Russia-Ukraine war: Kharkiv market bombed, as Joe Biden warns China not to give Putin aid
The city of Mariupol is being attacked almost continuously as hundreds of thousands fear for their lives; one of the largest markets in the world has been bombed in a new Russian attack.
Around 30,000 civilians have fled Ukraine’s besieged port city of Mariupol, with 80 per cent of the city’s homes destroyed.
A Mariupol’s city council statement said an average of “50 to 100 air bombs are dropped on the city per day”.
At least 2,0000 people have died so far in the city. Rescuers are still frantically searching through the rubble of a bombed theatre, in which hundrds of people - including children - were sheltering.
“The only word to describe what has happened today is genocide, genocide of our nation, our Ukrainian people,” the city’s mayor Vadim Boychenko says in a video message.
Officials described the situation as “critical”, estimating that around 350,000 residents are hiding in shelters and basements in the city.
The Ukrainian army is “continuing to heroically hold the defence of Mariupol and repel enemy attacks” and that troops are fighting “for every street”.
The strategic port city on the Sea of Azov has been under heavy Russian shelling for days and cut off from food and other vital supplies.
MASSIVE BLAZE AT MARKET
A market in the eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv has gone up in flames after being bombed by Russia, according to officials.
Footage show huge plumes of black smoke coming from several different parts of the market, indicating multiple strikes.
Dozens of people are trying to extinguish the blaze, which has spread to nearby houses, reported CNN.
At least one emergency responder has been killed, the city mayor announced.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said the market was one of the largest in the world and covered an area of 300,000 sqm.
Bloody new attacks on civilians have fuelled accusations that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.
Three weeks into Russia’s devastating invasion, the harsh tally of assaults on civilian targets grew to include a school and a cultural centre in the town of Merefa, pounded by overnight artillery fire with 21 people killed, authorities said.
Despite the mounting carnage, punishing international sanctions and unexpectedly strong resistance from Ukrainians, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he saw no sign that Russian leader Vladimir Putin “is prepared to stop.”
“Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime. After all the destruction of the past few weeks, I find it difficult to conclude that the Russians are doing otherwise,” he said.
BIDEN WARNS CHINA: DON’T GET INVOLVED
US President Joe Biden will warn China about providing military aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine when he speaks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the warning will be delievered when the two leaders speak on Friday.
“President Biden will be speaking to President Xi...and will make clear that China will bear responsibility for any actions it takes to support Russia’s aggression. And we will not hesitate to impose costs,” Mr Blinken said.
Beijing has so far refused to condemn its close ally Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, and blamed the United States and Nato for worsening tensions.
A White House statement said: “The two leaders will discuss managing the competition between our two countries as well as Russia’s war against Ukraine and other issues of mutual concern.”
The US is concerned about the alliance of authoritarian Russia and China — last week China said the partnership between the two countries was “rock solid”.
RESCUE OPERATION UNDERWAY
The number of dead “is still not known” after Russian forces bombed a theatre being used as a civilian shelter and marked with the word “children” in Ukraine’s south.
Rescue workers continued combing through the smoking rubble of the annihilated drama theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol on Thursday.
Ukrainian officials said more than 1,000 civilians had been sheltering in a basement bomb shelter beneath the theatre, and that Russian shelling was ongoing. Human Rights Watch said it was at least 500.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the “number of dead is not yet known” at the theatre, but the airborne attack showed “Russia has become a terrorist state”.
Former Donetsk regional head, Sergiy Taruta, said that people were emerging alive from the rubble of the building have been backed up by Liudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights.
“In Mariupol, the release of civilians from the rubble of the drama theatre has begun. The building withstood the impact of a high-powered air bomb and protected the lives of people hiding in the bomb shelter. Work is underway to unlock the basement,” Denisova said in a statement on Telegram.
Adults and children, she said, were coming out alive but the full extent of what had taken place remained unclear.
“There is currently no information about the dead or wounded under the rubble of the theatre,” she added.
Aerial photos of the building before it was hit clearly show the Russian word for “children” painted in huge letters on the grounds of the building – once at the front, and a second time at the back.
Denisova called the attack “an act of genocide and a terrible crime against humanity as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
Russia has denied its forces hit the building and instead accused “militants of the nationalist ‘Azov’ battalion” of blowing up the theatre.
Mariupol’s city hall said on Telegram that “around 30,000 people have left on their transport”, adding that “80 percent of residential housing was destroyed”.
According to city hall, a swimming pool also sheltering civilians — “mostly women, children and the elderly” — had also been shelled.
It said that “an average of 50 to 100 air bombs are dropped on the city per day”.
Officials described the situation as “critical”, estimating that about 350,000 residents are hiding in shelters and basements in the city.
The spokespoerson added that the Ukrainian army is “continuing to heroically hold the defence of Mariupol and repel enemy attacks” and that troops are fighting “for every street”.
Kyiv emerged from a 35-hour curfew to its own fresh destruction on Thursday, as Russian troops try to encircle the Ukrainian capital as part of their slow-moving offensive.
The Ukrainian government said 21 civilians were killed when overnight artillery fire pounded a school and a cultural centre in the town of Merefa outside the hard-hit eastern city of Kharkiv, regional prosecutors said.
RUSSIA’S LOSSES IN UKRAINE
The UK defence ministry’s latest intelligence report claims Russia’s invasion has “largely stalled on all fronts” as US intel estimates the number of Russian troops at 7000.
“Russian forces have made minimal progress on land, sea or air in recent days and they continue to suffer heavy losses. Ukrainian resistance remains staunch and well-co-ordinated. The vast majority of Ukrainian territory, including all major cities, remains in Ukrainian hands,” the UK report released Thursday afternoon reads.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 17 March 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 17, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/OdjSV0U43C
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/gxOTw78P0M
Meanwhile, a US intel official put the number of Russian troops killed during the Ukraine war at 7000.
According to the source, who spoke to The New York Times on condition of anonymity, the figures are “inexact” but but the analysis was reached using news media, Ukrainian figures and Russian figures, satellite imagery and video images.
US intel estimates another 20,000 could be injured.
Tom Nichols, a US expert in Russian affairs, said the casualties were “astonishing”.
“This is an astonishing number of casualties. If the Pentagon’s 7000 figure is correct, that’s more than twice as many deaths as we took in 20 years in Afghanistan in *just three weeks*,” Mr Nichols said on Twitter.
KREMLIN CALLS BIDEN’S SLUR ‘UNFORGIVABLE’
The Kremlin has responded to US President Joe Biden calling Vladimir Putin as a “war criminal” branding the move “unforgivable”.
“We consider unacceptable and unforgivable such rhetoric of the head of the state, whose bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian news agency Tass.
A reporter raised the question with Mr Biden on Thursday morning (AEDT), asking “Mr. President, after everything we’ve seen, are you ready to call Putin a war criminal.”
At first, Mr Biden said “no”.
The reporter from Fox News then asked if Mr Biden would travel to Poland where more than two million Ukrainian refugees have fled since Russia invaded on February 24.
“Did you ask me what I should call him?” Mr Biden said.
“Oh, I think he is a war criminal.”
PUTIN WARNS OF ‘FIFTH COLUMN’ UPRISING
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned of a “fifth column” uprising of supposed traitors in his country prepared to back the thinking of the West and enjoy their spoils while splitting the nation.
In a televised address marking the third week of his invasion, Mr Putin said it was his citizens’ duty to tell traitor from patriot and act accordingly. The message was stunning in that it was the first recognition his war and the sanctions it has attracted was starting to spark a backlash.
It came as the country swung to default on its debts with sanctions, dubbed by Putin as an economic blitzkrieg, locking the nation’s cash reserves and international trading.
His belligerent bellicose also came as his diplomats and those from Ukraine had reportedly drawn up a 15-point draft deal for a ceasefire, Russian withdrawal and eventual peace as Ukraine accepts a limit on the size of its military and shun membership ambitions to NATO.
Negotiators from both sides expressed optimism for a truce.
PUTIN CALLS WEST ‘SCUM’
But in the meantime Russia is bringing in reinforcements, continues to bombard cities including killing 10 civilians in a bread queue and strafing civilian buses trying to escape.
In Mariupol, a bomb hit a theatre where 1000 civilians were taking shelter with casualties expected.
All an assault, Mr Putin said, going according to his grand plan.
“Of course they (the West) will try to bet on the so-called fifth column, on traitors, on those who earn their money here, but live over there. Live, not in the geographical sense, but in the sense of their thoughts, their slavish thinking,” he said.
He accused the West as attempting to split his society and provoke a civil uprising using a fifth column insurgency to destroy the country.
“Any people, and especially the Russian people, will always be able to distinguish the true patriots from the scum and the traitors, and just to spit them out like a midge that accidentally flew into their mouths,” he said.
“I am convinced that this natural and necessary self-cleansing of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to meet any challenge.”
His remarks came as the rouble continued to drop; in 2008 US$1 bought 25 roubles and now is buys 117 rouble with the currency value dropping 10 per cent.
ZELENSKYY INVOKES 9/11 IN PLEA TO US CONGRESS
Meanwhile Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invoked Pearl Harbor and 9/11 terror attacks during a rare and urgent live cross to the US Congress.
While he said Moscow’s demand for an end to hostilities were more realistic, in the meantime more weapons were urgently needed from the US to fend off advances. He received a standing ovation for his address which included a shocking video montage of the destruction of his nation.
US President Joe Biden responded later, describing Russian aggression and Putin’s immoral, unethical and depraved onslaught.
He signed a fresh package of assistance for Ukraine including 20 million rounds of small arms bullets and 9000 antitank equipment.
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