LVIV, Ukraine ( Associated Press) — The mayor of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol said on Monday that more than 10,000 civilians have been killed in the Russian siege of his city, and that the death toll could surpass 20,000, with corpses that were left behind. Were “through the carpet”. streets.”
Speaking by phone to the Associated Press on Monday, Mayor Vadim Boychenko also said that the Russian military brought mobile cremation equipment to Mariupol to dispose of the bodies, and that they directed humanitarian convoys into the city in an attempt to hide the massacre on Russian forces. accused of refusing.
Boychenko said the Russian military had moved several bodies to a huge shopping center with storage facilities and refrigerators.
“Mobile cremations have come in the form of trucks: you open it, and there’s a pipe inside and these bodies are burned,” he said.
Graphic Warning: Videos may contain disturbing content.
Immediately after the Russian missile attack on the railway station (Alex Merkulov).
The mayor’s remarks came after Russia claimed it had destroyed several Ukrainian air-defense systems, a renewed push to gain air superiority and pull out weapons that Kyiv had formerly called a Important before the expected widespread new invasion.
In an attack, Moscow said it struck four S-300 launchers near the central city of Dnipro, provided by a European country that did not wish to be named. Slovakia gave Ukraine a similar system last week but denies it has been dismantled. Russia had previously reported two attacks on similar systems in other locations.
The failure to gain complete control of Ukraine’s skies has hampered Moscow’s ability to provide air cover for troops on the ground, limiting their progress and potentially exposing them to greater damage.
With their invasion thwarted in many parts of the country, Russian forces have become increasingly reliant on bombing cities – a tactic that has leveled many urban areas and killed thousands.
Ukrainian officials accused Russian forces of atrocities, including a massacre in the city of Buka outside Kyiv, airstrikes on hospitals and a missile attack that killed at least 57 people at a train station last week.
In Bucha, work resumed on Monday from a mass grave in a churchyard.
Galina Feoktistova waited hours in the cold and rain hoping to identify her 50-year-old son, who had been shot and killed more than a month ago, but eventually went home for some warmth. “He’s still there,” said his surviving son, Andrey.
The mayor said about 120,000 citizens in Mariupol are in dire need of food, water, heat and communication.
Boychenko said only residents who passed through the Russian “filtration camp” have been released from the city. He said improvised prisons were organized for those who did not pass “filtering”, while at least 33,000 were taken to separatist territory in Russia or Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the UN children’s agency said nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion began. The United Nations has verified that 142 children have been killed and 229 injured, although the actual number is likely to be much higher.
Elsewhere, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehmer said he met in Moscow on Monday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin that were “very direct, open and difficult”.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine is moving to the southeast. (Nation World News, UNTV, NATO TV, POOL)
In a statement released by his office, Nehmer said his primary message to Putin was “this war needs to end, because in a war both sides can only lose.” Nehamer said he also raised the issue of war crimes committed by the Russian military and said those responsible “will be accounted for.”
Austria is a member of the European Union and has supported the 27-nation bloc’s sanctions against Russia, although so far it has opposed cuts to Russian gas deliveries. The country is militarily neutral and is not a member of NATO.
In other developments, the head of the separatist rebel government in Donetsk said the Ukrainian military had lost control of the Mariupol port area.
“With regard to the port of Mariupol, it is now under our control,” President of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin told Russian news agencies. The claim could not be immediately confirmed.
The mayor said the fight was on.
“It is difficult, but our heroic army continues,” Boychenko said. “Fights happen in the harbour. Yesterday, our valiant warriors knocked on several positions of equipment and, accordingly, reprimanded the infantry.
Russia has appointed a seasoned general to spearhead its renewed advance in the eastern Donbass region, where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014 and declared independent states.
The Pentagon’s latest assessment is that Russia is prepared for a swift offensive there as more troops and material move to the region.
A senior US defense official said a long convoy with support from artillery, aviation and infantry was heading towards the eastern city of Izium.
Residents of a small Ukrainian town successfully fought against Russian troops. (Nation World News, Sergiy Potushinsky, Facebook, Ghost)
More artillery is being deployed near the city of Donetsk, while ground combat units withdrawing from around the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions appear destined for refitting and re-supplying prior to the situation in the Donbass, said the official, who conducted internal US operations. spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. military assessment.
Both sides are exploring what could be a devastating war of escape.
Retired British general Richard Barones, co-chairman of UK-based strategic consulting firm Universal Defense and Security Solutions, said Russian forces would seek to encircle the Donbass region from the north and south as well as from the east.
The ground in that part of Ukraine is flatter, more open and less wooded — so the Ukrainian ambush tactics used around Kyiv may be less successful, Barons said.
“As a result, it’s subtly balanced right now,” Barons said. If the Russians learn from their past failures, concentrate more forces, better link their air forces to ground forces, and improve their logistics, “then they may eventually begin to dominate Ukrainian positions, although I still Looks like it’s going to be a huge fight.”
In a video address to South Korean lawmakers on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky specifically requested equipment that can shoot down Russian missiles.
But those weapons could become increasingly vulnerable to attack as Russia seeks to shift the balance in the 6-week-old war.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said the military used cruise missiles to destroy four launchers on the southern outskirts of Dnipro on Sunday. He said the army also targeted similar systems in the Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions.
The Russian claims could not be independently verified.
The Pentagon said it saw no evidence to support Russia’s claims. And Slovakia’s prime minister’s spokeswoman Lubika Janikova denied Monday that the S-300 systems sent to Ukraine had been destroyed. She said that no other claim is true.
Questions remain about the ability of depleted and demoralized Russian forces to conquer much ground after their advance on Kyiv was repulsed by Ukrainian defenders.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that Ukraine has already repelled several attacks by Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions – which make up the Donbass – that resulted in the destruction of Russian tanks, vehicles and artillery.
Western military analysts say Russia’s attack is focused on an area stretching from Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv in the north to Kherson in the south.
A fire broke out in a residential area of Kharkiv on Monday afternoon. Associated Press reporters watched as firefighters put out the fire and examined victims after the attack and noticed that at least five people, including a child, were killed.
Kharkiv’s regional governor, Oleh Sinyehubov, said earlier on Monday that 11 people had been killed in Russian shelling in the past 24 hours.
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Karamanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Anna reported from Buka, Ukraine. Associated Press writer Robert Burns in Washington and Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.
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