6th March, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded the surrender of Ukrainian forces, as he vowed to press ahead with his ceaseless offensive.
He said the Ukrainian resistance force should stop fighting to enable the evacuation of 200,000 people from the besieged city of Mariupol.
The evacuation was impossible for the second day as Russian shelling continued.
Most people trapped in the port city are sleeping underground to escape more than six days of near-constant shelling by encircling Russian forces that has cut off food, water, power and heating supplies, according to the Ukrainian authorities.
Putin made his demand for Kyiv surrender in a phone call with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who appealed for a ceasefire.
Putin told Erdogan he was ready for dialogue with Ukraine and foreign partners but any attempt to draw out negotiation would fail, a Kremlin statement said.
Russian media said Putin also spoke by phone for almost two hours with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron told Putin he was concerned about a possible imminent attack on southern Ukraine’s historic port city of Odessa, Macron’s office said.
The civilian death toll from hostilities across Ukraine since Moscow launched its invasion on Feb. 24 stood at 364, including more than 20 children, the United Nations said on Sunday, adding hundreds more were injured.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said most civilian casualties were caused by the use of “explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.”
Moscow has repeatedly denied attacking civilian areas.
In Irpin, a town some 25 km (16 miles) northwest of the capital Kyiv, men, women and children trying to escape heavy fighting in the area were forced to take cover when missiles struck nearby, according to Reuters witnesses.
Soldiers and fellow residents helped the elderly hurry to a bus filled with frightened people, some cowering as they waited to be driven to safety. read more
The invasion has drawn almost universal condemnation around the world, sent more than 1.5 million Ukrainians fleeing from the country, and triggered sweeping Western sanctions against Russia aimed at crippling its economy. The Biden administration said on Sunday it was exploring banning Russian oil imports. read more
“War is madness, please stop,” Pope Francis said in his weekly address to crowds in St Peter’s Square, adding that “rivers of blood and tears” were flowing in Ukraine’s war. read more
‘NO TO WAR’
Anti-war protests took place around the world including in Russia itself, where police detained more than 4,300 people, an independent protest monitoring group said.
The interior ministry said 3,500 demonstrators had been held, included 1,700 people in Moscow and 750 in St Petersburg.
Thousands of protesters chanted “No to war!” and “Shame on you!”, according to videos posted on social media by opposition activists and bloggers.
Demonstrations were also taking place in Western capitals as well as in India and Kazakhstan, after jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny called for worldwide protests against the war.
In the besieged city of Mariupol, authorities had said on Sunday they would make a second attempt to evacuate some of the 400,000 residents.
But the ceasefire plan collapsed, as it had on Saturday, with each side blaming the other.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the failed attempt to evacuate 200,000 people had underscored “the absence of a detailed and functioning agreement between the parties to the conflict.”
“They’re destroying us,” Mariupol mayor Vadym Boychenko told Reuters in a video call, describing the city’s plight before the latest evacuation effort failed.
“They will not even give us an opportunity to count the wounded and the killed because the shelling does not stop.”