200 kilometres to the northwest. The buses carried people who had been able to flee Mariupol to Russian-occupied Berdiansk. “My house was destroyed. I saw it in photos. Our city doesn’t exist anymore,” some of those who escape from Mariupol lamented.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its team headed to Mariupol to try and conduct an evacuation was forced to turn back Friday after “arrangements and conditions made it impossible to proceed.” The ICRC said it would try again on Saturday.

Ukraine also warned that Russian forces who left the Chernobyl nuclear plant — site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, in 1986 — after weeks of occupation may have been exposed to radiation. “Russia behaved irresponsibly in Chernobyl” by digging trenches in contaminated areas and keeping plant personnel from performing their duties, said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s allies warned on Friday that Russia, a major global wheat exporter, could limit supplies of agriculture products to “friendly” countries only, amid Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis. Russian troops left the heavily contaminated Chernobyl nuclear site early Friday after returning control to the Ukrainians, authorities said, as eastern parts of the country braced for renewed attacks and Russians blocked another aid mission to the besieged port city of Mariupol.

The European Union is working on further sanctions on Russia but any additional measures will not affect the energy sector, the EU’s Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said in Cernobbio on Saturday. The 27-nation bloc will be faced with a growth slowdown caused by the war in Ukraine but not a recession, he added, saying the 4% growth forecast was too optimistic and the EU would not reach it.