KYIV — Two “super powerful bombs” rocked
Mariupol on
Tuesday as Ukrainian authorities made a fresh attempt at rescuing civilians
from the besieged port city which has suffered relentless shelling since
Russia’s invasion began almost a month ago.
اضافة اعلان
More than 200,000 people are trapped in the
strategic city described by those who managed to escape as a “freezing
hellscape riddled with dead bodies and destroyed buildings”, Human Rights Watch
said, quoting figures provided by a local official.
“We know that there will not be enough space for
everyone” on Tuesday, but “we will try to carry out the evacuation until we
have gotten all the inhabitants of Mariupol out,” vowed Deputy Prime Minister
Iryna Vereshchuk in a video address.
Two “super powerful bombs” slammed into the city
even as rescue efforts were ongoing, said Mariupol local authorities, without
giving an immediate toll.
“It is clear that the occupiers are not interested
in the city of Mariupol, they want to raze it to the ground, to reduce it to
ashes,” the authorities said.
Ukrainian leader
Volodymyr Zelensky turned to Pope
Francis for help, urging the pontiff to mediate in the conflict and to help end
“human suffering”.
Earlier, Zelensky said all issues would be on the
table if
Russia’s Vladimir Putin agreed to direct talks to end the war,
including the contested eastern regions Donbas and the annexed Crimea
peninsula.
But he warned his country would be “destroyed”
before it surrenders.
The Kremlin in return said it would like to see
negotiations with Kyiv to be “more active and substantial”.
Increasingly ‘brutal’
Russia’s position was “well-known
to the Ukrainian side” because Moscow handed over its demands in written form
“many days ago”, Kremlin spokesman
Dmitry Peskov said, adding, “we would like a
more substantial and swift answer”.
The two sides are currently holding negotiations
remotely after several rounds of talks between delegations meeting on the
border between Belarus and Ukraine, but little progress has been made.
With Russia’s military campaign appearing to stall,
fears are growing that Putin may resort to even more drastic means to turn the
tide.
US President Joe Biden warned that Putin was
considering using chemical and biological weapons in Ukraine, as he described
Moscow’s tactics as increasingly “brutal”.
Biden is due to travel to Brussels on Thursday for a
series of summits gathering
NATO, EU and G7 leaders, before heading to Poland,
which has received the bulk of more than 3.5 million Ukrainians fleeing war in
their country.
‘Desperate bid’
Since Russia launched its
invasion on February 24, at least 117 children have been killed in the war,
Ukraine’s federal prosecutor said.
Some 548 schools have been damaged, including 72
completely destroyed.
Russia has pushed on with its assaults, in the face
of unprecedented Western sanctions that has led international companies to pull
out of the country and left its key banks shut out of the
SWIFT messaging
system.
But both Western and Ukrainian experts believe the
war was not going the way the Kremlin had planned.
The invading forces were running out of supplies,
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told CNN, describing them as “frustrated” and
“stalled.”
The assessment was corroborated by Ukraine’s army
command which said Russian troops now had ammunition, food and fuel to last
just three days.
Three hundred
Russian soldiers have defected in the
north-eastern Sumy region, added the army command on Facebook.
Even in areas Russia has captured, resistance has
persisted.
Ukrainians “are going after Russians and pushing
them out of places where the Russians have been in the past,” Kirby said,
pointing to Mykolaiv, in the south.
“We have seen this now increase over the last few
days.”
In the occupied southern city of Kherson, Ukraine’s
leaders on Tuesday accused Russian troops of firing on unarmed protesters.
A series of videos posted on social media and the
messaging app Telegram showed citizens gathering in Kherson’s “Freedom Square”
protesting against Russia’s recent seizure of the city.
Russian soldiers could be seen firing into the air.
An elderly person was wounded, said Ukraine’s foreign
ministry in a statement.
“The humanitarian situation is rapidly
deteriorating,” it said, accusing Moscow of refusing to allow for an aid
corridor to evacuate civilians and channel in food.
Pivotal target
More critical was the plight
of residents from Mariupol, who have been without electricity and water for
days.
Several bids to evacuate the population had been
made but they have rapidly collapsed with both sides trading blame over
violations.
Getting civilians out was the priority on Tuesday,
said Ukrainian officials. Three routes have been drawn up linking the port city
to Zaporizhzhia, Deputy Prime Minister Vereshschuk said.
European Union foreign policy chief
Josep Borrell had described as a “massive war crime” the siege of Mariupol, which had killed
more than 2,000 people.
Russia had given Mariupol until Monday morning to
surrender, but Kyiv rejected the ultimatum and said the city’s resistance was
bolstering the defense of all of Ukraine.
Mariupol is a
pivotal target in Putin’s war — providing a land bridge between Russian forces
in
Crimea to the southwest and Russian-controlled territory to the north and
east.
Meanwhile in Kyiv, a 35-hour curfew came into effect
from 8pm (1800 GMT) Monday, after Russian strikes laid waste to the
“Retroville” shopping complex, killing at least eight people.
Russia claimed the mall was being used to store
rocket systems and ammunition.
Maxim Kostetskyi, 29, a lawyer, said residents in
the capital were using the “pause” imposed by the lockdown to regroup.
“We don’t know if the Russians will continue with
their efforts to encircle the city, but we are much more confident, the morale
is high and inspiring,” he told AFP.
‘Unwinnable’
Making his relentless push
on the diplomatic front, Zelensky has renewed a call for direct talks with
Putin.
The Ukrainian president said he was even willing to
discuss Russian-occupied Crimea and the breakaway Russian regions in Donbas,
though he insisted he still believes they must be returned to Ukraine.
“At the first meeting with the president of
Russia,
I am ready to raise these issues,” he said, adding that any agreement involving
“historic” changes would be put to a national referendum.
For UN chief Antonio Guterres, it was high time for
Russia to end its “absurd war” in Ukraine.
“Even if Mariupol falls, Ukraine cannot be conquered
city by city, street by street, house by house,” he said.
“This war is unwinnable. Sooner or later, it will have to
move from the battlefield to the peace table. That is inevitable,” he added.
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