A woman who fled besieged Mariupol described how children were dying of dehydration and others starving to death after Russian troops cut off water and food supplies more than three weeks ago.
Victoria, who only gave her first name, told the BBC three babies she knows died because they didn’t have access to drinking water after the snow they melted for supplies ran out. .
Others are currently starving in basements that have been turned into makeshift bomb shelters but are slowly being destroyed by Russian artillery that bombards the city non-stop, “except for a few hours at night,” Victoria added.
She spoke from the village of Yalta, just 12 miles from Mariupol, and managed to escape in a car with her uncle, although other members of her family are still trapped.
Some 300,000 civilians are believed to still be stranded in Mariupol, on the Ukrainian coast of the Sea of Azov, which is being heavily bombed in an attempt to force the surrender of the defending forces.
The deputy mayor of Mariupol yesterday rejected a surrender offer in exchange for allowing civilians to leave, saying Russian security promises cannot be trusted and soldiers determined to fight “to the last man.”
Russia is believed to be concentrating its firepower on Mariupol in an attempt to capture at least one important target after its offensive elsewhere stalled with heavy casualties.
Men from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol place bodies in a mass grave dug on the outskirts as thousands have been killed by Russian bombing, according to official figures.
A woman is holding a child on her shoulder in a makeshift bomb shelter built in the basement of a residential building in Mariupol that has been cut off from food, water and electricity for three weeks.
Women and children take refuge in the basement of an apartment building in Mariupol, southern Ukraine, which has been under near-constant Russian bombardment for three weeks now.
A man injured during Russian shelling of Mariupol lies in a temporary medical shelter, he is undergoing surgery
In an interview with BBC 5 Live, in a voice trembling with excitement, Victoria said: “My city is completely destroyed. Me, my family, all our friends, we don’t have a home right now. All buildings are destroyed, shelling continues… It burns all the time, except for a few hours at night.
“People stay in basements, but this does not save them. They bomb so hard that they even destroy cellars. They don’t have water, we got snow and water a few days ago.
“Three children I know… died of dehydration. It’s the 21st century, and kids in my city are dying of dehydration, now they’re starving.
“Part of my family is still there and my friends’ families are still there. We tried to take them out of the city, but the city is closed. They don’t let people in, so we can’t get them out… it’s impossible.”
Situated on the shores of the Sea of Azov, Mariupol was a key target that was under siege for over three weeks and endured some of the worst suffering of the war.
But no clear independent picture emerged of how close its capture might be. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that their forces were still defending the city and had destroyed a Russian patrol boat and an electronic warfare complex.
For now, Russia controls a land corridor from Crimea, a peninsula it annexed in 2014, and is blocking Ukraine’s access to the Sea of Azov, the ministry said in a statement.
“No one can say from the outside whether it is really on the verge of capture,” said Keir Giles, a Russia expert at the British think tank Chatham House.
Over the weekend, Moscow offered a safe exit from Mariupol, with one corridor leading east to Russia and another west to other parts of Ukraine in exchange for surrendering the city before dawn on Monday. Ukraine categorically rejected this proposal long before the deadline.
Mariupol officials said on March 15 that at least 2,300 people died during the siege, some of them buried in mass graves. There has been no official estimate since then, but there are fears that the number will be much higher after another six days of bombing.
For those who remained, conditions became harsh. The storm cut off electricity, water and food in Mariupol, interrupted communication with the outside world, plunging residents into a struggle for survival. Fresh commercial satellite imagery shows smoke rising from buildings recently hit by Russian artillery.
The pre-war population of Mariupol was about 430,000 people. About a quarter were thought to have left in the early days of the war, and tens of thousands have fled in the past week through humanitarian corridors. Other attempts were thwarted by the fighting.
Somewhere in Mariupol, a house is on fire after being hit by a Russian shell during shelling of the city
Photographer Yevgeny Maloletka among the wreckage of an airstrike on the Azov State Technical University.
Photographer Evgeny Maloletka (left) helps a paramedic transport a woman injured during shelling in Mariupol
A Ukrainian soldier shows off to his comrades as he takes up position near a destroyed building in the city of Mariupol.
Those who managed to escape described a life-and-death struggle under Russian bombardments, skirmishes and corpses lying in the streets to get to safety.
“There are no more buildings there,” said Maria Fedorova, 77, who crossed the border into Poland on Monday after five days of travel.
Olga Nikitina, who fled from Mariupol to the western Ukrainian city of Lvov, where she arrived on Sunday, said gunshots blew out her windows and the temperature in her apartment plunged below freezing.
“Fights went for every street. Every house has become a target,” she said.
A long line of cars stood on the road in Bezymyenny as residents of Mariupol sought refuge in a makeshift camp set up by pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk region.
About 5,000 Mariupol residents took refuge in the camp. Many arrived in cars with the inscription “children” in Russian.
The woman, who identified herself as Yuliya, said she and her family sought refuge in Bezymenny after an explosion destroyed six houses behind her home.
“Therefore, at our own peril and risk, we got into the car and left after 15 minutes, because everything was destroyed there, corpses were lying around,” she said. “They don’t let them through everywhere – they shoot.”
In total, more than 8,000 people fled through humanitarian corridors to safer areas on Monday, including about 3,000 from Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
According to Zelensky, four children were wounded as a result of Russian shelling of a corridor on the route leading from Mariupol.
While Russian troops continued the siege after the city’s defenders withdrew their surrender demands, the Kremlin’s ground offensive in other parts of the country made slow or no progress, driven back by deadly Ukrainian attacks.
On Tuesday morning, the Ukrainian army said it had driven Russian troops out of a strategically important suburb of Kyiv after a fierce battle.
The reclaimed territory allowed Ukrainian forces to regain control of a key highway to the west and block the encirclement of Kyiv by Russian troops from the northwest.
But the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Russian troops fighting towards Kyiv were able to partially take other northwestern suburbs, Bucha, Gostomel and Irpin, some of which have come under attack almost since the Russian invasion late last month.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops are increasingly focusing their aircraft and artillery on Ukrainian cities and the civilian population living there, killing unknown people and sending millions to flight.
A senior US Department of Defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the military’s assessment, said Russia had increased the number of sorties in the past two days to 300 in the past 24 hours and fired more than 1,100 missiles into Ukraine. since the start of the invasion.
In a video message on Monday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed those who had rebuffed Russia.
“There is no need to organize resistance,” Zelensky said. “Resistance for Ukrainians is part of their soul.”