Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri made an appearance in a pre-recorded video to mark the 11th anniversary of the death of his predecessor Osama bin Laden, in which he said that "US weakness" was the reason that Ukraine became "prey" for the Russian invasion.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
The 27-minute speech was released Friday according to the SITE Intelligence group, which monitors militant activity. The leader appears sitting at a desk with books and a gun.
Urging Muslim unity, al-Zawahri said the US was in a state of weakness and decline, citing the impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan launched after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bin Laden was the mastermind and financier behind the attacks.
"Here [the US] is after its defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, after the economic disasters caused by the 9/11 invasions, after the coronavirus pandemic, and after it left its ally Ukraine as prey for the Russians," he said.
Bin Laden was killed in a 2011 raid by US forces on his compound hideout in Pakistan. Al-Zawahri's whereabouts are unknown. He is wanted by the FBI and there is a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture.
Meanwhile, Russia's most senior lawmaker on Saturday accused Washington of coordinating military operations in Ukraine, which he said amounted to direct US involvement in military action against Russia.
"Washington is essentially coordinating and developing military operations, thereby directly participating in military actions against our country," Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel.
Washington and European members of the transatlantic NATO alliance have supplied Kyiv with heavy weapons to help it resist a Russian offensive that has resulted in the occupation of parts of eastern and southern Ukraine but failed to take Kyiv.
However, the United States and its NATO allies have repeatedly said they will not take part in fighting directly in order to avoid becoming parties to the conflict.
US officials have said the United States has provided intelligence to Ukraine to help counter the Russian assault, but have denied that this intelligence includes precise targeting data.
Also on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lambasted Russian troops for destroying a museum dedicated to the 18th-century philosopher and poet Hryhoriy Skovoroda.
The overnight attack in the village of Skovorodynivka in eastern Ukraine hit the roof of the museum, setting the building ablaze and injuring a 35-year-old custodian. The most valuable items had earlier been moved for safety, said Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Sinegubov.
"Every day of this war the Russian army does something that leaves me speechless. But then the next day it does something else that makes you feel the same way again," Zelenskyy said in a late-night video address. "Targeted strikes against museums – not even terrorists would think of this. But this is the kind of army we are fighting against."
Skovoroda, of Ukraine Cossack origin, spent the last years of his life in the village of Ivanovka, which was later renamed in his honor – Skovorodynivka.
"This year marks the 300th anniversary of the great philosopher's birth," Sinegubov said in a post on social media. "The occupiers can destroy the museum where Hryhoriy Skovoroda worked for the last years of his life and where he was buried. But they will not destroy our memory and our values."
Russian forces kept up their barrage of southern Ukraine, hitting the major Black Sea port of Odesa with cruise missiles and bombarding the steelworks up the coast in Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters remained trapped underground.
Moscow was aiming to complete its conquest of Mariupol in time for Victory Day celebrations on Monday. But its forces continued to face dogged resistance from defenders within the bunkers beneath the factory. Civilians have been evacuated.
In a sign of the unexpectedly effective defense that has sustained the fighting into its 11th week, Ukraine's military struck Russian positions on a Black Sea island that was captured in the war's first days and has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Western military analysts also said a Ukrainian counteroffensive was advancing around the country's second-largest city, Kharkiv. Ukraine's military said retreating Russian forces destroyed three bridges on a road northeast of the city to try to slow the Ukrainian advance.
The largest European conflict since World War II has developed into a punishing war of attrition that has killed thousands of people, forced millions to flee their homes, and destroyed large swaths of some cities.
Ukrainian leaders warned that attacks would only worsen in the lead-up to Victory Day when Russia celebrates Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945 with military parades. Russian President Vladimir Putin is believed to want to proclaim some kind of triumph in Ukraine when he addresses the troops on Red Square on Monday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his people "embody the spirit of those who prevailed during the Second World War." He accused Putin of trying "to twist history to attempt to justify his unprovoked and brutal war against Ukraine."
"As war again rages in Europe, we must increase our resolve to resist those who now seek to manipulate historical memory in order to advance their own ambitions," Blinken said in a statement as the United States and Britain commemorate the Allied victory in Europe.
The most intense fighting in recent days has been in eastern Ukraine, where the two sides are entrenched in a fierce battle to capture or reclaim territory. Moscow's offensive there has focused on the Donbas, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting since 2014.
The governor of the Luhansk region, one of two that make up the Donbas, said a Russian strike destroyed a school in the village of Bilogorivka where 90 people were seeking safety in the basement. Governor Serhiy Haidai, who posted pictures of the burning rubble on the Telegram messaging app, said 30 people were rescued. Rescue work was ongoing.
Haidai also said two boys aged 11 and 14 were killed by Russian shelling in the town of Pryvillia, while two girls aged 8 and 12 and a 69-year-old woman were wounded.
In neighboring Moldova, Russian and separatist troops are on "full alert," the Ukrainian military warned on Sunday. The region has increasingly become a focus of worries that the conflict could expand beyond Ukraine's borders.
Pro-Russian forces broke off the Transnistria section of Moldova in 1992, and Russian troops have been stationed there since, ostensibly as peacekeepers.
Those forces are on "full combat readiness," Ukraine said, without giving details on how it came to the assessment.
Moscow has sought to sweep across southern Ukraine both to cut off the country from the sea and create a corridor to Transnistria. But it has struggled to achieve those objectives.
On Saturday, six Russian cruise missiles fired from aircraft hit Odesa, where a curfew is in place until Tuesday morning. Videos posted on social media showed thick black smoke rising over the Black Sea port city as sirens wailed.
The Odesa city council said four of the missiles hit a furniture company, with the shock waves and debris badly damaging high-rise apartment buildings. The other two missiles hit the Odesa airport, where the runway had already been taken out in a previous Russian attack.
Air raid sirens sounded several times early Sunday, the city council said.
In Mariupol, Ukrainian fighters made a final stand against a complete Russian takeover of the strategically important city, which would give Moscow a land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula, annexed from Ukraine during a 2014 invasion.
Satellite photos shot Friday by Planet Labs PBC showed vast devastation at the sprawling Azovstal seaside steel mill, the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the city. Buildings had gaping holes in the roofs, including one under which hundreds of fighters were likely hiding.
After rescuers evacuated the last civilians Saturday, Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that the focus would turn to extracting the wounded and medics: "Of course, if everyone fulfills the agreements. Of course, if there are no lies." He added that work would also continue Sunday on securing humanitarian corridors for residents of Mariupol and surrounding towns to leave.
The situation at the plant has drawn the world's attention, with the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross desperately trying to organize evacuations.
But Russian forces have intensified fire on the mill with mortars, artillery, truck-mounted rocket systems, aerial bombardment, and shelling from the sea, making evacuation operations difficult.
Three Ukrainian fighters were reportedly killed and six more wounded during an evacuation attempt Friday. Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, the deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, said his troops had waved white flags, and he accused Russian forces of firing an anti-tank weapon at a vehicle.
It remains unclear what will happen to the estimated 2,000 fighters at Azovstal, both those still in combat and the hundreds believed to be wounded. In recent days the Ukrainian government has been reaching out to international organizations to try to secure safe passage for them. The fighters have repeatedly vowed not to surrender.
Zelenskyy said officials were trying to find a way to evacuate them. He acknowledged the difficulty but said: "We are not losing hope, we are not stopping. Every day we are looking for some diplomatic option that might work."
Russian forces have probed the plant and even reached into its warren of tunnels, according to Ukrainian officials.
But Western military analysts said Ukrainian forces were making progress in securing positions around the city. The Ukrainian military said it retook control of five villages and part of a sixth.
A Washington-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said Ukraine may be able to push Russian forces out of artillery range of Kharkiv in the coming days, providing a respite for the city and an opportunity to build the defenders' momentum "into a successful, broader counteroffensive."
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
In related news, The Prince of Wales made a private donation to a British Jewish international humanitarian agency working to help Ukrainian refugees, The Jewish Chronicle reported.
Prince Charles has been a patron of the World Jewish Relief since 2015. He visited the organization's office last week in London, where he praised staff for their work in support of Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia's invasion of the country. He also met with some of those refugees.
The exact sum of the donation was not revealed.
The relief group has assisted more than 20,000 Ukrainians with humanitarian aid and evacuation efforts since the start of the war on Feb. 24, said the charity on its website. It is currently working in 61 towns and cities across Ukraine.
WJR president Henry Grunwald described Prince Charles as "an amazingly tuned-in patron" while speaking this week at the Jewish Community Centre of Krakow, which the Prince of Wales opened in 2008 in partnership with the charity. The Jewish Community Centre is now being used as a place to support Ukrainian refugees.
According to the Chronicle, Prince Charles first got involved with WJR in 2002 after meeting members of the Jewish community in Krakow who have been assisted by the charity.
JNS.org contributed to this report.
