Tanks and artillery pounded places already under siege with shelling so heavy,it prevented residents of one city from burying the growing number of dead.
A Russian army tank seen moving through the outskirts of Mariupol.AP
The invading Russian forces have struggled far more than expected against determined Ukrainian fighters.
However,Russia’s stronger military threatens to grind down the defending forces,despite an ongoing flow of weapons and other assistance from the West.
The conflict has already sent 2.5 million people fleeing the country. Thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been killed along with many Ukrainian civilians.
On the ground,the Kremlin’s forces appeared to be trying to regroup and regain momentum after encountering tough resistance and amassing heavy losses over the past two weeks.
An an even more passionate than usual speech,Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky talks about the Russian invasion on Facebook.
As part of a multifront attack on the capital,the Russians’ push from the north-east appeared to be advancing,a US defence official said. Combat units were moved up from the rear as the forces advanced to within 30 kilometres of Kyiv.
In another development,Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of kidnapping the mayor of a city,calling it “a new stage of terror”.
Zelensky said the mayor of the southern port city of Melitopol was kidnapped,equating it to the actions of “ISIS terrorists”.
“They have transitioned into a new stage of terror,in which they try to physically liquidate representatives of Ukraine’s lawful local authorities,” Zelensky said in a video address.
Kirill Timoshenko,the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office,posted a video that he said shows armed men carrying mayor Ivan Fedorov across a square. Russian forces captured Melitopol,with a population of 150,000,on February 26.
The prosecutor’s office of the Luhansk People’s Republic,a Moscow-backed rebel region in eastern Ukraine,accused Fedorov on its website of “terrorist activities”.
Russia sweeps through the south,struggles in the north
So far,the Russians have made the biggest advances on cities in the east and south — including in Mariupol,the heavily bombarded seaport where civilians scrounged for food and fuel amid a harrowing 12-day siege — while struggling in the north and around Kyiv.
An explosion is seen in an apartment building after Russian’s army tank fires in Mariupol,Ukraine,on Friday.Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
Mariupol’s council released a statement saying that at least 1582 civilians had so far been killed.
“We will never forget and will never forgive this crime against humanity,” the council said.
Efforts to isolate Russia economically stepped up,with the United States imposing new sanctions on senior Kremlin officials and Russian oligarchs and the European Union set to strip Russia of its privileged trade status,following the US announcement early on Saturday AEDT,which would add hefty tariffs to luxury goods such as caviar,diamonds and vodka.
“The free world is coming together to confront[Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” US President Joe Biden said.
Putin brushed off the sanctions,according to a readout from the Kremlin of a Friday meeting with his Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
“The Soviet Union did live the entire time under the conditions of sanctions;it developed and achieved colossal successes,” he was reported as saying.
‘A strategic turning point’
With the Russian assault in its third week,Zelensky,who has rallied his people with a series of addresses from Kyiv,said Ukraine had “already reached a strategic turning point”.
This multispectral satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows destroyed homes,impact craters and fires in town of Moschun,Ukraine on Friday,March 11,Ukraine time.Maxar Technologies
“It is impossible to say how many days we still have[ahead of us] to free Ukrainian land. But we can say we will do it,” he said. “We are already moving towards our goal,our victory.”
Russia’s main attack force has been stalled on roads north of the capital,having failed in what Western analysts say was an initial plan for a lightning assault.
But fresh images released by private US satellite firm Maxar showed Russian forces were edging closer to Kyiv and actively shelling homes,according to the company’s analysis.
Homes and buildings were on fire and impact craters were seen throughout the town of Moschun,north-west of Kyiv,Maxar said.
Kyiv’s mayor,former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko,said the capital had enough essential supplies to last a couple of weeks. Supply lines remained open for now.
The governor of the Kharkiv region said a psychiatric hospital had been hit and the mayor of Kharkiv said about 50 schools had been destroyed.
The southern port city of Mykolayiv endured heavy bombardment through the night,according to the regional governor,as Ukrainian forces fought back a Russian advance. A cancer hospital was hit but its head doctor Maksim Beznosenko told AP nobody was killed.
Separately,the UN human rights office said it had received “credible reports” of several cases of Russian forces using cluster munitions in populated areas in Ukraine,adding that indiscriminate use of such weapons might amount to war crimes.
While Moscow denies targeting civilians,Ukrainian government officials were pessimistic about the prospects of evacuating women and children from the port city after repeated attempts had to be abandoned when Russian troops fired shells at those trying to escape.
A total of 7144 people were evacuated from four Ukrainian cities on Friday,Ukraine time,Zelensky said,a sharply lower number than managed to leave in each of the two previous days.
Mariupol maternity hospital victim gives birth
A pregnant woman who was photographed fleeing the maternity hospital in Mariupol in her pyjamas,beauty blogger Mariana Vishegirskaya,has given birth to a girl after surviving a Russian attack on the building.
Both mother and child are healthy,but remain trapped in Mariupol.
Mariana Vishegirskaya’s husband Yuri cradles his new daughter as her mother rests after a caesarian delivery.AP
Taken to another hospital,Vishegirskaya and another woman who escaped the bombing have since given birth,their babies delivered to the sound of shellfire. A strike hit their new refuge too.
Facing worldwide condemnation,Russian officials made several false claims — that the hospital had been taken over by far-right Ukrainian forces to use as a base and emptied of patients and nurses.
Nuclear plant warnings
The United States also accused Russia of violating nuclear safety principles,saying it was concerned by “continued Russian firing on nuclear facilities” in Ukraine but added that there were no signs yet of any radiological release.
”We are monitoring reports of damage to a research facility in Kharkiv. Near-term safety risk is low,but the continued Russian firing on nuclear facilities must cease,” US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Twitter on Friday.
Ukraine told the International Atomic Energy Agency that technicians have started repairing damaged power lines at the decommissioned Chernobyl power plant in an effort to restore power supplies.
The UN nuclear watchdog said that it still isn’t receiving data from monitoring systems installed to monitor nuclear material and activities at Chernobyl,but transmission from the Zaporizhzhia plant — Ukraine’s biggest,which Russian forces seized last week — has been restored after being lost earlier this week.
Reuters,AP,Bloomberg
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