Ukraine rejected on Monday the Russian ultimatum to hand over the besieged city of Mariupol, while a new bombing left eight dead in a shopping center in kyiv, the capital.
Nearly 350,000 people are stuck without water or electricity in the port city of Mariupol, bombed by Russian troops for almost a month.
The Kremlin military command had warned the Mariupol authorities that they had until “5 in the morning (…) on March 21” to respond to eight pages of demands, which according to Ukrainian officials would amount to capitulation.
Russia called on the Ukrainian forces on Sunday to surrender and leave Mariupol “without arms”, something that kyiv described as “delirium”.
The city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine, is the focus of the war with Russia, in a siege that has been going on for days and is likely to last longer.
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine said on Monday that the takeover of the port city of Mariupol “is not a matter of two or three days, or even a week.”
“I am not so optimistic as to say that the matter will be resolved in two or three days or in a week. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It is a big city,” said Denis Pushilin, leader of the separatists of the Donetsk republic. , whose independence Moscow recognized at the end of February.
Pushilin, whose words are picked up by Russian public television, said that “several thousand Ukrainian nationalist battalions” remain inside Mariupol.
Heroic defense in Mariupol
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said today that the Mariuopol resistance, heavily bombed by the Russians for days, is “saving” other cities, such as Dnipro, kyiv and Odessa, from the intensification of an offensive against them.
“The heroic defenders of Mariupol have played a very important role in destroying the enemy’s plans and improving our defense,” said the minister, for whom, thanks to the “courage” of the inhabitants of that city,” have saved tens of thousands of lives across Ukraine.
“Today Mariupol is saving kyiv, Dnipro and Odessa. The whole world must understand this,” the minister said in a war report posted on social media.
The death toll in a bombing last night by Russian forces against a shopping center in kyiv now rises to eight, as reported by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office through Telegram.
The shopping center was destroyed as a result of the fire triggered by the attack by the Russian forces and the windows of nearby houses and cars parked nearby were also damaged.
Meanwhile, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, since the invasion began – on February 24 – Ukrainian troops have shot down 100 planes and 120 helicopters, in addition to destroying 500 tanks and 1,500 armored vehicles.
Russia reported today, on the 26th day of its “special military operation” in Ukraine, that its air forces destroyed 44 Ukrainian military targets last night.
Get out of the besieged city
A representative of the Russian Defense Ministry assured that the Ukrainian forces that lay down their arms will be able to leave Mariupol in a “safe and life-threatening” way.
He added that as of Monday noon in the city humanitarian convoys will be able to enter both from kyiv, as well as from territories in the east of the country, which are not under its control.
The Kremlin insisted on Monday that Russian forces “organize humanitarian corridors” and said that the news that they do not let anyone out “is a complete lie.” (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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