Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the siege of Mariupol will go down in history for what he says are war crimes committed by Russia’s military.
Key points:
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia has not collected the bodies of its dead in some places
- A Mariupol police officer said the city has been “wiped off the face of the Earth”
- A marine barracks was destroyed in the city of Mykolaiv, killing 40, a Ukrainian military official said
“To do this to a peaceful city, what the occupiers did, is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come,” he said in a video address to the nation.
The night-time address came as fighting continued in Mariupol and a marine barracks was destroyed in Mykolaiv.
Mr Zelenskyy told Ukrainians the ongoing negotiations with Russia were “not simple or pleasant, but they are necessary”.
“Ukraine has always sought a peaceful solution. Moreover, we are interested in peace now,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said Russia’s military was not recovering the bodies of its soldiers in some places.
“In places where there were especially fierce battles, the bodies of Russian soldiers simply pile up along our line of defence. And no one is collecting these bodies,” he said.
He described a battle near Chornobayivka in the south, where Ukrainian forces held their positions and six times beat back the Russians, who kept “sending their people to slaughter”.
Estimates of Russian deaths in Ukraine vary widely, yet even conservative figures are in the low thousands.
That’s a much faster pace than in previous Russian offensives, threatening support for the war among ordinary Russians.
Dmitry Gorenburg, a researcher on Russia’s security at the US-based CNA think tank, said Russia’s number of dead and wounded in Ukraine was nearing the 10 per cent benchmark of diminished combat effectiveness.
The reported battlefield deaths of four Russian generals — out of an estimated 20 in the fight — signalled impaired command, he said.
What’s happening in Mariupol?
A day after Russian forces cut off Mariupol’s access to the Sea of Azov, Ukraine’s interior minister said intense fighting in the city continued, and the key Azovstal steel plant had been damaged.
The Mariupol city council said thousands of residents have been taken to Russia by force, however Reuters could not independently verify the claim.
“Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported onto the Russian territory,” the council said in a statement on its Telegram channel.
An adviser to Mr Zelenskyy said there was no immediate military help available for Mariupol, as the nearest forces able to assist were already struggling against Russian forces at least 100 kilometres away.
In a video post from a rubble-strewn street, Mariupol police officer Michail Vershnin pleaded to Western leaders for help.
“Children, elderly people are dying,” he said.
In a statement, the Mariupol city council said Russian soldiers had forced several thousand residents — mostly women and children — to leave and be relocated to Russia.
The Associated Press could not immediately confirm the claim.
What about in other cities?
In Mykolaiv, rescuers on Saturday searched the rubble of a marine barracks that was destroyed in an apparent missile attack a day earlier.
It is not clear how many marines were inside at the time, but a senior Ukrainian military official, who spoke to The New York Times on condition of anonymity to reveal sensitive information, estimated that as many as 40 marines were killed.
Around Kyiv, the capital’s north-western suburbs of Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin and Moshchun were under fire Saturday, according to the Kyiv regional administration. It said Slavutich, 165 kilometres north of the capital, was “completely isolated.”
More than 6,000 people were able to evacuate along eight of 10 humanitarian corridors Saturday, according to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. That figure included 4,128 people from Mariupol, who were taken to the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
In Zaporizhzhia, a 38-hour curfew was in effect until 6am Monday after two missile strikes on the city’s suburbs killed nine people. Local authorities said they continue to evacuate people from areas occupied by Russian troops.
AP/Reuters
