Russian president Vladimir Putin warned Saturday that Ukrainian statehood is in jeopardy and likened the West’s sanctions on Russia to “declaring war,” while a promised ceasefire in the port city of Mariupol collapsed amid scenes of terror in the besieged town.
With the Kremlin’s rhetoric growing fiercer and a reprieve from fighting dissolving, Russian troops continued to shell encircled cities and the number of Ukrainians forced from their country grew to 1.4 million. Bereft mothers mourned dead children, wounded soldiers were fitted with tourniquets and doctors worked by the light of their mobile phones as bleakness and desperation pervaded.
Putin continued to pin the blame for all of it squarely on the Ukrainian leadership and attacked their resistance to the invasion. “If they continue to do what they are doing, they are calling into question the future of Ukrainian statehood,” he said. “And if this happens, it will be entirely on their conscience.”
