- Ukrainian generals expect more indiscriminate bombing
- Ukraine says ‘no question of surrender’ in Mariupol.
- 96-year-old Holocaust survivor killed in shelling
LVIV/Kyiv, Ukraine, March 22 – Russia is smashing the besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol into the “ashes of a dead country,” its local council said on Tuesday, describing two other giant bombs that have fallen on the city in lockdown for weeks .
The plight of Mariupol, a pre-war city of 400,000, is the most pressing humanitarian emergency since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly a month ago. Hundreds of thousands of residents are believed to be trapped inside under near-constant shelling, with no access to food, water, electricity or heat.
“There is nothing left,” Zelenskyy said in a video address to the Italian parliament on Tuesday.
The city council did not provide any information on casualties or damage from the recent bombing. No independent journalists have been active in Ukrainian-controlled parts of the city for at least a week, during which Ukraine has attacked a theater, art school and other public buildings and buried hundreds of women and children sheltering in basements, Ukraine said have searched.
“Once again it is clear that the occupiers have no interest in the city of Mariupol. They want to raze them to the ground and make them the ashes of a dead country,” the council said in a statement.
Russia denies attacks on civilians. Ukraine says Moscow has blocked daily efforts to send aid convoys with food and other supplies for civilians or buses to bring them out.
Russia demanded the city’s surrender by dawn Monday, an ultimatum that Kyiv defied.
“We demand the opening of a humanitarian corridor for civilians,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Ukrainian television on Tuesday.
“Our military is heroically defending Mariupol. We did not accept the ultimatum. They have offered surrender under a white flag. This is manipulation, a lie.”
Russia is calling the biggest invasion of Europe since World War II a “military special operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from “Nazis.” The West calls this a false pretext for an unprovoked war against a democratic country.
Mariupol is the largest Ukrainian-held city in the Donetsk region, which Russia has asked Kyiv to cede to Moscow-backed separatists. Russian media on Tuesday quoted a Separatist official as saying half of Mariupol has now been captured.
A part of Mariupol now held by Russian forces, reached by Reuters on Sunday, was an eerie wasteland of windowless, charred apartment blocks. Bodies wrapped in blankets lay along a road. A group of men were digging graves in a patch of grass. Continue reading
MOURNING HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR
US President Joe Biden said Moscow’s recent accusations that Ukraine possesses chemical and biological weapons are not only false, but a sign that President Vladimir Putin may be planning to use such weapons himself.
A Ukrainian service member walks in a destroyed frontline village in east Kyiv region, Ukraine, as the Russian invasion continues, March 21, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
Continue reading
“Now he’s talking about new false flags he’s putting up, including claims that we in America have both biological and chemical weapons in Europe, which is simply not true,” Biden said at a business event Monday. “They also suggest that Ukraine has biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine. It’s a clear sign he’s considering using both.”
Almost a month into the war, Russian troops have not captured a single major city, and their advance has been stopped by Ukrainian defenders on almost all fronts. Moscow has instead turned to bombing cities with artillery, rockets and bombs.
In a late-night speech, Zelenskyi drew attention to the death of Boris Romanchenko, 96, who survived three Nazi concentration camps during World War II but was killed last week when his block of flats in besieged Kharkiv was shelled.
“With every day of this war, it becomes more obvious what ‘denazification’ means to them,” said Zelenskyy.
By killing Romanchenko, “Putin managed to ‘achieve’ what even Hitler couldn’t,” Ukraine’s defense ministry said on Twitter.
REFUGEES
The conflict has displaced almost a quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million people from their homes, including more than 3.5 million refugees who have fled the country, half of them children, in one of the fastest exodus on record.
Rich in black soil, Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain exporters, and the war has caused world prices for staple foods to soar to record levels.
“The most terrible thing will be the famine approaching some countries,” Zelenskyi said in his speech to Italian lawmakers. “Ukraine has always been one of the largest food exporters, but how can we sow under the blows of Russian artillery?” Continue reading
Inside Russia, independent media has been effectively shut down, and it is forbidden to describe the “special operation” as war or invasion. But there are some signs of contradiction.
One of the most prominent news personalities on Russian state television, Zhanna Agalakova, foreign correspondent and former Channel One news anchor, announced at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday that she had resigned in protest of the war. Continue reading
“When I spoke to my bosses, I said I can’t do this job anymore,” she said.
Dmitry Muratov, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in December for his fight for freedom of expression as editor of Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s last independent newspapers, announced that he would auction his medal to raise money for Ukrainian refugees. Continue reading
Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Luhansk, one of two eastern regions Russia is demanding that Ukraine be ceded to pro-Russian separatists, said the entire region is now under shelling.
“We continue to evacuate people as long as we can,” he said. “We see that … the Russians’ sole aim is to destroy Ukraine.”
Reporting from Reuters offices Writing by Peter Graff Editing by Robert Birsel and Mark Heinrich