Zaporizhia (Ukraine) (AFP) - Ukraine hopes to resume evacuating civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol on Tuesday, while British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will go to the Ukrainian parliament by videoconference, the first such move by a Western official since the war began.

Evacuations are supposed to resume on Tuesday morning, with the support of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, in the destroyed city of Mariupol, which is now occupied by the Russians, according to the municipal council of this strategic coastal city located in the southeast of the country. Last weekend witnessed for the first time since A siege was imposed on the city two months ago and the incessant bombing operations, the evacuation of about a hundred civilians who were refugees in the underground floors of the Azovstal steel complex, which is the last pocket of resistance in the strategic city located in the south of Donbass.

But Monday, in Zaporizhia, 200km northwest of Mariupol, a car park converted into a refugee reception site where two armored four-wheel drive vehicles belonging to UNICEF and international NGOs parked did not catch a convoy from Mariupol.

And in the evening, the Azov battalion, participating in the defense of the steel plant, explained, "After a partial evacuation of civilians from the territory of Azovstal, the enemy continues to bomb the factory, including buildings in which civilians are hiding." The city, where AFP headed Friday as part of an organized visit from the Russian army, does not appear to be a confrontation except for the distant sound of explosions emanating regularly from Azovstal. Destroyed. In southwestern Ukraine, coastal Odessa was once again the target of Russian missiles.

On Monday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned a Russian strike that killed a teenager and injured a girl at ten o'clock. "For what? What did these children threaten... the Russian state?" Zelenci asked.

The Ukrainians fear that the city will become one of Russia's targets, especially after the assurances of a Russian general that the Kremlin attack in Ukraine aims to establish a corridor from Russia to the separatist Moldavian region of Transdniestria, passing through Odessa. Western allies are increasing their pressure on Moscow and their support for Kiev, with a speech by the British Prime Minister via video. In front of the Ukrainian Parliament, in the first such gesture by a Western official since the start of the Russian invasion. Your glory."

He will add, "When my country was threatened with invasion during the Second World War, our Parliament, like yours, continued to sit during the conflict, and the British people showed such great unity and determination that we remember our period of great peril as our hour of glory."

According to the statement, the Prime Minister will announce in his speech a new military aid package for Kiev worth 300 million pounds (357 million euros), which includes especially defensive military equipment. So far, Britain has provided Ukraine with 5,000 anti-tank missiles and five air defense missile systems with more than From 100 missiles and 4.5 tons of explosives. The Europeans, for their part, are working to tighten economic sanctions against Moscow. On Tuesday, the European Commission will propose a sixth package of sanctions, which will include a timetable for a gradual cessation of Russian oil imports, which constitute 30% of the European Union's imports in this regard. Immediate effect, especially the imposition of fees on transport by oil tankers, according to a European official.

The new sanctions will also include "the banking sector with the exit of other Russian banks from the SWIFT system," according to what European Union Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said in Panama on Monday. Speculation about how Moscow will present the gains it has made in Ukraine.

And the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense believed on Monday that Moscow might take advantage of these celebrations to raise the issue of annexing separatist "republican" loyal to it in the Donbass to the Russian Federation. Moscow had recognized the independence of these regions prior to its invasion of Ukraine. In Washington, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Michael Carpenter, referred to "very reliable" information that Russia intends to organize referendums "around mid-May" in an "attempt to annex" Donetsk and Lugansk in Donbass region in eastern Ukraine.

The governor of Luhansk said that he expected an "intensification of bombing operations" with the approach of May 9. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied that Russia was preparing a special military move on this anniversary, in an interview with the Italian "Mediaset" broadcast on Sunday. A sensation caused by Lavrov's remarks, which said that "Jewish blood was flowing through Hitler," which sparked diplomatic tensions with Israel.

On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid denounced his Russian counterpart's statements and summoned the Russian ambassador to obtain "clarifications".

On the ground in the Donbass region, the Russian forces continued their offensive with fierce battles in the vicinity of Izyum, Liman and Robzhny, which the Russians are trying to "control in preparation for their attack on Severodonetsk," one of the major cities in Donbass that is still under the control of Kiev, according to what the Ukrainian General Staff confirmed. maf/gt/gdMEDIASET SPA