Margo Gontar
Russians invaded city of Slavutych (city near Chornobyl) today on March 26 and kidnapped mayor Iiurii Fomichev. Local residents went on peaceful rally against russian occupiers, according to the head of Kyiv Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Pavliuk .
According to Pavliuk, russians threw light-noise grenade and fired into air. He stressed that despite shots and grenades, Slavutych residents didn’t but on the contrary there’re coming more people. Unarmed civilians were blocking russian militaries, went up to russian enemy armored personnel carriers and armed russian soldiers and were shouting: “Go Home!”, “You were not expected here.” They in turn shoot into the air, were throwing grenades.
Later locals reported that one resident of Slavutych was injured during the rally(later was reported 1 dead), as well as there were also wounded among the Slavutych territorial defense forces. Mayor was reportedly released.
Locals also reportedly saw different signs on russian military vehicles,equipment, local activist Tymur told Ukrayinska Pravda. He said they suspect it might be from Belarus: they say there was a red mark and a crossed out circle. As was earlier reported by Ukrainian forces that circle is the mark that reportedly indicates being part of Belarus forces. Although social media users noted that Belarus forces doesn’t have “Rys” (“Lynx”) which can be seen on the photo together with armored personell carrier.
“Nobody surrenders the city. People have pushed the occupiers to the outskirts of the city and plan to expel them further. The invaders said they would only check for weapons in the military and police and allegedly leave. There are no more police and defense forces in the city. But people are standing and will stand.”
Tymur, local Slavutych activis
Prior to that on March 18, Oleksandr Pavliuk, head of Kyiv Regional State Administration, said that city of Slavutych was in complete isolation and lacked food. On March 23 it was reported russians fired at a checkpoint in Slavutych. Mayor Yuri Fomichev said that russian militaries were not coming towards the city, but everyone understood “they are near.” He also added that the city is currently blocked and it is impossible to leave it.
On February 24, Russia attacked Ukraine. We continue to follow the development of the situation. If you have information about Russian troops movement or any other information you want to share with us, email us via [email protected] or text in telegram on @JavelinSt. For particularly sensitive data – reach out, we will send more encrypted channels.
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