Alarm grows over Mariupol as Russia squeezes Kyiv
A satellite image shows a multispectral close up view of apartment buildings and fires, in the western section of Mariupol, Ukraine March 12. Reuters-Yonhap
Russian forces upped the pressure on Kyiv, Saturday, and pummeled civilian areas in other Ukrainian cities, amid fresh efforts to deliver aid to the devastated port city of Mariupol.
Both Ukrainian and Russian officials described the quickly worsening humanitarian situation as "catastrophic" Saturday.
In Moscow, the defense ministry described an unrelenting push on the ground, reporting that Russian forces had advanced 12 kilometers over "a broad front" during the day, without specifying exactly where.
It said pro-Russian separatists in the east had reached the edge of Severodonetsk, a city of 100,000.
Russian strikes have destroyed the airport in the town of Vasylkiv, south of Kyiv, the mayor said.
The northwest suburbs of the capital, including Irpin and Bucha, have endured days of heavy bombardment while Russian armored vehicles are advancing on the city's northeastern edge.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the capital, described by a senior Ukrainian official Friday as a "city under siege," was reinforcing defenses and stockpiling food and medicine.
Buses were continuing to bring refugees into the city from the hard-hit suburbs, Klitschko said in a video message, adding: "We will not give up."
Other cities have already fallen or been surrounded since Russia invaded its neighbor Feb. 24, with civilians targeted in what the United Nations warned could amount to war crimes.
The southern port city of Mariupol in particular is facing what Ukraine says is a "humanitarian catastrophe", with more than 1,500 civilians killed over 12 days.
A top Russian officer described the situation in similarly stark language. "Unfortunately, the humanitarian situation in Ukraine is continuing to deteriorate rapidly, and in some cities it has reached catastrophic proportions," said the head of the Russian National Defense Control Centre, Mikhail Mizintsev.
As intense efforts at diplomacy continued, the leaders of France and Germany, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, urged Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during a three-way phone conversation to end the deadly blockade, Paris said.
Prompting a small glimmer of hope, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that Russia ― after appearing unbudging for days ― had adopted a "fundamentally different approach" in the latest talks to end the conflict.
He told reporters he was "happy to have a signal from Russia" after Putin spoke of "some positive shifts" in a near-daily dialogue.
Elsewhere across the increasingly desperate country, there were only scattered signs of progress.
A humanitarian convoy loaded with 90 tons of food and medicine left the town of Zaporizhzhia for Mariupol, Saturday, according to local officials, with hopes that it will be able to evacuate civilians on the way back.
Orthodox clergy volunteered to accompany the convoy, they said, after Zelensky accused Russia of targeting previous similar efforts.
Ismail Hacioglu, president of the Suleiman Mosque Association in Mariupol, said he was trying to evacuate almost 90 Turks in the city, but had been stopped repeatedly at Russian roadblocks.
He denied a Ukrainian report that Russia had shelled the mosque where scores of civilians were sheltering, telling Turkish TV the mosque itself had not been hit.
Some evacuation efforts have been successful. Ukraine's emergency services said 487,000 people had been evacuated over the past 24 hours, including 102,000 children.
But Russian troops shot at a group of women and children leaving a village near Kyiv, killing seven, including a child, the Ukrainian military intelligence service reported.
Women and children sit on the floor of a corridor in a hospital in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, March 11. AP-Yonhap
Foreign pressure grows
The United Nations estimates that almost 2.6 million people have fled Ukraine since the invasion, most of them to Poland, in Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War II.
As Russia widens its bombardment, Zelensky's pleas for help have grown increasingly desperate.
Washington and its EU allies have sent funds and military aid to Ukraine and taken action against Russia's economy and oligarchs. A cultural and sporting boycott has further isolated Moscow.
In Irpin on Saturday, a Ukrainian soldier who gave his name only as Viktor showed off his British anti-tank missile system and the twisted remains of a Russian vehicle it destroyed.
"I want to say a big thank you to our British comrades helping us," he said. As international sanctions against Moscow have steadily tightened, crippling Russia's economy, the country's space agency Roscosmos warned Saturday that the International Space Station could crash if Russian spacecraft serving the ISS are affected.
But Washington on Friday added still more layers of sanctions, this time ending normal trade relations and announcing a ban on Russian vodka, seafood and diamonds.
And on Saturday, US President Joe Biden authorized up to $200 million in new weapons and other aid to Ukraine.
But he has ruled out direct action against nuclear-armed Russia, warning that it would lead to "World War III.”
A Ukrainian serviceman exits a damaged building after shelling in Kyiv, March 12. AFP-Yonhap
'Cinders in his lungs'
The situation in Mariupol remains "desperate," according to Doctors Without Borders, with no water or heating ― and food supplies dwindling.
"Hundreds of thousands of people... are for all intents and purposes besieged," Stephen Cornish, one of those heading the medical charity's Ukraine operation, told AFP.
He called sieges "a medieval practice" long outlawed.
Meanwhile, an AFP reporter in the southern city of Mykolaiv said a hospital there came under fire.
Mykolaiv, which lies on the road to the strategic port city of Odessa, has been under attack for days.
"They shot at the civilian areas, without any military objective," said the hospital's head, Dmytro Lagochev, adding: "There's a hospital here, an orphanage and an ophthalmological clinic."
In Kharkiv, in the east, doctors at a hospital described spending two days pumping ash from the stomach of an eight-year-old whose home was struck by a Russian missile.
"He still has cinders in his lungs," Dima Kasyanov's doctor told AFP.
Meanwhile, the central city of Dnipro, an industrial hub of one million inhabitants that had seemed relatively safe, saw three civilian buildings hit by missiles Friday.
1,300 Ukrainian troops
Facing growing international condemnation, Putin on Saturday sought to turn the tables, slamming Kyiv for what he described as the "flagrant violation" of international humanitarian law and accusing Ukraine's army of executing dissenters and using civilians as hostages.
The French presidency denounced his accusations, made during the talks with Macron and Scholz, as "lies.”
In a stream of video messages, Zelensky has urged Ukrainians to keep fighting and demanded his country's allies do more.
On Saturday, he said Moscow was suffering "enormous losses,” before giving Ukraine's first toll of around 1,300 troops killed so far.
U.S. estimates put Russian fatalities at 2,000 to 4,000 while Moscow's only official toll, announced last week, said 498 Russian troops had been killed.
The Russian Defence Ministry said Saturday that pro-Russian fighters in the eastern Donetsk region had so far suffered 79 killed.
Foreign combatants have entered the conflict on both sides, and on Friday, the Kremlin ramped up efforts to bring in reinforcements, particularly from Syria.
In the Russian-held city of Melitopol, Zelensky said, 2,000 people protested against the kidnapping Friday of the mayor by Russian troops.
He called on Macron and Scholz to help secure Ivan Fedorov's release, which he said opened a "new stage of terror." (AFP)