Workers found 200 bodies while digging the building basement in Mariupol on Tuesday. The Mayor’s advisor informed people the bodies were decomposing and the stench hung over the neighborhood. There was no mention of the timings of the discovery of corpses. However, the enormous number of fatalities made it one of the war’s bloodiest strikes.
Mariupol was battered mercilessly for almost three months until 2,500 Ukrainian troops evacuated a steel mill. They had taken their hold last Thursday. The entire city, in which an estimated 100,000 people stay out of a pre-war capacity of 450,000, is already under Russian control. Several of those in prison during the invasion were with no food, water, heat, or power.
600 people died at theatre attack in Mariupol
Russian airstrikes targeted a maternity facility and a theatre where civilians were seeking refuge during the attack on Mariupol. About 600 people died in the theatre attack. This was more than double the number estimated by Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian authorities state, that at least 21,000 people have died during the crisis. Russia has been facing accusations of attempting to hide the atrocities by sending in mobile cremation apparatus and cremating in mass graves.
Referring to World War II, Zelensky said, “indeed, there has not been such a war on the European continent for 77 years”. The Ukrainian president accused Russia of waging “total war” and attempting to kill as many people as feasible in his nation. “Practically the full might of the Russian army, whatever they have left, is being thrown at the offensive there. Liman, Popasna, Sievierodonetsk, Slaviansk — the occupiers want to destroy everything there,” Zelenskyy said.
Meanwhile, heavy battle persisted in the Donbas, the eastern industrialized area that Moscow is attempting to seize. Russian forces further up their attempts to approach and seize Sievierodonetsk and its environs. Residents of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, created long queues to get rations of flour, pasta, sugar, as well as other basics this week. The town heals from weeks of continuous bombing. Moscow’s forces pulled back toward the Russian border from around Kharkiv early this month.