Putin bombs Ukraine’s Mariupol into “ashes of a dead land”
Quick Read
One report said the Russian siege on the city is led by Russian General Mikhail Mizintsev. He led the Russian operation in Syria.
Intense Russian air strikes hit the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol and street fighting raged on Tuesday, a day after it rejected President Putin’s demand to surrender, Ukrainian officials said.
The city council said the bombardments were turning Mariupol into the “ashes of a dead land”.
Russia’s RIA news agency said Russian forces and units of Russian-backed separatists had taken about half of the city, citing a separatist leader.
One report said the Russian siege on the city is led by Russian General Mikhail Mizintsev.
He led the Russian operation in Syria.
It is estimated that 90% of the Ukrainian city has been destroyed in the Russian Army’s missile and bomb strikes over the last two weeks.
The governor of Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said street fighting was taking place there and civilians as well as Ukrainian troops were coming under Russian fire.
On the 27th day of war in Ukraine, the plight of civilians in Mariupol, normally home to 400,000 people, grew ever more desperate. Hundreds of thousands are believed to be trapped inside buildings, with no access to food, water, power or heat.
“There is nothing left there,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address to Italy’s parliament.
Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov told CNN the city was under a full blockade and had received no humanitarian aid.
“The city is under continuous bombing, from 50 bombs to 100 bombs Russian aircraft drops each day… A lot of death, a lot of crying, a lot of awful war crimes,” Orlov said.
“The city is under continuous bombing, from 50 bombs to 100 bombs Russian aircraft drops each day… A lot of death, a lot of crying, a lot of awful war crimes,” Orlov said.
Mariupol has become the focus of the war that erupted on Feb. 24 when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his troops over the border on what he calls a “special military operation” to demilitarise Ukraine and replace its pro-Western leadership.
It lies on the Sea of Azov and its capture would allow Russia to link areas in the east held by pro-Russian separatists with the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Having failed to seize the capital Kyiv or any other major city with a swift offensive, Russian forces are waging a war of attrition that has reduced some urban areas to rubble and taken a huge civilian toll.
The United Nations human rights office in Geneva said on Tuesday it had recorded 953 civilian deaths and 1,557 injured since the invasion.
The Kremlin denies targeting civilians.
Western officials said on Tuesday Russian forces were stalled around Kyiv but making some progress in the south and east. Ukrainian fighters are repelling Russian troops in some places but cannot roll them back, they said.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “no one” had ever thought the operation in Ukraine would take just a couple of days and the campaign was going to plan, TASS news agency reported.
Comments