The theater, which housed “hundreds of civilians”, was the target of a Russian airstrike in Mariupol on Wednesday. “The number of victims is still unknown,” President Zelensky said the day before.
“A terrible war crime.” On Wednesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba denounced the bombing of the Mariupol theater by the Russian army on Twitter. The shelling of this theater of operations, announced at the end of the day by the mayor’s office of southeastern Ukraine, was the culmination of the 21st day of the Russian invasion.
• Remaining human casualties at this indeterminate stage
“The plane dropped a bomb on a building where hundreds of civilians were hiding. It is impossible to immediately establish the number of dead, as shelling of residential premises continues, ”the mayor’s office wrote on Telegram at the end of the day.
During the night, AFP reported that the number of human casualties had not yet been determined.
There were at least a thousand people in the theater, our colleagues from the BBC report. According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the building was “completely destroyed.”
US space technology company Maxar Technologies, which specializes in satellite imagery, released a snapshot of the Mariupol Drama Theater hours after Wednesday’s explosion. The picture was taken on Monday, the company said.
According to a photograph seen by AFP, the word “children” was written on the ground in huge white letters in Russian on the front and back of the building to signal their presence to would-be fighter pilots. “The Russians couldn’t help but know!” launched by Dmitry Kuleba.
• Zelenskiy denounces “deliberate” action
On the night of Wednesday to Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also blamed Moscow. “The Russian Air Force deliberately dropped a bomb on a theater in the city center,” he said in a video posted on social media.
“Hundreds of people were hiding there, fleeing the shelling. The building is destroyed. The number of victims is still unknown. My heart is broken”.
• Moscow denies bombing theater
The Russian Defense Ministry denies the bombing of the theatre, blaming the Ukrainian nationalist battalion Azov for the explosion. Moscow has already questioned this military unit during the bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital last weekwhich caused an international outcry.