Russia was accused of war crimes and genocide against Ukraine last night as fighting in the besieged city of Mariupol reached a new intensity.
Rescue teams searched the rubble of a school that was bombed by Russian forces while fighting reached the city centre. The rescuers were still trying to free hundreds of people trapped under a theatre that was hit by an airstrike last week when the school was struck.
The school is believed to have been sheltering about 400 people. It is not known how many were killed or injured. Olha Stefanishyna, a deputy prime minister, said she believed that genocide was being committed against the Ukrainian people. She accused Russia of forcibly abducting thousands of Mariupol’s residents and taking them to Russian-controlled territory to be used for propaganda.
Russian state media have shown film in which unnamed people claiming to be from Mariupol have said they were held hostage there by Ukrainian forces.
The heightened attacks against civilians in the city came as the Russian defence minister gave Ukraine’s leaders until the early hours of this morning to surrender Mariupol. Ukraine dismissed the offer and the deadline passed.
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In other developments:
• Russia fired its new-generation Kinzhal hypersonic missile at targets in Ukraine, in the first combat use of a weapon that President Putin says can overcome any air defence system.
• Amid claims that the Russian campaign is stalling, analysts have predicted that the Kremlin’s tactics may be changing and that it is preparing for a more attritional war.
• Last night shells hit homes and a shopping centre in Kyiv, the city’s mayor said.
• Ukrainian forces claimed to have shot dead the deputy commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, said to be the first death of a senior naval officer in the war.
• President Zelensky said negotiations with Moscow were the only way to avoid a third world war but that certain compromises could not be made.
• Ten million people have fled their homes in Ukraine due to Russia’s “devastating” war, according to the head of the United Nations refugee agency.
• China’s ambassador to the United States said that Beijing was not sending weapons to Russia but refused to rule out doing so.
• More than 40 Ukrainian marines in Mykolaiv were killed in a rocket attack that hit their barracks while they slept, according to military officials.
• Boris Johnson told Zelensky that Britain was committed to stepping up military, economic and diplomatic support for Ukraine.
Inna Sovsun, a Ukrainian MP, said that residents of Mariupol had been taken to camps after Russian troops began checking documents and phones. Some people were then put on trains to Russia, she said. “They’re taking Ukrainian citizens, sending them through what are called filtration camps, and then relocating them to distant parts of Russia to work for free,” she told Times Radio. “This is the logic of Nazi Germany.”
In Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, the authorities said that shellfire from a tank apparently struck a home for the elderly, killing 56 people. The reports of the killings, which are unverified, in the town of Kreminna came from Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s human rights ombudswoman. She said that 15 survivors had been taken away by Russian troops.
•The Times view on British law firms’ links to Russia: Oligarchs’ Privilege
“Today it became known about another terrible crime against humanity committed by the racist occupation forces,” she wrote. “It is still impossible to get to the site of the tragedy to bury the dead old people.” Denisova said the survivors had been sent to economically depressed cities in Russia.
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Russia said 480 residents had been taken by train to the city of Yaroslavl near Moscow, and would be housed at a sanatorium. Russian media claimed it was their “dream” to live in Russia.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said she was disturbed by the reports. “It is unconscionable for Russia to force Ukrainian citizens into Russia and put them in what will basically be concentration and prisoner camps,” she told CNN. The UN said it had confirmed the deaths of 902 civilians in the war, including 75 children, though it said this was almost certainly an underestimate.
Zelensky compared the Russian invasion to the Holocaust in a speech to the Israeli Knesset. “The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not a military operation as it’s presented in Moscow,” he said. “It is an all-out war, illegitimate, intended to destroy our people, our country, our cities, our culture and our children.”
