Women, children, elderly exit besieged Ukrainian steel plant

Kyiv residents can return to their city more safely after Monday, the mayor said, amid concerns that the Ukrainian capital will be a target during Russia’s Victory Day celebrations.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko was asked in a radio interview whether Kyiv residents should leave the city Sunday and Monday, when some have speculated that Moscow could unleash renewed attacks or order a general mobilization of soldiers.

He said he did not recommend that Kyiv residents outside the city return, saying Russia’s goal is to capture the capital. Klitschko said that although nothing is guaranteed, it is probably safer to return after Monday’s Victory Day.

About 2.2 million of the city’s prewar 3.5 million residents are left in the city, he said.

Some returned after Russian forces pulled out of the capital region after a failed attempt to capture it. Since then, Kyiv has lurched back to life.

VOLODYMYRIVKA, Ukraine — As Russian forces advance, the towns and villages they are fighting for in eastern Ukraine are emptying out, with mainly the elderly left behind. Volunteers are launching scores of daily rescue operations, often into the heart of the fighting, to save them.

Unlike younger residents, people with mobility problems are unable to scramble into basements when artillery shells or missiles land nearby. In tall buildings, the most frail have sometimes stayed in the same chairs, unable to move, watching through bombed-out windows as blasts shake the earth. In remote villages such as Volodymyrivka, the elderly have sometimes spent weeks begging for help, even leaving their front doors wide open in the hope that someone will notice.

Volunteers say that finding them can be hard, and that they often hear of new evacuation targets indirectly, through word of mouth.

Sasha, one of the volunteers, said he has sometimes driven hours through a remote area, only to find the location inaccessible. “We have to tell ourselves that those aren’t failed missions,” said Sasha, who asked that his last name not be used because of security concerns. “Even driving into an area gives people hope that we can still reach them.”

Russian forces bombed a school in Luhansk, trapping dozens of people in the rubble and killing at least two people, Ukrainian officials said Saturday.

About 90 people in the eastern Ukrainian village of Bilohorivka were hiding in the school’s basement when Russian forces attacked, Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region, shared on his Telegram channel, along with photos of the smoldering ruins of a red-brick building. Rescue efforts are ongoing, the country’s emergency services said. Two bodies were uncovered, and two people were saved from the wreckage.

Earlier in the day, Haidai said that about 30 people were rescued from the rubble.

The Washington Post could not verify the accuracy of the assertions.

U.S. officials say Russia aims to establish control over the Luhansk region and neighboring Donetsk.

Here are major developments from across the country:

Odessa: Russian forces used cruise missiles to strike a civilian target in this port city Saturday, Ukraine’s military said. It reported no casualties. The region will be under a curfew from Sunday evening until Tuesday morning because of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations, Ukrainian Col. Maksym Mikhailovich Marchenko said in a video message. Ukrainian officials have raised concerns that Russian President Vladimir Putin will use the occasion to declare a formal war with Ukraine.

Mariupol: All women, children and elderly people have been evacuated from Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Saturday. A regional police official told The Post that three Ukrainian troops were killed during the civilian evacuation. Ukrainian fighters holed up at the plant are clinging to hopes of a diplomatic deal that would allow a peaceful evacuation of their wounded, medics and military after weeks of bombardment. Russia has essentially leveled Mariupol and taken over the city center.

Luhansk: Russian forces bombed a school in Luhansk, possibly trapping dozens of people in the rubble, the region’s governor, Serhiy Haidai, said Saturday. In a separate attack Saturday, two boys, 11 and 14, were found dead in a yard after shelling by Russian forces struck a residential area of Pryvillya, Haidai said. A woman and two girls were seriously injured after shrapnel flew into homes, he said, warning that there may be more victims.

Kharkiv: Ukraine accused Russian forces Saturday of blowing up three bridges northeast of Kharkiv to thwart counterattacks; The Post could not independently verify the assertion. Ukrainian forces have been retaking territory in the area, regaining control of the town of Tsyrkuny, about 12 miles northeast of Kharkiv, a military spokesman said Saturday. A Russian missile destroyed a museum in the area, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday, the latest blow to Ukraine’s cultural heritage sites.

A national museum dedicated to an 18th-century philosopher revered by Ukrainians was destroyed in a Russian strike late Friday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address.

The attack on the Hryhorii Skovoroda museum near Kharkiv, the latest blow to Ukraine’s cultural heritage sites, is “beyond words,” Zelensky said.

“A missile. To destroy the museum. Museum of the philosopher and poet who lived in the 18th century. Who taught people what a true Christian attitude to life is and how a person can get to know himself. Well, it seems that this is a terrible danger for modern Russia — museums, the Christian attitude to life and people’s self-knowledge,” Zelensky said.

The shells hit the roof, wounding a 35-year-old man who was a caretaker for the site, the region’s governor, Oleh Synyehubov, said in a Telegram post on Saturday. The strike destroyed the building, but most of the museum’s valuable objects had been moved to a safe place.

Photos from news services showed the building’s bombed-out interior surrounding a Skovoroda statue.

This year marked 300 years since the birth of the philosopher. Skovoroda spent his last years in the building that became the museum, and he is buried there.

Zelensky said the Russian army has destroyed or damaged nearly 200 cultural heritage sites.

KHARKIV, Ukraine — Down in the cold, dark basement, the walls are decorated with Eastern Orthodox icons, a poster of Princess Diana and shelves filled with stuffed toys. Sheets with animal print serve as improvised doors for more privacy. Beds are thin pads on wooden crates. Pots, pans, a color-changing lamp and an air fryer were eventually brought in as the stay grew from days to weeks to more than two months. Outside, a woman filled a tire with mud — a little garden for her onions.

The personal touches have made this place feel like home — even as the actual homes of the 50 people who spend their nights down here are just a few blocks away. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, the Saltivka neighborhood has been heavily bombarded every day of this war with Russia. So life for those who chose to stay has moved underground, to the only safe place.

A Ukrainian commander surrounded by Russian forces in the last holdout in the southern port city of Mariupol said he is waiting for a miracle after citizens were evacuated.

Maj. Serhiy Volyna of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade, whose forces are trapped at the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works and subjected to constant shelling, described the scene in a Facebook post on Saturday as “some hellish reality show.” The last stronghold for Ukrainian forces in Mariupol has become a symbol of resistance and a focal point for the world watching the Russian invasion advance.

“The only difference is that this is not a movie, and we are not fictional characters!” Volyna wrote. “This is real life! Pain, suffering, hunger, torment, tears, fear, death — all real!”

In the post, Volyna pleads for aid, an appeal after the last of the hundreds of citizens, including children, women and the elderly, were evacuated from the plant and Russian fire on the Ukrainian forces continues.

“We ask everyone to make the maximum effort to evacuate the military,” Volyna said.

Nigeria’s airline operators association is suspending all domestic flights as of Monday, citing an untenable surge in fuel prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Nigerian state radio reported Saturday.

Africa’s largest economy has already been beset by major domestic flight disruptions and cancellations since March. Nigerian airliners say this is because of jet fuel scarcities triggered by spiking crude oil prices following Russia’s war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.

In recent weeks, the price per liter of jet fuel in Nigeria has risen from 190 naira ($0.46) to 700 naira ($1.69), according state-run Radio Nigeria.

While jet fuel makes up about 40 percent of operating costs for airlines worldwide, that rate has risen to about 95 percent in Nigeria, Alhaji Abdulmunaf Yunusa, president of the Airline Operators of Nigeria, told Radio Nigeria.

The average operating cost for one airline seat was now 120,000 naira ($289), Yunusa said, a sharp rise from 70,000 naira ($169) several months ago.

At this rate, the Airline Operators of Nigeria told the federal government Saturday, the group’s members could no longer afford to absorb and subsidize the skyrocketing costs of flights. The organization represents Nigeria’s nine domestic carriers.

Nigerian passengers pay for domestic flights in naira, the local currency, which has fallen sharply as a result of devaluations in recent years. Even though Nigeria is a major oil exporter, it imports its jet fuel and pays for it in U.S. dollars, which are increasingly hard to come by because of the currency crunch.

In March, the airline operators told a parliamentary hearing that they were close to shutting down domestic flights if the government did not take urgent action to reduce the price of aviation fuel.