Ukraine Evacuating Children As Russian Forces Approach Kharkiv (Worthy News Radio)

KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Pope Francis met Ukrainian children while inside the war-torn nation authorities announced the mandatory evacuation of orphans and minors without parents from the hard-hit area around Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv. It came as the Vatican pushed for peace talks with Ukraine, pushing for more Western weapons as it struggles to halt a new Russian military offensive.

After another nighttime Russian attack destroyed trains and tracks in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, authorities announced they are organizing the evacuation of children from the area.

With Russian forces devastating the area in a powerful new offensive, officials said over the next 60 days, at least 123 orphans and children living without their parents would be evacuated.

Earlier, Russia hit Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv with missiles Thursday, killing at least seven people in a printing house and injuring many more.

The owner says the strike would reduce Ukraine’s book printing capacity by up to 40 percent.

“This is the largest enterprise of its kind in Ukraine. Textbooks, literature, this is a national problem,” said Serhiy Polituchy, the owner of the Faktor-Druk printing plant. “We will not be able to publish them on time this year if we do not recover quickly,” he warned.

Amid the ongoing strikes came Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, urging the West to send more weapons to halt Moscow’s increased attacks.

Explosions reverberating

Ukrainian authorities said that besides those killed, at least 20 people were wounded when S-300 missiles struck Kharkiv on Thursday.

Explosions have reverberated around the city of some 1 million people, with a mother of one telling Vatican Radio that it was a terrible morning for her and her baby and that the windows shook a lot.

Authorities said that besides orphans, they already evacuated more than 11,000 people from the Kharkiv region since Russia launched an offensive there on May 10.

Despite friends and foes confirming setbacks, President Zelenskyy tried to sound upbeat in an overnight video address to the nation and the world.

He said Ukrainian forces secured what he called “combat control” of areas where Russian troops entered the northeastern Kharkiv region earlier this month.

“Our soldiers have now managed to take combat control of the border area where the Russian occupiers entered,” Zelenskyy says.

Major flashpoint

Zelenskyy’s comments are at odds with those made by Russian officials.

Viktor Vodolatskiy, a member of Russia’s lower house of parliament, said Russian forces “now controlled more than half of the town of Vovchansk,” three miles (five kilometers) inside the border.

Vovchansk has been a flashpoint for fighting since Russia launched an offensive in the Kharkiv region as it approaches Kharkiv city.

The United States announced the latest $275 million worth of artillery rocket systems, anti-tank weapons, and other munitions and claimed recent military aid reached the frontlines quickly. Yet, so far, that appeared to have done little to halt Russian advances on three battlefields with outnumbered Ukrainian troops struggling to fight back.

Pope Francis on Saturday expressed concerns about the impact the war has on children, some of whom he met in Rome during the Vatican’s first World Children’s Day. The children included several from a hospital in the Ukrainian city of Lviv who had lost limbs. Among the group was Yana, a girl who ran the Boston Marathon a month ago with prosthetic legs.

Pope Francis noted that Ukrainian children “often struggle to smile,” yet he saw “a symbol of hope and resilience in Yana.” Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and injured in more than two years of fighting while millions fled their homes.

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