Russia – Ukraine war: mayor of Mariupol estimates that 5,000 civilians have died in the city

The mayor of the besieged port city of Mariupol estimated on Wednesday that 5,000 civilians have lost their lives in the town, while Ukraine he was still collecting evidence of Russian atrocities outside kyiv and preparing for what could become a crucial battle for control of the country’s east.

Ukrainian authorities continued to collect bodies from the capital’s blighted suburbs amid revealing evidence that Russian soldiers indiscriminately killed civilians before retreating in recent days.

on other frontsthe United States and its Western allies prepared to impose new sanctions on the Kremlin for what they classified as war crimes.

What’s more, Russia completed the withdrawal of at least 24,000 troops from the kyiv and Chernihiv areas, in the north, sending them to Belarus or Russia to resupply and reorganize, distinguished a US defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warns that Moscow is reorganizing its reinforcements and will try to enter the east of the countryWhere is he donbasthe industrial heartland of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking majority that the Kremlin has said it intends to “liberate.”

“The fate of our land and our people is being decided. We know what we are fighting for. And we will do everything to win.” assured Zelensky.

Ukrainian authorities urged Donbas residents to evacuate ahead of the impending Russian offensive, while there is still time.

“Later on, the inhabitants will be attacked,” said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, “and we won’t be able to do anything to help.”

A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence assessments, said it could take up to a month for battered Russian forces to regroup for a full-scale offensive in eastern Ukraine.

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said that of the more than 5,000 civilians who have died after several weeks of Russian offensive, 210 were children.. He claimed that Russian forces attacked hospitals, including one where 50 people were burned to death.

Boichenko noted that more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed. The devastating attacks on the port located on the Sea of ​​Azov have left the city without supplies of water, food, fuel and medicine, as well as destroying residences and businesses.

UK defense officials said 160,000 people were still trapped in the city, which had a population of 430,000 before the war. A humanitarian aid caravan accompanied by the Red Cross has tried unsuccessfully to enter the city since Friday.

Taking control of the city would allow Russia to create a continuous land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Meanwhile, in the charred and silent streets of Bucha and other towns around the Ukrainian capital from where Russian forces withdrew, investigators are trying to document what appears to be a massacre of civilians. Some of the victims were shot at close range. Some others were found with their hands tied or with skin burns.

At a Bucha cemetery, workers began loading a food truck with more than 60 bodies that have apparently been collected in recent days to be sent to a facility for further analysis.

There are still bodies to collect in Bucha. The Associated Press saw two bodies inside a residence in a neighborhood that remained silent. From time to time there was the rumble of workers clearing the town of mines and unexploded ordnance.

In Andriivka, a town about 60 kilometers (40 miles) west of kyiv, two policemen from the nearby town of Makariv went Tuesday to identify a man whose body lay in a field next to tank tracks. The authorities have 20 bodies in the Makariv area, highlights Captain Alla Pustova.

Residents of Andriivka said the Russians arrived in the area in early March and seized the phones of locals. Some people were arrested and later released. The parade of others is unknown. Some residents recounted how they sheltered for weeks in cellars that they usually used to store vegetables during the winter.

As the sixth week of fighting drew to a close, soldiers left and Russian armored personnel carriers, a tank and other vehicles were destroyed on both sides of a road through the village. Several buildings were reduced to piles of bricks and twisted metal. Residents had to endure the lack of heat, electricity or cooking gas.

“At first we were scared, now we are hysterical,” said 64-year-old Valentyna Klymenko. She, her husband and two neighbors survived the siege by sleeping on sacks of potatoes covered with mattresses and blankets. “At first we didn’t cry. Now we cry.”

To the north of the town, in the town of Borodyanka, rescue teams would recover the rubble of residential buildings in search of bodies. Anti-mine crews worked nearby.

The Kremlin has insisted that its troops did not commit war crimes, saying the images of Bucha are staged by the Ukrainians.

After their attempts to quickly take control of the capital were thwarted, a growing number of Russian soldiers and mercenaries have been fanning out into Donbas, according to various reports.

At least five people died in Russian attacks on Wednesday in the Donetsk region of Donbas, reported Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, who urged the population to evacuate to safer areas.

Russian soldiers also attacked a fuel depot and a factory in the Dnipropetrovsk region, west of Donbas, authorities said. In addition, Russian artillery fired at least 10 buildings and a shopping center in the town of Sievierodonetsk, the regional governor reported. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Ukrainian forces have been fighting pro-Russian separatists in Donbas since 2014. Before the February 24 invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk regions as independent states.

According to Ukrainian authorities, the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been discovered in various towns near kyiv, and Associated Press journalists in Bucha counted dozens of bodies in civilian clothes and interviewed Ukrainians who said they witnessed the atrocities.

In a video address to the United Nations Security Council, Zelenskyy said on Thursday that civilians have been raped, tortured, executed, thrown into wells, grenaded to death inside their apartments and crushed by tanks while in their vehicles. .

In response to the alleged atrocities, the United States has announced sanctions against Putin’s two adult daughters and said it will stand by their crackdown on Russian banks. Britain has banned investment in Russia and has vowed to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil before the end of the year.

The European Union also has additional sanctions planned, including a coal embargo.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, the group Doctors Without Borders said members of its staff saw an attack on a cancer hospital in a residential district in the southern city of Mykolaiv on Monday. The characteristic organization is that it is the third known attack in recent days against a hospital in the port town, whose fall would be key to giving Russia control of the Black Sea coast.

Doctors Without Borders said it does not have a precise death toll, but that its team saw a body.

Source: Elcomercio

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