Ukrainian authorities struggled to determine the fate of hundreds of civilians who had been sheltering in a theater smashed by a Russian airstrike in the besieged city of Mariupol as officials said Russian artillery Thursday destroyed more civilian buildings in another frontline city.
Some hope emerged, as an official said some people had managed to survive the Mariupol theater strike.
A photo released by Mariupol's city council showed an entire section of the large, 3-story theater had collapsed after the strike Wednesday evening. Several hundred people had taken refuge in the building's basement, seeking safety amid Russia's 3-week, strangulating siege of the strategic Azov Sea port city.
At least as recently as Monday, the pavement in front of and behind the once-elegant theater was marked with huge white letters spelling out “CHILDREN” in Russian, according to images released by the Maxar space technology company.
Rubble had buried the entrance to the shelter inside the theater, and the number of casualties was unclear, Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional administration, said on Telegram. Ukrainian parliament member Sergiy Taruta, a former governor of the Donetsk region where Mariupol is located, later said on Facebook that some people had managed to escape alive from the destroyed building. He did not provide any further details.
Kyrylenko said Russian airstrikes also hit a municipal swimming pool complex in Mariupol where civilians, including women and children, had been sheltering. “Now there are pregnant women and women with children under the rubble there,” he wrote, thought the number of casualties was not immediately known.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for more help for his country in a video address to German lawmakers Thursday, saying thousands of people have been killed in the war that started almost a month ago, including 108 children.
He also referred to the dire situation in Mariupol. “Everything is a target for them,” he said, including “a theater where hundreds of people found shelter that was flattened yesterday.”
The Russian defense ministry denied bombing the theater or anywhere else in Mariupol on Wednesday.
Zelenskyy’s office said Russia carried out further airstrikes on Mariupol early Thursday morning, as well as artillery and airstrikes around the country overnight, including in the Kalynivka and Brovary suburbs of the capital, Kyiv. There was no immediate word on casualties.
On Thursday, Russian artillery destroyed a school and a community center in Merefa, a city near the northeast city of Kharkiv, according to Merefa's mayor Veniamin Sitov. There were no known civilian casualties. The Kharkiv region has seen heavy bombardment as stalled Russian forces try to advance in the area.
Six nations have called for a U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine on Thursday afternoon, ahead of an expected vote Friday on a Russian resolution demanding protection for Ukrainian civilians “in vulnerable situations,” yet making no mention of Moscow's responsibility for the war.
“Russia is committing war crimes and targeting civilians,” Britain's U.N. Mission tweeted, announcing the call for the meeting that was joined by the U.S., France and others. “Russia's illegal war on Ukraine is a threat to us all.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin went on television Wednesday to excoriate Russians who don’t back him.
Russians “will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and will simply spit them out like a gnat that accidentally flew into their mouths,” he said. “I am convinced that such a natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen our country.”
He said the West is using a “fifth column” of traitorous Russians to create civil unrest.
“And there is only one goal, I have already spoken about it — the destruction of Russia,” he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after Tuesday’s meeting that a neutral military status for Ukraine was being “seriously discussed” by the two sides, while Zelenskyy said Russia’s demands for ending the war were becoming “more realistic.”
