Pitched battle in Mariupol intensifies, as war displaces millions across Ukraine

MARIUPOL, Ukraine

The battle for Ukraine’s strategic port of Mariupol raged on Monday, as Ukraine rejected a Russian offer to evacuate its troops from the besieged city. Russian bombardment continued to hit it and other cities in Ukraine.

Ukrainian firefighters and servicemen search for people under debris inside a shopping center after bombing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said about 400 civilians were taking shelter at an art school in the Sea of Azov port city when it was struck by a Russian bomb.

Warning that relations with the U.S. are “on the verge of a breach,” Russia has summoned the U.S. ambassador to protest President Joe Biden’s criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia’s war in Ukraine, now in its 26th day, shows no signs of abating. The invasion has wreaked devastation, exacting a heavy toll on civilians. The U.N. says nearly 3.4 million people have fled Ukraine.

The key port city has seen some of the heaviest fighting since the Russian invasion. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are fighting block-by-block for control of the city where at least 2,300 people have died, some buried in mass graves.

Ukrainian forces had destroyed a Russian patrol boat and electronic warfare complex, the Defense Ministry said.

Ukrainian officials rejected a Russian offer that its troops be granted safe passage out of the encircled city, which would hand Mariupol over to Russia, uniting Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine along the Sea of Azov.

It was not clear how many casualties there were in the Russian bombing of the art school, Zelenskyy said in a video address early Monday. That attack came just days after a bomb hit a theater Wednesday in Mariupol where more than 1,000 people were believed to be sheltering. It was unclear how many people were killed in that attack.

“Almost 90% (of the city) has been destroyed,” Mariupol resident Maria Fiodorova, 77, said Monday as she crossed the border into Medyka, Poland. “There are no buildings there anymore.”

The Ukrainian government said that about 3,000 people from Mariupol were evacuated on Monday.

In a video address, Zelenskyy hailed protesters in the occupied city of Kherson for courage in confronting Russian troops who used stun grenades and fired in the air to break up a demonstration.

Zelenskyy said that the war has turned ordinary Ukrainians into heroes and “the enemy doesn’t believe it’s all real.”

Zelenskyy said in his nighttime video address to the nation that Russian forces shelled along a humanitarian corridor on Monday, wounding four children who were among the civilians being evacuated.

He said the shelling took place in the Zaporizhzhia region, the initial destination of those fleeing Mariupol.

The Ukrainian army announced that it forced Russian troops out of a strategically important Kyiv suburb after a fierce battle. By taking Makariv, located 55 kilometers (33 miles) west of the capital, the Ukrainian forces deprived Russia of control over an important highway and prevented it from encircling Kyiv from the northwest, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

However, Russian forces were partially able to take three northwest suburbs where there has been fighting for weeks, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, the Russian military says it will keep using state-of-the-art hypersonic Kinzhal missiles to hit particularly important targets in Ukraine.

Russian shelling on Sunday near the city center of the capital, Kyiv, killed eight people, according to emergency officials. The attack damaged a nearby high-rise building and devastated a shopping center, which Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said had been targeted because it was used to store rockets. The claim couldn’t be independently verified. - AP