Ukraine has rejected a Russian demand that their forces in Mariupol lay down arms and raise white flags in exchange for safe passage out of the besieged strategic port city. Russia on Sunday called on Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms in the eastern port city of Mariupol where Moscow said a "terrible humanitarian catastrophe" was unfolding. Russia has been barraging the encircled southern city on the Sea of Azov, hitting an art school sheltering some 400 people only hours before offering to open two corridors out of the city in return for the capitulation of its defenders, according to Ukrainian officials.
Here are 10 updates on Russia-Ukraine conflict:
“There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms," Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda, as fighting for Mariupol has continued to be intense. "We have already informed the Russian side about this."
Russian Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev had offered two corridors — one heading east toward Russia and the other west to other parts of Ukraine. He did not say what Russia planned if the offer was rejected.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said authorities in Mariupol could face a military tribunal if they sided with what it described as “bandits," the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Earlier attempts to evacuate civilian residents from Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities have failed or only partly succeeded, with bombardments continuing as civilians sought to flee.
Ahead of the latest offer, a Russian airstrike hit the school where some 400 civilians had been taking shelter and it was not clear how many casualties there were, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address early Monday.
City officials and aid groups say food, water and electricity have run low in Mariupol and fighting has kept out humanitarian convoys. Communications are severed.
The city has been under bombardment for over three weeks and has seen some of the worst horrors of the war. City officials said at least 2,300 people have died, with some buried in mass graves.
At least six people were killed in an overnight bombing on a shopping centre in Ukraine's capital Kyiv, an AFP journalist said Monday.
Six bodies were laid out in front of the "Retroville" shopping mall in the northwest of Kyiv, according to the journalist. The building had been hit by a powerful blast that pulverised vehicles in its car park and left a crater several metres wide.
President Joe Biden has added a stop in Poland to his trip this week to Europe for urgent talks with NATO and European allies, as Russian forces concentrate their fire upon cities and trapped civilians in a nearly month-old invasion of Ukraine. Biden will first travel to Brussels and then to Poland to meet with leaders there, press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Sunday night. Poland is a crucial ally in the Ukraine crisis.
