KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol has unleashed more horrors after six weeks of shelling by Russian troops.with the mayor saying that more than 10,000 civilians have died in the strategic southern port, their corpses “carpeted in the streets”.
As Russia struck targets around Ukraine and prepared for a major attack in the east, the country’s leader warned that President Vladimir Putin’s forces could resort to chemical weapons, and Western officials said they were investigating an unconfirmed claim of a Ukrainian regiment that a poisonous substance was released. in Mariupol.
The city has seen some of the most intense attacks and civilian suffering of the war.But the land, sea and air attacks by Russian forces fighting to capture it have increasingly limited information about what is happening inside the city.
Speaking by phone Monday with The Associated Press, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko accused Russian forces of blocking weeks of attempted humanitarian convoys into the city in part to hide the carnage. Boychenko said the death toll in Mariupol alone could exceed 20,000..
Boychenko also gave new details from allegations by Ukrainian officials that Russian forces have brought mobile cremation teams to Mariupol to dispose of the bodies of siege victims. He said that Russian forces have taken many bodies to a huge shopping center where there are storage facilities and refrigerators.
“Mobile crematoria have arrived in the form of trucks: you open it, and there is a pipe inside and these bodies are burned,” said the mayor.
Boychenko spoke from Ukrainian-controlled territory outside Mariupol. The mayor said he had several sources for his description of the alleged methodical burning of bodies by Russian forces in the city, but did not detail the sources.
The discovery of large numbers of civilians apparently massacred after Russian forces withdrew from cities and towns around the capital, kyiv, has already sparked widespread condemnation and accusations that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.
Those forces withdrew after they failed to take kyiv in the face of stiff Ukrainian resistance, and Russia now says it will focus on Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine. There are already signs that the military is preparing for a major offensive there.
On a visit to Russia’s Far East on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin insisted the armed forces would achieve their goals in Ukraine, saying the campaign was aimed at ensuring Russia’s security and protecting civilians in the east. He added that his country had no intention of isolating itself and that foreign powers would not succeed in isolating it, despite a series of sweeping economic sanctions..
Putin’s visit to the Vostochny space launch facility marked his first trip outside Moscow since Russia’s invasion on February 24.
The British Defense Ministry said Russian forces continue to withdraw from Belarus to support operations in eastern Ukraine, where it said fighting “will intensify in the next two to three weeks.”
While building up forces in the east, Russia continued to attack targets throughout Ukraine in an attempt to wear down the country’s defenses. Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday it used air- and sea-launched missiles to destroy an ammunition depot and aircraft hangar at Starokostiantyniv in the western Khmelnytskyi region and an ammunition depot near kyiv.
Donbas has been torn by fighting between Russian-allied separatists and Ukrainian forces since 2014, and Russia has recognized the separatists’ claims of independence. Military strategists say Russian leaders appear to hope that local support, logistics and ground in Donbas will favor Russia’s larger and better-armed armed forces, which could allow its troops to finally turn the tide decisively to their favor in a way they have fought until now.
Russia has appointed an experienced general to lead its renewed push into Donbas, but questions remain about the ability of depleted and demoralized Russian forces to conquer much ground.
As their offensive in many parts of the country was thwarted, Russian forces increasingly relied on bombing cities, a strategy that has leveled many urban areas and killed thousands of people. And Western officials have warned that Putin could resort to the use of unconventional weapons, particularly chemical agents, as part of the campaign by US and British officials to release intelligence findings about Russian plans, in part as a deterrent.
Zelenskyy repeated the warning in his late-night speech on Monday, specifically saying the weapons could be used in Mariupol. “We take this as seriously as possible,” Zelenskyy said.
A Russian-allied separatist official, Eduard Basurin, appeared to urge their use on Monday, telling Russian state television that separatist forces should seize a giant metallurgical plant in Mariupol from Ukrainian forces by first blocking all exits from factory. “And then we’ll use chemical troops to get them out of there,” he said.
A Ukrainian regiment defending the plant claimed on Monday, without providing evidence, that a drone had dropped a poisonous substance on the city. He stated that there were no serious injuries.
The claim by the Azov Regiment, a far-right group now part of the Ukrainian military, could not be independently verified.
Basurin was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying on Tuesday that separatist forces “have not used chemical weapons in Mariupol.”
But Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian authorities were investigating. She told Ukrainian television that “there is a suggestion that it was probably, possibly, phosphorous ammunition.” Britain has warned that Russia could use phosphorus bombs, which cause horrendous burns and whose use in civilian areas is prohibited by international law, in Mariupol.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement that the United States could not confirm the drone report from Mariupol. But Kirby pointed to the administration’s lingering concerns “about the potential for Russia to use a variety of riot control agents, including tear gas laced with chemical agents, in Ukraine.”
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the UK was “urgently working” to investigate the report.
Meanwhile, Western military analysts say Russia’s assault is increasingly focusing on an arc of territory stretching from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in the north to Kherson in the south.
A senior US defense official on Monday described a large Russian convoy now moving toward the eastern city of Izyum with artillery, air and infantry support, as part of the redeployment of what appears to be the impending Russian campaign.
Before that offensive, there appeared to be little diplomatic progress in ending a war that has driven more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes, more than 4 million of them from the country, and left thousands dead.
The UN children’s agency said nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes. since the invasion of Russia began, while Ukrainian authorities accuse Russian forces of committing atrocities, including a massacre in the city of Buchaon the outskirts of kyiv, air strikes on hospitals and a missile attack last week on a train station where people tried to flee.
Meanwhile, in Mariupol, some 120,000 civilians are in dire need of food, water, warmth and communications, the mayor said.
Ukraine accuses Russian forces of forcing people out of the city into separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine before sending them to distant and economically depressed areas in Russia. Russia has denied moving people against their will.
___
Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Associated Press writer Robert Burns in Washington and AP journalists from around the world contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Reference-apnews.com