Kyiv: Officials in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, surrounded by Russian forces, said on Saturday they were delaying an evacuation of the civilian population, accusing Moscow’s troops of breaking a ceasefire.
“Due to the fact that the Russian side does not adhere to the ceasefire and has continued shelling both of Mariupol itself and its environs and for security reasons, the evacuation of the civilian population has been postponed,” city officials said in a statement on social media.
Mariupol, a southern city of about 450,000 people on the Azov Sea, was scheduled to begin the evacuations at 0900 GMT, after Russian forces agreed a ceasefire to allow civilians to leave the fighting.
“We ask all Mariupol residents to disperse and head to places where they can shelter. More information about the evacuation will be posted soon,” municipal officials wrote.
“At the moment, negotiations are underway with Russia to establish a ceasefire and ensure a safe humanitarian corridor,” the statement added.
Russia’s defence ministry later accused Ukraine nationalists in Mariupol and Volnovakha — a town of 20,000 people near the rebel centre of Donetsk — of blocking Ukrainians from leaving towards Russia.
“The same is happening in Kharkiv and Sumy, as well as in a number of other settlements,” the defence ministry said in a statement, referring to two other cities in eastern Ukraine at the centre of fighting.
It also said it had respected the ceasefire and accused Ukrainian forces of shoring up defences during the halt in fighting.
The siege came as more Russian forces inched closer to the capital Kyiv, encountering stiff resistance in the western suburbs and the northern town of Chernihiv.
Dozens of civilians have been killed in shelling, missile attacks and air raids, and now those remaining live among the town’s ruins and in craters.
“There were corpses all over the ground,” Sergei told AFP, as air raid sirens wailed once more. “They were queueing here for the pharmacy that’s just there, and they’re all dead.”
Reporters who visited the town Saturday saw scenes of devastation — despite Moscow’s insistence it is not targeting civilian areas.
Fears are rising in Kyiv that the capital will suffer the same fate once Russian missile artillery is deployed within range.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov alleged Russia had changed tactics after encountering tough resistance.
Ukraine, he said, had defeated Russia’s plan to quickly storm major cities and overthrow President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government, forcing Moscow to resort to “cowardly” attacks on civilians.
Zelensky remains defiant and announced Saturday that Ukrainian forces were counter-attacking around Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, which has seen Russian incursions and fierce bombardments.
“We inflict such losses on the invaders that they have not seen even in their worst dream,” he said.
Since Putin’s army invaded on February 24, Russia has pummelled Ukrainian cities, with officials reporting hundreds of civilians killed. Europe’s largest atomic power plant has even come under attack sparking fears of a catastrophic nuclear accident.
But Moscow has so far only seized two key cities in its 10-day-long invasion — Berdiansk and Kherson on Ukraine’s southern Black Sea coast.
Capturing Mariupol represents a bigger prize for Russian forces as it would deal a severe blow to Ukraine’s maritime access and connect with troops coming from annexed Crimea and the Donbas. — AFP
