By Tim StellohNBC
News
Satellite images released Tuesday by a US defense contractor reveal the devastation in residential areas of Mariupol, Ukraine, and the grim reality facing the thousands of starving civilians who remain there.
The images, from Colorado-based Maxar Technologies, capture a once-green neighborhood that has been largely leveled by Russian artillery bombardment and airstrikes.
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The images also reveal what the company said was a grocery store in the western part of the city.
Outside, a line of what Maxar said were hundreds of people can be seen winding through a parking lot.
Satellite images of the destruction of houses and buildings in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 29, 2022. Maxar Technologies / DigitalGlobe/Getty Images
Another image shows what remains of a theater that was bombed earlier this month.
Local authorities have said that 1,000 people were sheltering inside the Drama Theater when Russian forces attacked the building on March 16, killing at least 300 people.
[Russia says it will 'drastically' reduce operations near Ukraine's capital]
NBC News, sister network of Noticias Telemundo, has not been able to independently verify this claim, and Russia has denied targeting civilians.
Ukrainian officials have been saying for days that the tens of thousands of residents who stayed behind in the strategically important port city have seen food and water supplies dwindle amid relentless Russian bombardment.
Officials have accused Russian forces of blocking supplies and shelling and capturing those who try to flee.
NBC News has also been unable to independently confirm those accounts.
Satellite images reveal the devastation of residential apartment buildings in the Livoberezhnyi district, east of Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 29, 2022. Maxar/DigitalGlobe/Getty Images
During a phone call Tuesday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron — who has tried to negotiate an evacuation of the city — a Kremlin readout claimed that Putin discussed his military's efforts to "provide urgent humanitarian assistance." and to "ensure the safe evacuation of civilians".
"It was stressed that in order to resolve the serious humanitarian situation in this city, Ukrainian nationalist militants must stop resisting and lay down their arms," the reading noted.
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An Elysee Palace source called Russia's position on the city "tough" and pointed to its strategic value: Mariupol would create a land bridge between Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, and Moscow-backed separatists in the east.
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"There is, therefore, a situation of pressure, tension and harshness, of non-compliance with international humanitarian law that is very clear," the source said, adding that Putin listened to Marcon's requests and said he would think about them.
The United Nations announced Tuesday that at least 1,100 civilians have been confirmed dead in just over a month of fighting in the country.
But Joyce Msuya, the organization's deputy secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said the true death toll was probably much higher, but almost impossible to count.
"Cities like Mariupol, Kharkiv, Chernihiv and many others, bustling and full of life just a month ago, are surrounded, bombed and blocked," he told the organization's Security Council.