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Ukraine on Thursday accused Russia of bombing a theater in which “more than a thousand” civilians had taken refuge. US President Joe Biden has called his Russian counterpart a “war criminal”.
“In Mariupol, the Russian Air Force knowingly dropped a bomb on the Drama Theater in the city center. The building is destroyed,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday evening. “The number of dead is not yet known”, referring to “hundreds” of victims. “The world must finally admit that Russia has become a terrorist state,” he said.
The town hall of Mariupol said on its Telegram account overnight from Wednesday to Thursday that “more than a thousand” people were in the theater. Ukrainian officials posted a photo appearing to show the three-story building in flames and devastated by an explosion.
For the mayor of Mariupol Vadym Boichenko, this attack is an “appalling tragedy”. “People were hiding there. Some were lucky to survive but unfortunately not all of them were lucky,” he lamented in a video. “The only word to describe what happened today is genocide, the genocide of our nation, of our Ukrainian people,” he continued.
Image satellite
The American space technology company Maxar Technologies, which specializes in satellite imagery, released a photo of the theater it said it had taken on Monday. In this photo seen by AFP, the word “children” was written on the ground, in huge white letters and in Russian, in front and behind the building.
“The invaders destroyed the Dramatic Theater, where more than a thousand people had taken refuge. We will never forgive that,” said the town hall on the night of Wednesday to Thursday.
The Russian Ministry of Defense denied a bombardment of the city by its troops and claimed that the building had been destroyed by the Ukrainian nationalist Azov battalion.
Moscow has already blamed this military unit for the bombing last week of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, which caused an international outcry. The Russian Embassy in Washington claimed on Telegram that it was a disinformation campaign.
Massive military aid to Ukraine
In Washington, responding to a journalist, US President Joe Biden said regarding his Russian counterpart: “He’s a war criminal”. “Unacceptable and unforgivable” remarks, replied the Kremlin.
Shortly before, Mr. Biden had confirmed that his country would provide an additional $800 million in military aid to kyiv, an “unprecedented” $1 billion envelope in one week to support its army.
“At the request” of the Ukrainian head of state, who had addressed the American Congress a little earlier, “we are helping Ukraine to equip itself with additional and longer-range anti-aircraft defense systems”, a- he said, adding that drones would also be delivered.
Deadly bombings
Deadly Russian military strikes continued across Ukraine. Ten people queuing to buy bread in Cherniguiv, 150 km north of kyiv, died when soldiers opened fire on them in a “premeditated” manner, the prosecutor’s office said.
This city has suffered numerous air raids just like Kharkiv (north-east), the country’s second largest city, where at least 500 people have been killed since the start of the war on February 24. Zaporozhye was targeted for the first time. Its station was hit on Wednesday by at least one missile.
Explosions were heard once more at dawn on Wednesday in kyiv where thick columns of black smoke rose. The capital, emptied of more than half of its 3.5 million inhabitants, has been under curfew since 8 p.m. Tuesday (7 p.m. in Switzerland) and until Thursday 7 a.m. (6 a.m. in Switzerland), following several missiles struck apartment buildings on Monday and Tuesday.
According to the Ukrainian Parliament, citing figures collected by the General Prosecutor’s Office, 103 children have been killed in the country since the Russian invasion and around 100 injured. More than three million Ukrainians have already taken the road to exile, the vast majority to Poland.
Military attacks on the health system
At the same time, the World Health Organization (WHO) denounced the numerous military attacks on health infrastructures. “The health system has become a target (…). It’s starting to be part of the strategy and tactics of war. It’s totally unacceptable, it’s once morest international humanitarian law,” said Michael Ryan. , WHO emergency chief.
It is in this context that the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest court of the United Nations, on Wednesday ordered Moscow to immediately halt its military operations in Ukraine, saying it was “deeply concerned” by the scale of the fights.
Imperturbable, Vladimir Putin hammered home in a speech that the military operation was “a success”. This while his army cannot claim the capture of any major city and is progressing in slow motion.
Just before, his Ukrainian counterpart had been given a standing ovation by videoconference by American parliamentarians and had once once more called for the establishment of a no-fly zone over his country.
Joe Biden has so far rejected the idea of setting up such a zone, for fear of seeing the United States and the Atlantic Alliance – which repeated on Wednesday that there was “no question of deploying troops of NATO or planes in Ukraine” – being drawn into a conflict that might escalate into World War III. However, this organization has announced its intention to strengthen its presence on its eastern flank.
Volodymyr Zelensky is due to address the deputies of the Bundestag on Thursday morning. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu is expected in Ukraine from Moscow.
Continuation of talks
The offensive and the determination of the two camps did not prevent the continuation of parallel talks, relaunched Monday by videoconference at the level of delegations. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, negotiators are now discussing “a compromise”, which would make Ukraine a neutral country on the model of Sweden and Austria.
“There are very concrete formulas which, I think, are close to an agreement”, also underlined the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov.
Without denying discussions on neutrality, the chief Ukrainian negotiator Mykhaïlo Podoliak declared that “the model can only be ‘Ukrainian'”. “My priorities in these negotiations are clear: end of the war, guarantees of security, sovereignty, restoration of our territorial integrity, real guarantees for our country, real protection for our country”, detailed Mr. Zelensky in the evening. .
The United Kingdom, the United States, Albania, France, Norway and Ireland have called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday followingnoon.