Mariupol

As Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin has led devastating sieges of Grozny, Aleppo and now Mariupol.

By the time Russian forces took the city in February 2000, the city was decimated. Putin was born in Leningrad after the siege in 1952, but lost an older brother, Viktor, who died as an infant during the blockade. Survivors of the Aleppo siege recall the trauma not only associated with the bombing and shelling, but also with the severe lack of food and other basic supplies. The United Nations later said Grozny was the most destroyed city on Earth, while estimates of the deaths ran well into the thousands. Chechnya had fought off a Russian invasion only five years before, but this time the breakaway republic was submitted to ferocious artillery attacks and airstrikes. In both cases, the result was the near-total destruction of historic centers.

Mariupol continues to be bombarded by Russian forces, who also reportedly attacked Odesa for the first time.

Three civilians were killed and five were injured as a result of Russian shelling on Sunday in the east of the country, said Pavel Kirilenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration. He said at least one person was killed. Mariupol continues to be bombarded by Russian forces, who also reportedly attacked Odesa for the first time. Mariupol continues to be bombarded by Russian forces, who also reportedly attacked Odesa for the first time. Meanwhile, Odesa’s mayor has accused Russian forces of carrying out an attack on residential buildings on the outskirts of the Black Sea port city, marking the first such reported attack there. Ukraine has rejected Russian calls to surrender the port city of Mariupol, where residents are besieged with little food, water, and power, in a humanitarian crisis that is increasing pressure on European leaders to toughen sanctions on Moscow.

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If Russia takes control of Mariupol, it would create a land corridor between the separatist enclaves in the east and Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Recently evacuated residents also told The Times that they had been in touch with people who had been taken from basement shelters to Russia against their will. Nadezhda Sukhorukova, a resident who managed to escape Mariupol, described life in the city — including the near-constant roar of planes and explosions, and the corpses heaped on the street —  in a series of Facebook posts.

The most bombarded city in Ukraine's war with Russia is key to Moscow's military campaign.

Some carried only what they had at hand when they seized the chance to escape the port of Mariupol amid relentless Russian bombardment.

On Sunday, the Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine said 2,973 people had been “evacuated” from Mariupol since March 5, including 541 over the last 24 hours.

The train of survivors on Sunday afternoon approached the central station of Lviv, the city near Poland that has absorbed an estimated 200,000 people fleeing other areas of Ukraine. As they climbed off one by one into the arms of family and friends after weeks of fearing for their lives, some Mariupol survivors wept.

A mother embraced a red-faced, teary teenage boy at the foot of the steps. “They have no glass in their windows.”

With deep disdain, Sovchyuk said Russian soldiers amid such devastation were still encouraging Ukrainians to come to Russia, claiming it would be for their safety.

The Mariupol City Council has asserted that several thousand residents were taken into Russia against their will over the past week. They had nothing, only a small bag.

“Everyone from there is in deep shock,” Sovchyuk said.

She recalled seeing convoys from the besieged city on the road. She wept in the doorway of a crowded train compartment that was pulling into the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

The relief of being free from weeks of threats and deprivation, of seeing bodies in the streets and drinking melted snow because there was no water, was crushed by sadness as she thought of family members left behind.

“I don’t know anything about them,” she said. Some fled so quickly that relatives who were still in the starving, freezing Ukrainian city on the Sea of Azov aren't aware that they have gone.

“There is no city anymore,” Marina Galla said. They cooked meals outside with wood in the yard, even while under fire.

Even as they finally fled Mariupol, aiming to reach trains heading west to safety, Russian soldiers at checkpoints made a chilling suggestion: It would be better to go to the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol or the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula instead.

It's a suggestion that residents found ludicrous after the Russians on Wednesday bombed a Mariupol theatre where children and others were sheltering, and after authorities on Sunday said an art school holding hundreds of people in Mariupol had been bombed.

For hours on Sunday’s train journey, survivors shared their experiences with fellow passengers.

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Mariupol's defenders held out Monday against Russian demands that they surrender, the number of bodies in the rubble of the ...

But he said that was a topic for another time, after a cease-fire and steps toward security guarantees. Estimates of Russian deaths vary, but even conservative figures are in the low thousands. A long line of vehicles lined a road in Bezimenne, Ukraine, as Mariupol residents sought shelter at a temporary camp set up by Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk region. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine disarm and declare itself neutral. The attack shattered every window in a neighboring high-rise. The fall of the southern port city would help Russia establish a land bridge to Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014. The assault has cut off Mariupol’s electricity, water and food supplies and severed communication with the outside world, plunging residents into a fight for survival. Zelenskyy told Ukrainian television late Monday that he would be prepared to consider waiving any NATO bid by Ukraine in exchange for a cease-fire, the withdrawal of Russian troops and a guarantee of Ukraine’s security. There has been no official estimate since then, but the number is feared to be far higher after six more days of bombardment. Other attempts have been thwarted by the fighting. “They don’t let us pass through everywhere — there are shootings.” For those who remain, conditions have become brutal.