Ukraine's president has warned that conflict will cost Russia for generations

In Kharkiv, Ukraine, rescuers work at the site of the National Academy of State Administration building, which was destroyed by shelling. Image Credit: AP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces are blockading his country's major cities in an attempt to wear down the population, but he warned on Saturday that the plan would fail and Moscow will lose in the long term if the war is not ended.

Zelenskyy accused the Kremlin of purposefully causing a "humanitarian catastrophe" and called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with him, citing a massive Moscow stadium rally in which Putin lavished praise on the Russian military on Friday as an example of what was at stake.

"Imagine for a moment that there are 14,000 dead bodies and tens of thousands more injured and crippled in that stadium in Moscow." "Those are the Russian costs throughout the invasion," Zelenskyy stated in his nightly video message to the nation, which was shown outside the presidential building in Kyiv.

The gathering and musicals in Moscow were held to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Crimea, which it took from Ukraine in 2014. Patriotic songs such as "Made in the USSR" with the opening lines "Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldova, it's all my nation" were performed at the event.

"We haven't had such solidarity in a long time," Putin told the ecstatic crowd.

The rally took place in the middle of Russia's heavier-than-expected war losses and increasingly autocratic domestic control. There were concerns that the rally was a Russian government display of patriotism. Thousands of people were detained by Russian police during protests against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine's conflict has been fought on several fronts. Ukrainian and Russian soldiers battled over the Azovstal steel mill, which is one of Europe's largest in the besieged port city of Mariupol, Vadym Denysenko, Ukraine's interior minister's advisor, said Saturday.

"I can argue that we have lost this economic powerhouse," Denysenko stated in televised remarks. "In fact, one of Europe's largest metallurgical plants is being demolished."

The Russian military announced on Saturday that it had used its latest hypersonic missile in combat for the first time. According to Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Kinzhal missiles destroyed an underground storehouse containing Ukrainian missiles and aviation ammunition in Ukraine's western Ivano-Frankivsk area.

Russian forces, according to Konashenkov, also employed the anti-ship Bastion missile system to attack Ukrainian military sites near the Black Sea port of Odesa. In 2016, Russia utilized the weapon for the first time during its military campaign in Syria.

Ukrainian and Russian officials agreed Saturday to establish ten humanitarian corridors for bringing aid in and residents out, including one from the besieged port city of Mariupol, several in the Kyiv region, and several in the Luhansk region, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

She also announced preparations to transfer humanitarian relief to Kherson, which is now under Russian administration.

In his nightly video speech, Zelenskyy stated that Russian soldiers are blockading major cities in order to create such deplorable conditions that Ukrainians will collaborate. According to him, the Russians are blocking supplies from reaching encircled cities in central and southeastern Ukraine.

He said that 200,000 people attended a rally in Moscow on Friday to commemorate Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, the same number of Russian military soldiers engaging in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

"The time has come to restore Ukraine's territorial integrity and justice." Otherwise, Russia's costs would be so expensive that you won't be able to rise for several generations," Zelenskyy predicted.

Putin's appearance at Friday's rally represented a departure from his recent relative isolation when he was seen meeting with international leaders and his staff at exceptionally long tables or by videoconference.

Putin quoted the Bible to the state of Russia's troops, "There is no greater love than giving up one's soul for one's friends."

Taking to the platform in front of a sign that read "For a World Without Nazism," he screamed against his opponents in Ukraine, accusing them of being "neo-Nazis" and insisting that his actions were required to avoid "genocide" – an idea vehemently denied by leaders around the world.

Putin's references to the Bible and an 18th-century Russian admiral echoed his current emphasis on history and religion as unifying influences in Russia's post-Soviet society. His labeling of his opponents as Nazis reminded what many Russians regard as their country's finest hour, the defense of the motherland against Germany during World War II.

Following the invasion, the Kremlin has tightened its grip on dissent and information flow, arresting thousands of antiwar protesters, banning sites like Facebook and Twitter, and instituting harsh prison sentences for what is deemed false reporting on the war, that Moscow makes reference to as a "special military operation."

Three Russian cosmonauts landed at the International Space Station on Friday, sporting bright yellow flying suits with blue highlights that matched the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

Since the beginning of the conflict, many people have utilized the Ukrainian flag and its colors to indicate their support for the country.

However, cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev stated that each crew chooses their own suits, and they had a lot of yellow material to utilize, "therefore that's why we had to wear yellow."

Vladimir Medinsky, who has led Russian negotiators in numerous rounds of discussions with Ukraine, claimed the two sides are getting closer to an agreement on Ukraine withdrawing its NATO bid and accepting a neutral status. According to Russian media, he stated that the parties are now "halfway" through the demilitarization of Ukraine.

However, Mikhailo Podolyak, a Zelenskyy adviser, stated that the assessment was designed to "create friction in the media." "Our positions remain unchanged," he tweeted. The ceasefire, army withdrawal, and robust security assurances based on realistic formulas."

Lt. Gen. Jim Hockenhull, the British Chief of Defense Intelligence, warned that after failing to take major Ukrainian cities, Russian forces are shifting to a "strategy of attrition" that will involve "reckless and indiscriminate use of firepower," resulting in increased civilian deaths and a worsening humanitarian catastrophe.

Hospitals, schools, and other places where people sought refuge have been targeted across Ukraine. The Ukrainian Parliament's human rights commissioner, Ludmila Denisova, claimed at least 130 people escaped Wednesday's bombing of a Mariupol theater that was being used as a shelter.

Denisova told Ukrainian tv, "according to our data, there are still over 1,300 individuals in these basements, in this bomb shelter." "We hope they are all alive, but there is no information about them so far."

On Friday, satellite pictures from Maxar Technologies revealed a long line of cars leaving Mariupol as people attempted to flee. More than 9,000 people were able to depart the city on the last day, according to Zelenskyy.

A missile attack in Lviv claimed the life of one person, bringing the city's center closer than ever before. The strike looked to have destroyed a maintenance hangar and damaged two other structures, according to satellite pictures. Ukraine claimed to have shot down two of the six missiles fired from the Black Sea.

With its population swelled by 200,000, Lviv has become a crossroads for individuals fleeing other parts of Ukraine as well as those entering to give aid or join the war.

At least one person was killed in early morning barrages that targeted a residential structure in Kyiv's Podil area. 98 people were evacuated from the building, according to emergency services, while 19 people were injured, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

A fireman was also killed, according to Ukrainian sources, when Russian forces shelled an area in the village of Nataevka, in the Zaporizhzhia district, where firefighters were attempting to put out a wildfire. According to regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, two more people were killed when strikes hit residential and administrative buildings in the eastern city of Kramatorsk.

Maj. Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk, who is in charge of the defense of Ukraine's capital, claimed his men are well-positioned to protect the city and pledged, "We will never give up." We'll fight to the end. "Until the very last breath and bullet."

Source: Yuras Karmanau of the Associated Press in Lviv, Ukraine, and other AP journalists from around the world contributed to this report.