The besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol yielded up more horrors after six weeks of pummeling by Russian troops, with the mayor saying more than 10,000 civilians have died in the strategic southern port, their corpses “carpeted through the streets.”
As Russia pounds the northeastern city of Kharkiv and prepares for an assault in Ukraine’s east, the country’s president warned President Vladimir Putin’s forces could resort to chemical weapons, and Western officials said they were investigating an unconfirmed claim by a Ukrainian regiment that a poisonous substance was dropped in Mariupol.
The city has seen some of the heaviest attacks and civilian suffering in the war, but the land, sea and air assaults by Russian forces fighting to capture it have increasingly limited information about what’s happening inside the city.
Speaking by phone Monday with The Associated Press, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko accused Russian forces of having blocked weeks of attempted humanitarian convoys into the city in part to
Boychenko also gave new details of allegations by Ukrainian officials that Russian forces have brought mobile cremation equipment to Mariupol to dispose of the corpses of victims of the siege. He said Russian forces have taken many bodies to a huge shopping center where there are storage facilities and refrigerators.
“Mobile crematoriums have arrived in the form of trucks: You open it, and there is a pipe inside and these bodies are burned,” the mayor said.
Boychenko spoke from Ukrainian-controlled territory outside Mariupol. The mayor said he had several sources for his description of the alleged methodical burning of bodies by Russian forces in the city, but did not detail the sources.
The discovery of large numbers of apparently massacred civilians after Russian forces retreated from cities and towns around the capital, Kyiv, already has prompted widespread condemnation and accusations that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.
Those forces withdrew after they were failed to take Kyiv in the face of stiff Ukrainian resistance, and they now say they will focus on the Donbas, an industrial region in Ukraine’s east. Western officials have pointed to signs Russia’s military is gearing up for a major offensive there.
On a visit to Russia’s Far East on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin the Russian military would achieve its goals in Ukraine, saying the campaign was aimed at ensuring Russia’s security. He added that his country had no intention to isolating itself and that foreign powers wouldn’t succeed in isolating it — despite a raft of sanctions against Russia.
