Russia bombed a school that was sheltering 400 people in Mariupol, Ukrainian officials say: NPR

A hospital worker walks into a basement used as a bomb shelter at Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 19, 2022.

Felipe Dana / AP

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Felipe Dana / AP

A hospital worker walks into a basement used as a bomb shelter at Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 19, 2022.

Felipe Dana / AP

LVIV, Ukraine – Ukrainian authorities on Sunday said Russian troops bombed an art school sheltering about 400 people in the busy port city of Mariupol, where Ukraine’s President says a siege is not Russia’s stop will be remembered for centuries to come.

This is the second time in less than a week that city officials have reported a public building where residents have been sheltering has been attacked. Local officials said a bomb hit a Mariupol theater with more than 1,300 people believed to be inside on Wednesday.

There was no immediate information about casualties from the strike reported to the art school, which the Associated Press could not independently verify. Ukrainian officials have not given an update on the theater search since Friday, when they said at least 130 people had been rescued.

Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of ​​Azov, has been bombarded for at least three weeks and has seen some of the worst horrors of the war in Ukraine. At least 2,300 people have died, some of them buried in mass graves, and food, water and electricity have run out.

“To do this for a peaceful city, what the occupiers did, is a horror that will be remembered for centuries to come,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to this country. “The more Russia uses terrorism against Ukraine, the worse its consequences will be.”

In recent days, Russian forces have entered the city, cutting it off from the Sea of ​​Azov and devastating a large steel mill. The fall of Mariupol would be an important but costly victory for the Russians, whose advance had largely stalled outside other major cities more than three weeks after the largest land invasion. in Europe since World War II.

In major cities across Ukraine, hundreds of men, women and children have been killed in Russian bombardment, while millions of civilians have fled to underground bunkers or fleeing the land. country.

In the capital Kyiv, at least 20 babies carried by Ukrainian surrogate mothers are trapped in a makeshift bomb shelter, waiting for their parents to arrive in a war zone to pick them up. The children – some just a few days old – being cared for by nurses were unable to leave the shelter because of repeated shelling by Russian troops trying to besiege the city.

Dmytro regional governor Zhyvytskyy said that in the hard-hit northeastern city of Sumy, authorities evacuated 71 orphaned infants through a humanitarian corridor. He said the orphans, most of whom need constant medical care, will be taken to an unknown foreign country.

Russian shelling has killed at least five civilians, including a nine-year-old boy, in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

The UK’s Ministry of Defense said Russia’s failure to gain control of Ukraine’s skies “has significantly slowed its operational progress”, forcing it to rely on backup weapons launched from similar safety. of Russian airspace.

A Ukrainian military official told the New York Times that a missile strike on the Black Sea port city of Mykolaiv killed about 40 marines, making it one of the single attacks. bloodiest for Ukrainian forces.

In another attack, the Russian Defense Ministry said a Kinzhal hypersonic missile hit a Ukrainian fuel depot in Kostiantynivka, a city near Mykolaiv. On Saturday, the Russian military said it used the Kinzhal for the first time in combat to destroy an ammunition depot in the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine.

Russia says the Kinzhal, carried by MiG-31 fighter jets, has a range of up to 2,000 km (about 1,250 miles) and flies at 10 times the speed of sound. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Saturday said the US could not confirm the use of hypersonic missiles in Ukraine.

Konashenkov said that the Kalibr cruise missile launched by a Russian warship from the Caspian Sea was also involved in the attack on the fuel depot in Kostiantynivka and was used to destroy an armored repair plant in northern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s unexpectedly strong resistance dashed Russian President Putin’s hopes of a quick victory after he ordered his troops to invade Ukraine on February 24.

While the Kremlin said Russia was conducting a “special military operation” against legitimate targets, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday said “brutal, barbaric techniques”. targeting civilians allowed Moscow’s troops to advance.

United Nations agencies have confirmed more than 847 civilians have died since the war began, although they acknowledge the actual number could be much higher. The United Nations says nearly 3.4 million people have left Ukraine for asylum.

Estimates of the death toll in Russia vary widely, but even conservative numbers are in the low thousands. Dmitry Gorenburg, a Russian security researcher at Virginia-based CNA, said the battlefield deaths of four Russian generals – out of an estimated 20 deployed in Ukraine – showed the possibility. Combat commander is weakened. Gorenburg said.

Russia will need 800,000 troops – roughly the entire active army – to control Ukraine in the face of protracted armed opposition, according to Michael Clarke, former director of the British Royal Service Institute, an international organization. UK-based department.

“Unless the Russians intend total genocide – they can raze all the major cities and the Ukrainians will rise up against the Russian occupation – there will be only constant guerrilla warfare,” Clarke said. speak.

Ukraine and Russia have held several rounds of talks aimed at ending the conflict, but the neighbors remain divided on a number of issues. Zelenskyy said he was ready to give up Ukraine’s bid to join NATO but wanted certain security guarantees from Russia. Moscow is urging Ukraine to fully demilitarize.

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that evacuations from Mariupol and other besieged cities were underway along eight of the 10 humanitarian corridors Ukraine and Russia agreed on on Saturday. General Iryna Vereshchuk said, and officials say a total of 6,623 people have left Kyiv and other cities.

Mr. Vereshchuk said humanitarian aid planned for the southern city of Kherson, which Russia captured at the beginning of the war, could not be delivered because the trucks were stopped by Russian troops on the road.

Mariupol authorities on Sunday said nearly 40,000 people had left the city in the last week, mostly in their own vehicles, despite ongoing air strikes and artillery.

Mariupol City Council announced on Saturday that Russian soldiers had forcibly relocated several thousand city residents, mainly women and children, to Russia. It did not say where and the AP could not immediately confirm the claim.

Some Russians have also fled their country amid widespread crackdowns on dissidents. Since the invasion of Ukraine began, police have arrested thousands of anti-war protesters, while government agencies have shut down independent media and cut off access to social networking sites. associations like Facebook and Twitter.

In Ukraine, Zelenskyy on Sunday ordered the suspension of the activities of 11 political parties with ties to Russia during martial law. The largest party among them has 44 out of 450 seats in the country’s parliament.

“The activities of politicians aimed at discord and cooperation will not succeed,” he said in the speech.