Civilians making the dangerous escape from Ukraine's embattled southern port hub of Mariupol described fleeing through street-to-street gun battles and past unburied corpses as a steady Russian bombardment tried to pound the city into submission.
While Russian forces carried on with the siege after the city's defenders refused demands to surrender, the Kremlin's ground offensives in other parts of the country were advancing slowly or not at all, knocked back by lethal hit-and-run attacks by the Ukrainians.
