Kiev, Ukraine (AP) – Workers excavating rubble from a residential building in Mariupol found 200 bodies in a basement, Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday as more terror erupted in the devastated city. 3 months war.
Corpses are falling and the smell remains in the area, said Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the mayor. He did not say when they were discovered, but the large number of casualties makes it one of the war’s deadliest known attacks.
Meanwhile, intense fighting continued in the Donbas, an eastern industrial region planned to be occupied by Moscow forces. Russian troops intensified their efforts to besiege and capture Sivierododetsk and other cities.
Mariupol almost mercilessly beat Three-month siege ended last week After approximately 2,500 Ukrainian fighters left the steel mill where they were. Russian troops have already occupied the rest of the city, where about 100,000 people remain in the 450,000 pre-war population, many of them. Very little food, water, heat or electricity was obtained during the siege.
According to Ukrainian authorities, at least 21,000 people were killed in the siege, accusing Russia of covering up atrocities, introducing mobile cremation equipment and burying the dead in mass graves.
During the attack on Mariupol, the Russian air force hit A. Neonatology And a theater from which civilians fled. It was established by an Associated Press investigation Approximately 600 people were killed in the attack on the theater. Double the number estimated by the Ukrainian authorities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russians of “total war” and caused as much death and destruction to his country as possible.
“In fact, such a war has not happened on the continent of Europe in 77 years,” Zelensky said at the end of World War II.
Moscow -backed separatists fought Ukrainian forces in the Donbas for eight years and occupied most of the territory. Sievierdonetsk and its neighboring cities are the only part of the Luhansk region in the Donbass that is still under the control of the Ukrainian government.
Russian forces have achieved “some local success” despite Ukraine’s strong opposition to the excavated positions, British military officials said.
In the Donetsk region of Donbass, Moscow troops captured the industrial city of Svitlodarsky and hoisted the Russian flag there, according to Ukrainian media. And in the city of Liman, fierce fighting took place.
In between the fighting, two high-ranking Russian officials appeared to admit that Moscow’s progress had been slower than expected, though they promised that the attack would achieve its goals.
Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of Russia. The Russian government is “not meeting deadlines”. And Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting of the former Soviet Union Security Council that Moscow was deliberately slowing down the attack to evacuate residents of the besieged cities, even though the military has repeatedly hit the civilian targets.
Russian officials also said Moscow forces had completed demining Mariupol waters and a safe corridor would be opened on Wednesday to allow up to 70 foreign vessels to cross Ukraine’s southern coast.
In Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city, there are signs of recovery after weeks of bombing. This week, residents formed long lines for flour, pasta, sugar and other staple products. Moscow forces withdrew from the Kharkiv area earlier this month and retreated to the Russian border amid Ukrainian counterattacks.
Galina Colembed, coordinator of the Rescue Distribution Center, said more and more people are returning to the city. Colembed said the center delivers food to more than 1,000 people a day, a growing number.
“A lot of them have small children and spend money on kids, so they need help with food,” he said.
Meanwhile, the commander-in-chief’s wife, who is at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, said on Tuesday that she had a brief phone conversation with her husband, who surrendered to the Russians and was taken away last week.
Katerina Prokopenko, who is married to Azov regimental leader Denis Prokopenko, said the call was cut off before she could say anything about herself.
He said the call was made possible thanks to an agreement between Ukraine and Russia administered by the Red Cross.
Prokopenko and Yulia Fedosyuk, wife of another soldier, said several families had called in the past two days. The women said they hoped the soldiers would not torture them and that eventually they would “go home”.
Denis Pushlin, the leader of Moscow -backed separatists in the Donetsk region, told Russia’s Interfax news agency that preparations were underway for the trial of captured Ukrainian soldiers, including Mariupol defenders. .
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Reported by Becatoros from Kramatorsk, Ukraine. Associated Press journalists Jura Carmanau in Lviv, Andrea Rosa in Kharkov, Danika Kirka in London and other AP staff members from around the world.
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Follow the AP coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Source: Huffpost
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.