Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Michael Brodsky announced Saturday that “according to Ukrainian sources, the Drobitzky Yar Holocaust memorial site was struck today during shelling” by Russian forces.
Drobitzky Yar on the outskirts of Kharkiv, where 11,000 Jews were shot by Nazis in a ravine in 1942. Shelled by Russians in 2022. pic.twitter.com/cVAK11Iku9
— Melinda Simmons (@MelSimmonsFCDO) March 26, 2022
A Menorah installed at the entrance to the Holocaust memorial complex was damaged in artillery shelling, the United Jewish Community of Ukraine reported via the Telegram social media platform.
During World War II, some 15,000 Jews from Kharkov were murdered by the Nazis at the site.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated Friday night in his daily video address that his nation will not give up any part of its territory for peace.
“Every day we continue to defend peace and bring victory closer,” he said, repeating his call for Russia to negotiate an end to the hostilities.
Thus far, more than two million refugees from Ukraine have poured into Poland. Another 1.5 million have fled to Romania, Moldova, Hungary, and Slovakia, according to UN figures which indicate at least 10 million Ukrainians have lost their homes in the war.
US President Joe Biden had harsh words for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during a briefing Saturday with reporters after meeting with Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw.
The US president was in Poland on the final leg of a four-day trip to Europe, during which he was joined by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for a meeting with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.
The US continues to reject a proposal by Poland to facilitate transfer of its Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, as well as a proposal to create an international peacekeeping force in the besieged country.
Biden did not refrain from attacking Putin during his address to reporters delivered outside the Royal Castle in Warsaw, declaring, “This man cannot remain in power.”
Answering a question about his opinion of the Russian president and what Russian forces have done to Ukraine’s port city of Mariupol, Biden replied, “He’s a butcher.”
In response, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s TASS news agency that personal insults – such as Biden’s name-calling – “narrow down the window of opportunity for our bilateral relations under the current administration.”
As for regime change in Russia, said Peskov, “This is not to be decided by Mr. Biden. It should only be a choice of the people of the Russian Federation.”
