Ukraine defied a Russian demand that its forces lay down arms before dawn yesterday in Mariupol, where hundreds of thousands of civilians have been trapped in a city under siege and laid to waste by Russian bombardment.
Russia’s military had ordered Ukrainians inside the besieged southeastern city to surrender by 5am, saying that those who do so would be permitted to leave through safe corridors.
“There can be no question of any surrender, laying down of arms” in the city, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said. “We have already informed the Russian side about this.”
Photo: AFP
Russia’s assault on Ukraine, now in its fourth week, has stalled along most fronts. Russia has failed to seize a single major Ukrainian city much less capture the capital, Kyiv, or swiftly topple the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
However, Russia has pounded residential areas, causing massive destruction.
Nowhere has seen worse destruction than Mariupol, a port on the Azov Sea, home to 400,000 people before the war. It has been under siege and constant bombardment, with no food, medicine, power or fresh water, since the invasion’s early days.
Some people have been allowed out in private vehicles, but Russian forces have not permitted aid convoys or buses to evacuate civilians to reach the city.
“What I saw, I hope no one will ever see,” said Greece’s consul general in Mariupol, Manolis Androulakis, who arrived home on Sunday after a four-day journey since escaping the siege, the last European diplomat to leave the city.
“Mariupol will become part of a list of cities that were completely destroyed by war. I don’t need to name them: They are Guernica, Coventry, Aleppo, Grozny, Leningrad,” Androulakis said.
In an intelligence update, the British Ministry of Defence yesterday said that Russia’s assault on Kyiv was stalled.
Heavy fighting was continuing near Hostomel, a suburb in an area to the northwest where Russia’s advance has largely been halted since the war’s first hours on Feb. 24.
“Forces advancing from the direction of Hostomel to the northwest have been repulsed by fierce Ukrainian resistance,” it said.
Russia calls the war, the biggest attack on a European state since World War II, a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from “Nazis.”
The West describes this as a false pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression to subdue a country that Russian President Vladimir Putin describes as illegitimate.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said that at least 902 civilians had been killed as of midnight on Saturday, although the real toll is probably much higher.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that 10 million Ukrainians have been displaced, including about 3.4 million who have fled to neighboring countries such as Poland.
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