The Russian army and its separatist allies are now fighting in downtown Mariupol, a besieged strategic Ukrainian port in the southeast of the country, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday (March 18th).
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"In Mariupol, the units of the People's Republic
(self-proclaimed, editor's note)
of Donetsk, with the support of the Russian armed forces, tighten their grip of encirclement and fight the nationalists in the center of the city"
, indicated the spokesman. of the ministry, Igor Konashenkov.
He also assured that Russian forces and Lugansk separatists now control 90% of the territory of the eponymous Ukrainian region.
Shortly before the February 24 offensive, Moscow had recognized the independence of the separatist territories of Lugansk and Donetsk.
Bombing of a theater where civilians, including children, had taken refuge, human toll uncertain
On Wednesday, a bombardment hit the drama theater of the city, where some 500 to 1000 people had taken refuge.
Almost half of the neoclassical building appears to have collapsed in the wake of an airstrike.
On Friday, however, no official human toll was communicated, as rescuers are struggling to access the area and clear the rubble.
Western journalists are also extremely rare to be able to access the city.
This photo, published on Telegram, by the governor of the Donetsk region Pavlo Kirilenko, Wednesday March 16, 2022, shows the Drama Theater, destroyed by an airstrike in Mariupol (south-eastern Ukraine).
Ukraine accused Russia of having bombed this theater where nearly a thousand people had taken refuge.
Handout / TELEGRAM / pavlokyrylenko_donoda / AFP
This theater
"was heavily bombarded on Wednesday, although it served as a well-known and clearly identified shelter for civilians, including children"
, denounced the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, in a statement on Thursday. .
The American space technology company Maxar Technologies, which specializes in satellite imagery, released a photo of the theater, taken on Monday, according to it.
In this photo consulted by AFP, the word
“children”
was written, in huge white letters and in Russian, in front and behind the building.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: the world in shock after the bombing of the Mariupol theater
However, several Ukrainian local elected officials claimed that the theater's bomb shelters, in the basements, would have resisted and that there would be many survivors.
The Ukrainian human rights envoy, Lioudmyla Denisova, notably indicated that the shelter had resisted the bombardment.
"We think everyone survived
," she said on television, adding on Telegram messaging that survivors had begun to be extricated from the rubble.
The General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine affirmed for its part that
"information"
reported
"wounded including children"
, while Telegram messaging accounts evoke 130 people who could have fled the ruins.
Ukrainian parliamentarian Sergei Taruta also claimed that the shelter resisted.
“It is made up of three parts, and it is not yet known if they have been damaged
,” he wrote on Facebook.
Several people
"came out in the morning after the residents cleared the debris themselves
," he said.
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Russia, for its part, claimed not to have bombed the city, and argued that the building had been destroyed by the Ukrainian nationalist Azov battalion.
According to the Italian Minister of Culture, Rome is
“willing to rebuild the theater”
.
“Government has approved my proposal to offer Ukraine the resources and means to rebuild it as soon as possible
,” he tweeted.
The theaters of all countries belong to all of humanity
.
Bombing of a maternity ward and a pediatric hospital
Last week, the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrel had already described as a
“heinous war crime”
the Russian bombardment of an establishment housing a maternity hospital and a pediatric hospital in Mariupol, Wednesday March 9.
A balance sheet of 3 dead, including a girl and 17 wounded, was given.
Screen capture from a video released by the Ukrainian national police on March 9, 2022, showing people being evacuated from a pediatric hospital, after a Russian airstrike, in Mariupol (southeastern Ukraine).
AFP Photos/ National police of Ukraine / Handout.
Read alsoThe pregnant woman evacuated to Mariupol died with her baby
On the Russian side, the government again referred to its adversary, first claiming, the day after the strike, that Ukrainian “
nationalist battalions
” were using the hospital as a firing base.
On March 15, the spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense finally described
this bombardment as
“staged”
by Ukrainian
“nationalists” .
The governor of the region Pavlo Kyrylenko also said on Tuesday that Russian forces were holding employees of a hospital in Mariupol and 400 residents of the neighborhood
"hostage"
inside the establishment.
Charges that could not be independently verified.
Uninterrupted bombardments, 30,000 civilians evacuated in one week, catastrophic humanitarian situation
The port city of Mariupol has been besieged for fifteen days by the Russian army.
The humanitarian situation there is catastrophic - residents lack water, food, electricity and heating, and humanitarian corridors have struggled to set up over the past two weeks.
After a series of failures, for lack of a Russian-Ukrainian ceasefire, the evacuations finally accelerated.
The town hall thus announced on Thursday the evacuation of 30,000 people in one week.
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On Tuesday, a few thousand of them arrived in Zaporizhzhia (250 km to the northwest), aboard 570 vehicles, many of which no longer had windows or windshields.
Arriving in small groups, these cars carrying bits of white fabric hanging from the mirrors as a white flag parked in the parking lot of a shopping center on the outskirts of the city, which has become a registration center for the thousands of civilians fleeing Russian bombs.
Residents of evacuated Mariupol take refuge in a shopping center on the outskirts of the city of Zaporizhzhia on March 16, 2022. Exhausted, trembling, the refugees recount a harrowing journey, forced to drive away from the roads to avoid troops Russians, and describing the many corpses littering the streets.
Emre CAYLAK / AFP
All described a grueling journey during which they were forced to drive away from the roads to avoid Russian troops and checkpoints, in constant fear of enemy fire, sometimes crossing minefields.
The word “children” was written in Russian, in capital letters, on the window of this car, part of the convoy of some 570 vehicles, which left Mariupol to reach the city of Zaporizhzhia (250 km to the north-west).
More than 2,100 Mariupol residents have been killed since the Russian invasion, according to city authorities.
Emre CAYLAK / AFP
Arriving in small groups, these cars, part of a humanitarian evacuation convoy from Mariupol, carrying pieces of white cloth hanging from the rear-view mirrors as a white flag, parked in the parking lot of a shopping center in aporizhzhia (250 km to the northwest).
Emre CAYLAK / AFP
350,000 civilians still holed up in shelters and cellars, many civilians killed, the terrible story of two AP journalists
But some 350,000 people are still in the city and
"continue to hide in shelters and cellars"
, said the town hall, according to which
"50 to 100 bombs"
are dropped by Russian planes on average every day.
The municipality also spoke of
“colossal” destruction.
According to initial estimates, around 80% of the city's housing stock was destroyed.
"They fire so many rockets, there are a lot of bodies of dead civilians in the streets,"
Tamara Kavounenko, 58, told AFP.
The only two journalists from a Western media, Chernov and Evgeniy Maloletka, from the Associated Press agency, published Wednesday, March 16 an unbearable account of the daily life of the inhabitants of Mariupol, since the beginning of the Russian siege.
They evoke in particular the mass graves, the death of children - Kirill, 18 months, killed by a shrapnel in the head, a 6-year-old girl and her unicorn pajamas - or even this 16-year-old teenager whose legs were blown off during a school football game.
The municipality told AP that more than 2,500 residents have been killed since the siege of Mariupol began, but "
several bodies cannot be identified due to the incessant shelling"
.
The inhabitants are also forced to leave the remains of their relatives in the street, the organization of funerals being too dangerous.
AP journalists still report that many
"children and mothers"
are among the civilians killed.
A strategic area for the turning point of the war
Located about 55 kilometers from the Russian border and 85 kilometers from the separatist stronghold of Donetsk, Mariupol is the largest city yet – for how long?
- in the hands of kyiv in the Donbass basin which includes the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.
The capture by Moscow of this port city, populated before the war by 450,000 inhabitants and located on the shores of the Sea of Azov, would be a turning point in the invasion of Ukraine.
It would make it possible to make the connection between the Russian forces coming from annexed Crimea, which have already taken the ports of Berdiansk and Kherson, and the separatist and Russian troops in the Donbass.
