Russian forces pounding the port city of Mariupol shelled a mosque that was sheltering more than 80 people, including children, the Ukrainian government said on Saturday.
Russian forces pounding the port city of Mariupol shelled a mosque that was sheltering more than 80 people, including children, the Ukrainian government said on Saturday. F ighting also raged in the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and Russia kept up its bombardment of other resisting cities. There was no immediate word of casualties from the shelling of Mariupol’s city-centre mosque. The encircled city of 446,000 people has endured some of Ukraine’s worst misery since Russia invaded, with unceasing barrages thwarting repeated attempts to bring in food, water and medicine, evacuate trapped civilians and even bury the dead. “They are bombing it (Mariupol) 24 hours a day, launching missiles. It is hatred. They kill children,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a video address. An Associated Press journalist in Mariupol witnessed tanks firing on an apartment building and was with a group of hospital workers who came under sniper fire on Friday. A worker shot in the hip survived, but conditions in the hospital were deteriorating: electricity was reserved for operating tables, and people with nowhere else to go lined the hallways. Meanwhile, French and German leaders spoke on Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a failed attempt to reach a ceasefire. According to the Kremlin, Mr Putin laid out terms for ending the war, including Ukraine’s demilitarisation and its ceding of territory, among other demands. Ukraine’s military said on Saturday that Russian forces captured Mariupol’s eastern outskirts, tightening the armed squeeze on the strategic port. Taking Mariupol and other ports on the Azov Sea could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014. Mr Zelensky encouraged his people to keep up their resistance, which many analysts said has prevented the rapid offensive and military victory the Kremlin likely expected while planning to invade Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbour. “The fact that the whole Ukrainian people resist these invaders has already gone down in history, but we do not have the right to let up our defence, no matter how difficult it may be for us,” he said. Later on Saturday, Mr Zelensky reported that 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers have died in fighting since the February 24 start of the Russian invasion. Mr Zelensky again deplored Nato’s refusal to declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine and said Ukraine has sought ways to procure air defence assets, though he did not elaborate.
