Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Sunday his campaign in Ukraine was going to plan and would not end until Kyiv stopped fighting, as efforts to evacuate 200,000 people from the heavily bombarded city of Mariupol fell apart for a second day in a row.
Most people trapped in the port city are sleeping in bomb shelters to escape more than six days of near-constant shelling by encircling Russian forces that has cut off food, water, power and heating supplies, according to the Ukrainian authorities.
The civilian death toll from hostilities across Ukraine since Moscow launched its invasion on February 24th stood at 364, including more than 20 children, according to the United Nations on Sunday, with hundreds more injured.
The UN high commissioner for human rights said most civilian casualties were caused by the use of “explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.”
Moscow has repeatedly denied attacking civilian areas.
In Irpin, a town some 25 kilometres (16 miles) northwest of the capital Kyiv, men, women and children trying to escape armed clashes in the area were forced to take cover when missiles struck nearby, according to Reuters witnesses.
Soldiers and fellow residents helped the elderly hurry to a bus filled with frightened people, some cowering as they waited to be driven to safety.
The invasion has drawn almost universal condemnation around the world, sent more than 1.5 million Ukrainians fleeing from the country, and triggered tough Western sanctions against Russia aimed at squeezing its economy.
Putin made his demand for Kyiv to end the fighting in a phone call with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who appealed for a ceasefire. Putin told Erdogan he was ready for dialogue with Ukraine and foreign partners but any attempt to draw out negotiation would fail, a Kremlin statement said.
Russian media said Putin also held almost two hours of talks on Sunday with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has stayed in regular contact.
Anti-war protests took place around the world on Sunday including in Russia itself, where police detained around 3,500 demonstrators. TASS news agency reported the interior ministry as saying arrests included 1,700 people in Moscow and 750 in St Petersburg.
Thousands of protesters chanted “No to war!” and “Shame on you!”, according to videos posted on social media by opposition activists and bloggers. Reuters was unable to independently verify the footage and photographs on social media.
Demonstrations were also taking place in Western capitals as well as in India and Kazakhstan, after jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny called for worldwide protests against the war.
Anti-war protests took place around the world on Sunday including in Russia itself. © AP/Press Association Images
In the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, authorities had said on Sunday they would make a second attempt to evacuate some of the 400,000 residents.
But the ceasefire plan collapsed, as it had on Saturday, with each side blaming the other for the failure.
“The failed attempts yesterday and today underscore the absence of a detailed and functioning agreement between the parties to the conflict,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said, adding 200,000 people had been due to quit the city.
“They’re destroying us,” Mariupol mayor Vadym Boychenko told Reuters in a video call, describing the city’s plight before the latest evacuation effort failed. “They will not even give us an opportunity to count the wounded and the killed because the shelling does not stop.”
Moscow calls its campaign a “special military operation”, saying it has no plans to occupy Ukraine.
Russia has poured troops and equipment into Ukraine. A huge Russian convoy on a road north of Kyiv has made limited visible progress in recent days, although Russia’s defence ministry released footage on Sunday showing some tracked military vehicles on the move.
In the capital, Ukrainian soldiers bolstered defences by digging trenches, blocking roads and liaising with civil defence units as Russian forces bombarded areas nearby.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian rockets had destroyed the civilian airport of the central-western region capital of Vinnytsia on Sunday. He also said Russia was preparing to bombard another southern city, Odessa.
Residents of some towns occupied by Russian forces took to the streets in protest, Interfax Ukraine reported, including 2,000 in the southern city of Nova Kakhovka.
The World Health Organisation said there had been several attacks on Ukrainian healthcare facilities during the conflict. The attacks caused deaths and injuries, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a Twitter message, but gave no details.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator and a recipient of the D9112 Superstar Icon Award, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
