Board Game Arena

More Images (from the above article)

Russia shells cancer clinic in southern city, says official
BBC Monitoring - The world through its media

Russian troops shelled a regional oncology hospital in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv, the head of the city's Regional Health Authority, Maksym Beznosenko, has said on Facebook.

"Only a creep can attack the weak. Those weak are our patients. Just now, these monsters shelled the oncology hospital. A hospital that provides care to cancer patients from all over Mykolayiv Region," he said in an 11 March post.

Hiding artefacts from bombs in Lviv
BBC

"It is sad for me to be in these empty rooms," said Ihor Kozhan, the director of the museum

We've been hearing about the measures Ukrainian cities have been taking to defend their territory and their people from Russian bombardment.

But in Lviv, in Western Ukraine, there are also considerations around the treasures in its Unesco heritage-listed city centre.

In one room of the National Museum of Lviv, an enormous scaffold is bare. In another, brackets hang loosely from the walls.

As Russian shelling has devastated other parts of Ukraine, the picturesque western city of Lviv has been left untouched, so far. But it is bracing for war.

In Lviv's galleries, museums and churches, a huge operation is under way to safeguard the city's cultural heritage. Thousands of artworks and artefacts have been carefully removed and taken to secret underground locations, or down to basement storage rooms.

Ihor Kozhan, the director of the National Museum of Lviv - the largest art museum in Ukraine - took the BBC on a tour of its now empty rooms, which looked as though they had been looted.

Nearly every one of the 1,500 artefacts on display has now been removed from the museum.

"Everything, everything is gone," Kozhan said.

Fighting near Kyiv leaves a blackened wasteland

Lyse Doucet - BBC f International Correspondent, Kyiv

The pace of the war in the capital, Kyiv, is measured in miles these last 17 days.

We’ve just head from the Ministry of Defence in the UK saying that it believes the bulk of the Russian forces are now as close as 15 miles from the centre of Kyiv.

But even as we get these reports of the Russians advancing, from the north-west, from the north-east, they’re coming under Ukrainian fire - using infantry using anti-tank weapons supplied by the West, using drones.

As always for defenders, they are reliant and benefitting from intelligence from a very patriotic local population.

But we also hear that the Russians are stymied by their own problems – logistical difficulties, shortages of supplies.

We should point out that while the bulk of the forces is only 15 miles away, some are even closer.

We’ve been reporting about what’s been happening in the town of Brovary, eight miles from the centre of Kyiv.

Brovary is Ukrainian for “breweries”. It used to be famous for special beers and its pretty parks. Now it’s famous for images of the Ukrainian military using heavy artillery to repel a Russian armoured column.

That is the scene all around the capital, particularly the north-west and north-east - intense fighting over the control of the small towns, the gateways to the city.

And what do they leave in their wake? Large swathes of neighbourhoods are blackened wastelands.

Scenes of destruction in town after town

Lyse Doucet- BBC Chief International Correspondent, Kyiv

Around Ukraine, in all corners of this country, Ukrainians are being wakened, before first light, by air-raid sirens.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is now calling it a war of annihilation. And when you see the images from one town and city after another it doesn’t seem much of an exaggeration.

This morning we hear of Mykolaiv, in the south-west, on the way to the southern city of Odesa – it’s under intense bombardment.

We hear about Melitopol, also in the south. It was one of the first towns to fall to the Russians. The report this morning is that the mayor, Ivan Fedorov, who was defiant when the Russians came in saying “I will not give up”, was taken away from his office by the Russians, a bag on his head.

Mariupol – there people are freezing, starving, dying, melting snow to drink, chopping wood to cook and people are being buried in mass graves.

It’s not just the south. Chernihiv in the north – before the war a city of 300,000 people – has been under a constant barrage of shelling, aerial bombardment and there too heating, gas, electricity and water supplies are cut.

Seventeen days and this is the situation across Ukraine.

People often compare it to Syria – we saw this situation in Syria after several years of war and this is Ukraine now in its third week.

Javid accuses Russia of war crimes as UK sends aid

Image of a maternity and children's hospital in the southern city of Mariupol, one of the health facilities attacked by Russian forces.


The UK has sent six more plane-loads of medical aid and equipment to Ukraine as Health Secretary Sajid Javid accused Russia of war crimes in attacking medical facilities.

Mr Javid said there had been more than 25 attacks on health centres and hospitals since the invasion began.

"This is a war crime and Russia will pay for the crimes it's carrying out," he said.

Russia has claimed, without evidence, that hospital bombings were faked.

One attack on a maternity and children's hospital in Mariupol on Thursday killed three people, including a child.

Speaking on a visit to Birmingham Children's Hospital, Mr Javid said that "Russia needs to stop its aggression".

TIMES OF MALTA ARTICLES
Not sure if these will be accessible internationally, but worth a try:

https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/ ... yiv.940815

https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/ ... yiv.940533

https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/ ... was.940383

Ukraine war: Protests after Russians 'abduct' Melitopol mayor
Published37 minutes ago

Image caption: CCTV image from the video allegedly showing the mayor being marched away
Residents in the Ukrainian city of Melitopol have come out to protest against the alleged abduction of the mayor by Russian forces.

Ukrainian officials have posted video saying it shows Ivan Fedorov being led away blindfolded on Friday.

In a message, President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russians of "moving to a new stage of terror".

Melitopol, a small city in south-eastern Ukraine, was one of the first to fall to the Russians.

Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, arguing it felt threatened by a neighbour intent on joining Western-led organisations such as the Nato military alliance.

In his message late on Friday, Mr Zelensky called Mr Fedorov a "mayor who bravely defends Ukraine and the members of his community".

"This is obviously a sign of weakness of the invaders," he said.

"They have moved to a new stage of terror in which they are trying to physically eliminate representatives of legitimate local Ukrainian authorities."

In Melitopol, defiant residents gathered near occupied district administration demanding that Russians release the kidnapped Melitopol mayor Ivan Fedorov - video by Odessa reg governor Maksym Marchenko pic.twitter.com/nCrE6OtQd0
— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) March 12, 2022

Mr Fedorov told the BBC days ago that his administration was not going to co-operate with the Russians "in any way".

He said that invading forces had ransacked his offices, exiling his team to another location where they are attempting to continue running their city.

There have been protests in Melitopol every day since the Russian occupation.

On Saturday, hundreds surrounded the administration building demanding the mayor's release.

Is Putin preparing to decimate Kyiv?
Frank Gardner - BBC Security Correspondent

Damage in Kyiv - AFP/Getty Images

Putin is clearly impatient. And there's no doubt about it, Russia is moving into a new phase of this conflict.

They have massed their artillery, their rocket launchers, their drones, their missiles, close to Ukraine's cities, including the capital, Kyiv.

Perhaps the best indication of how Russia is going to fight the final battles for the city is if you look at how they fought in Grozny, in Chechnya, and in Aleppo, in Syria - street-to-street fighting, but absolutely decimating the cities in the process.

Will Putin do that to Kyiv? It's difficult to say.

Kyiv is historic - it was the capital of the Kyivan Rus Empire, long before Moscow even existed. And if he destroys Kyiv, and news of that gets back to Russia, that won't be popular.

But I think Putin will stop at nothing to subjugate Ukraine to his will. He would rather have the smouldering ruin of Ukraine next to him than have Ukraine join the West and Europe, by joining the EU and Nato.

15:30 BREAKING
Macron tells Putin to lift Mariupol siege
French President Emmanuel Macron has urged President Vladimir Putin to lift the siege on the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where people have been living without water or power for days.

15:45 BREAKING
Putin not ready to end war - French official
Macron asked Putin to end the siege during a call between Putin, Macron and the German Chancellor Olaf Schulz. But an official in the French presidency, quoted by Reuters, says that Putin did not appear ready to end the war.

The two western European leaders also repeated the call for a ceasefire as a condition for full negotiations.

The French presidency also accused Putin of "lies" after he said that Ukrainian soldiers were responsible for human rights abuses, AFP reports.

Ukrainian forces holding back Russian troops in Mykolaiv
Andrew Harding - BBC News, Mykolaiv

Image: A destroyed building in Mykolaiv - Reuters - Russia has been shelling the city.

There were loud explosions through the night and early morning in the strategic city of Mykolaiv, where Ukrainian forces continue to hold back an advance along the Black Sea coast by Russian troops.Much of the fire appeared to be outgoing, as Ukrainian artillery sought to keep the Russians pinned down on the eastern side of the city. But a number of civilian neighbourhoods were also reportedly hit by Russian shelling.

“They used cluster bombs and Grad (multiple rocket systems) to attack sites in the north east of the city,” said Anastasia Aleksieieva, who is helping to organise civilian volunteer groups in Mykolaiv. She said eight civilians had been injured.The skies over the port city were clear on Saturday, following heavy snowfall on Friday. Soldiers and volunteers could be seen putting sandbags around checkpoints on the outskirts.Near the governor’s offices in the city centre, two volunteer soldiers showed off a large black car with a “Z” painted on the side and a machine gun tripod mounted on the roof, which they said had been captured from retreating Russian forces to the south east of Mykolaiv.

In Russia, "Z" is fast becoming seen as a staunchly pro-war symbol of President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.