By Pavel Polityuk
Kyiv/MARIUPOL Russia stepped up its new offensive in eastern Ukraine on Friday as teams of volunteers collected bodies from the rubble in the port city of Mariupol after Moscow declared victory there despite opposition from Ukrainian forces.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces had stepped up attacks along the entire front line in the east of the country and were attempting to launch an offensive in the Kharkiv region north of Russia’s main target Donbass.
A senior Russian military commander has said Moscow intends to seize all of southern Ukraine, far broader war aims than Moscow has been trumpeting lately and the latest sign it may not back down after its latest campaign in the east.
Russia says it won the Battle of Mariupol, the biggest battle of the war, after making a decision not to try to exterminate thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who are still holed up in a huge steel mill that covers much of the city center takes.
According to Kyiv, 100,000 civilians are still in the city and need to be evacuated. She claims Moscow’s decision not to invade the Azovstal Steel Plant is proof that Russia does not have the strength to defeat the Ukrainian defenders.
Guns largely fell silent in a Russianheld part of the city and stunned residents ventured onto the streets on Wednesday against a backdrop of charred apartment blocks and wrecked cars. Some carried suitcases and household items.
Volunteers in hazmat suits and white masks combed through the rubble, collected bodies from the apartments and loaded them onto a truck with the letter “Z”, a symbol of the Russian invasion.
According to Maxar, a commercial satellite company, images from space show freshly dug mass graves on the outskirts of the city. Ukraine estimates that tens of thousands of civilians died in the city during nearly two months of Russian bombing and siege.
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According to the United Nations and the Red Cross, the number of civilian casualties is still unknown, but is at least in the thousands. Russia denies attacks on civilians and says it saved the city from nationalists.
In Zaporizhzhia, where 79 residents of Mariupol arrived on the first bus convoy sanctioned by Russia to other parts of Ukraine, Valentyna Andrushenko held back tears as she recalled the ordeal during the siege.
“They (the Russians) bombed us from day one. They destroy everything,” she said of the city.
Kyiv said no further withdrawals are planned for Friday. Moscow claims to have brought 140,000 residents of Mariupol to Russia; Kyiv says many of them were forcibly deported for war crimes.
The city’s mayor, Vadym Boichenko, who is no longer in Mariupol, said: “We only need one thing the complete withdrawal of the population. About 100,000 people remain in Mariupol.”