Russian forces take control of Melitopol's television & radio broadcasting towers

Amid heavy shelling in several parts of Ukraine, Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov announced that the Russian troops have taken control of Television and radio towers on Monday. According to a report by the National News Agency of Ukraine or Ukrinform, the announcement from Fedorov came on Facebook where he confirmed about Putin's forces taking control of the city's most popular TV tower and radio towers. "The city TV tower, same as radio towers, are controlled by the occupiers, those who are controlling the perimeter of the city today, armed Russian troops," Ukrinform translates as Fedorov was saying during a Facebook live on Monday.

Further, he clarified that neither the city authority nor any other government agencies will be responsible for any announcement or any content broadcasted on both TV and Radio. "Neither city authorities nor other government authorities can monitor the content," he added. Meanwhile, the Belarusian media outlet, Nexta claimed that the Russian forces have destroyed at least 90 residential buildings. It also claimed that the city's cell phone transmitters are now controlled by Moscow. This comes nearly two days after Russia's forces had captured Mariupol, the tenth-largest city in Ukraine and the second-largest in Donetsk Oblast with a population of 4,31,859. Since then, the city has been cut off from all basic necessities. According to Mariupol city mayor, Vadym Boychenko, the residents are now left out without food and water.

In a televised address, he narrated the horrific situation of the city wherein he said that the area of more than 400,000 residents has now been left out without electricity, water, food, medicine and other basic necessities. He appealed to the European Union, the West and international communities for military assistance in order to create a humanitarian corridor for the safe evacuation of more than 4 lakh residents. Boychenko said that the Russian shellings are now targetting hospitals and added that he did not see any signs of stabilisation in the near future. "The city lost heating, water, and electricity after five days of non-stop missile attacks by Russian troops. People are running out of food and medicine. About 300 wounded are in hospitals, which are also under attack. We don’t see any signs of stabilisation in the city," Kyiv Independent quoted Mayor Boychenko as saying.

A little progress had been made on the matter of safe corridors, says Zelenskyy's advisor

Amid this grim situation, Moscow allowed limited cease-fire and the establishment of safe corridors in order to let civilians flee some besieged Ukrainian cities. However, the news agency Associated Press citing Ukrainian officials reported that the evacuation routes were mostly led to Russia and its ally Belarus, drawing withering criticism from Ukraine and others. Notably, the two sides held the third round of talks on Monday, with an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reporting that a little progress had been made on the matter of safe corridors. Mykhailo Podolyay said without elaboration that “there were some small positive shifts regarding logistics of humanitarian corridors.” 

Image: AP