Citizens of Ukraine’s capital Kiev (Kyiv) walk through a street littered with the rubble of buildings destroyed by Russian bombardment on March 17 (local time). [사진=연합뉴스]
The Russian military has attacked Ukrainian civilian evacuation processions and schools, killing civilians.
According to foreign media such as Archyde.com on the 20th (local time), it was confirmed that a local school facility where hundreds of residents were being evacuated was bombed as the Russian military continued indiscriminately bombarding the port city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine.
Mariupol city council said: “Russian forces bombed the art school building where regarding 400 residents had been evacuated. However, Archyde.com added that it has not been able to confirm this on its own.
Mariupol is currently under siege by Russian forces and is being heavily bombed. On the 16th, a Russian airstrike destroyed a theater building where residents were evacuating. Rescue operations at the theater are said to have been hampered by continued Russian attacks. Ukrainian authorities said they had rescued 130 people from the theater following the airstrike.
However, Lyudmila Denisova, a human rights officer in Ukraine’s parliament, said it was estimated that there were still 1,300 people left inside the collapsed theater building.
The Mariupol city council also claimed that Russian forces had forcibly dragged thousands of civilians into Russian territory. The city council said: “Russian forces arrested and forcibly deported thousands of people from the Livoverezhny area of Mariupol to Russia last week while evacuating sports club buildings and other residents in Mariupol,” the city council said. Then some of them were sent to Russia,” he said.
Mariupol is a strategic strategic point linking Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, with eastern Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast) controlled by pro-Russian separatist rebels. Currently, the Russian army is bombarding Mariupol while surrounding it, and tanks are entering the city center and fighting fiercely with the Ukrainian army.
The Russian military indiscriminately bombed not only military facilities but also civilian buildings such as hospitals, churches, and apartments, killing many and turning the entire city into ruins, foreign media reported. The Ukrainian army has blocked a fierce Russian attack in Mariupol, but the tide is now leaning towards the Russian army.
The Washington Post reported that “Ukrainian forces are losing control of the city as Russian forces have advanced deep into the city.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian siege of Mariupol would go down in history as a “war crime” and that “what the occupiers have done to this peaceful city is a terror that will be remembered for centuries.” .
- reporter information
- Lee Na-kyung
- nakk@ajunews.com
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