MYKOLAIV, Ukraine — Increasingly indiscriminate Russian shelling that has trapped and traumatized Ukrainian civilians magnified fears Monday of an intensifying humanitarian crisis that has already left tens of thousands without food, water, power, or heat in besieged cities of southern Ukraine and elsewhere.
As hopes for even brief cease-fires flare and then just as quickly sputter, the Russian invasion, which is the biggest conflict to engulf Europe since World War II, has turned at least 1.7 million Ukrainians — half of them children — into refugees, according to the United Nations. Many are trapped in their own cities, pinned down by intense barrages from Russian forces.
In Mariupol, a southeast port in Moscow’s crosshairs, desperate residents have gone for days without food, water, and other essentials. And in the city of Mykolaiv, residents fled their beds for safety Monday when stymied Russian forces launched a deadly predawn barrage at a military barracks.
“They attacked our city dishonorably, cynically, while people were sleeping,” Vataliy Kim, governor of the Mykolaiv region, posted on Facebook.
With the third round of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia ending inconclusively Monday, the fighting raged on. Late in the evening, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s military, Valery Zaluzhnyy, said warplanes and an anti-aircraft missile had downed two Russian planes near Kyiv, the capital. Several large explosions were heard in Kyiv, but it was not immediately possible to confirm the commander’s account.
Although it is often hard to verify the competing claims of success on the battlefield, there is agreement that Russia’s military has failed to take any major city in its effort to subdue the Western-leaning country President Vladimir Putin has vowed to subjugate.
Though many times larger than their adversary and enjoying more advanced weapons and air superiority, Russian forces have become bogged down just about everywhere, struggling with logistical problems, apparent poor troop morale, and tactical errors that Ukrainian troops have exploited.
Unable to make major military gains, the Russians are carrying out a campaign of the indiscriminate bombing that is terrorizing the residents of Ukrainian cities and villages.
In Mariupol, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian government, said the city did not have medicine, heat, or a functioning water system.
Officials at the United Nations, which has been powerless to stop the war, pleaded for combatants to pause long enough for trapped civilians to leave conflict zones.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
