Ukrainians Longing For Peace Amid New Fighting (Worthy News Radio)

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Pope Francis, who has been hospitalized amid mounting concerns about his health, managed to urge prayers for peace in Ukraine, where many long for an end to the war amid ongoing clashes.

His Sunday appeal came after Evelyn, a 23-year-old pharmacist in the city of Kryvyi Rih, told Worthy News that she lives with her parents now because she is, in her words, “scared to be alone because of the war.”

She spoke again to Worthy News while her city was shaking Sunday under a suspected Russian attack. “And now I’m in shock… I found out that this is the place where I walk my dog… right next to me,” she said.

Footage from her city of another recent Russian strike sent to Worthy News showed at least three people lying on the ground at the entrance of an apartment block. Two were lying motionless, with one body apparently cut in half due to the explosion’s impact. An injured woman was being attended to by rescue workers wearing blue gloves.

“Each such terrorist attack is another reminder of who we are dealing with. Russia will not stop on its own – it can only be stopped by joint pressure,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was born in Kryvyi Rih, said recently after finding out that three children and their mother were killed there too.

Evelyn explained to Worthy News that its the everyday reality in her southeastern city as drones and missiles fly into residential buildings, adding, “It’s scary and very loud.” The “whole world should know about this terrorist attacks,” she said.

Her views are shared by authorities who explained that since Saturday, Russian strikes around Ukraine killed at least one person and wounded 19.

ODESA UNDER FIRE

The areas targeted reportedly included the southern Odesa region, where a Russian missile struck port facilities in the city of Odesa, damaging infrastructure and a Panamanian-flagged vessel belonging to a European company.

However, most casualties are at the front lines, resembling the tranch-by-tranch fighting of World War I, often impacting people whose lives had just begun.

Moscow claimed Sunday to have seized two more villages in eastern Ukraine as Russian forces captured Sudne and Burlatske in the south of the eastern Donetsk region.

The villages are near the town of Velyka Novosilka, which the Russian army captured at the end of January.

Russia claimed earlier on Saturday it had shot down three Ukrainian drones targeting a major natural gas pipeline carrying Russian supplies to Europe via Turkey in the second such incident this year.

The attack was aimed at the Russkaya natural gas compressor station in the southern Krasnodar region, an element of the TurkStream pipeline network. Kyiv has not commented on the claim.

There was some hope, too, with a new monitoring mission from the United Nations nuclear watchdog announcing they had arrived at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia atomic power plant in Ukraine, Europe’s largest, after weeks of delay due to clashes.

PEACE PLAN

Those efforts are part of a broader international attempt to re-establish a sense of normalcy in the war-torn nation. In London, the leading European Union countries and NATO military alliance allies Canada, Norway, and Turkey attend a historic security summit focusing on Ukraine’s and Europe’s security.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he had long conversations with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and later by phone with U.S. President Donald J. Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron. “We have now agreed that the United Kingdom, along with France and possibly one or two others, will work with Ukraine on a plan to stop the fighting, and then we discuss that plan with the United States,” he said.

Yet rebuilding the nation won’t be easy as experts say Ukraine now has the highest number of unexploded ordinance in the world, with about one-third of the country potentially mined, risking the death and injury of civilians long after the war ends.

At least some one million people are believed to have been killed and injured since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Additionally, Ukraine is still searching for more than 19,000 Ukrainian children that it says have been illegally transferred to Russia.

They are among an estimated 10.6 million Ukrainians, about 25 percent of the population, that have been displaced since the war began.

The United Nations is launching a humanitarian and refugee response plan for 2025 and appealing for $3.3 billion to support millions affected by the crisis.

Yet despite these challenges, British Prime Minister Starmer said a first step has been made towards the peace that Pope Francis has been praying for.

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