Russian missiles continued to devastate main cities throughout Ukraine on Friday — as rescuers desperately tried to succeed in as many as 1,300 folks feared trapped for 2 days under the rubble of a blown-up theater.
The early-morning barrages included strikes on capital Kyiv, the place no less than one individual was killed when six homes and two faculties have been hit within the Podil neighborhood, leaving practically 100 folks evacuated.
At least 4 kids have been amongst 19 injured, Mayor Vitali Klitschko mentioned from the scene — the place distressing photos confirmed a dazed-looking aged lady strolling with blood dripping down her wounded head.
Missiles additionally bombarded the western metropolis of Lviv, which is near the Polish border and has develop into a crossroads each for fleeing refugees in addition to these bringing help.
In different developments:
• The Defense Department’s intelligence arm has warned Russian President Vladimir Putin will more and more threaten to make use of nuclear bombs if his invasion of Ukraine drags on and exposes Moscow’s navy weaknesses.
Get the newestupdateswithin the Russia-Ukraine battle with The Post’s stay protection.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned on Russian State TV that the Kremlin would view any weapons deliveries to Ukraine as “fair game” for Russian strikes
• Ukrainian refugees in search of asylum within the US is not going to be turned away, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas declared this week after reviews emerged that border officers have been utilizing the Title 42 public well being authority to refuse entry to Eastern European refugees alongside the southern border.
• The UN estimates 3.2 million Ukrainian civilians have fled the nation through the combating. In addition, 6.5 million have been displaced internally, as Russian forces proceed to shell residential metropolis facilities. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s border safety company mentioned roughly 320,000 Ukrainian residents had returned to the nation from overseas because the invasion started, based on the Kyiv Post.
• Ukrainian forces claimed to have killed feared Russian colonel Sergei Sukharev, a veteran of Russia’s campaigns in Chechnya and Georgia. The announcement got here two days after Ukraine claimed to have killed a fourth Russian Major General in battle.
As the newest airstrikes rained down, rescuers stored looking for survivors of one of many worst assaults from 23 days of struggle, when a theater used as a shelter in besieged Mariupol was hit.
While some survivors had emerged, native officers feared greater than 1,000 folks stay in a basement bomb shelter under the rubble of the three-story constructing that was clearly marked “CHILDREN” in Russian.
“As of now, we know that 130 people have been evacuated, but according to our data, there are still more than 1,300 people in these basements, in this bomb shelter,” the nation’s human rights commissioner, Ludmyla Denisova, advised Ukrainian tv.
“We pray that they will all be alive, but so far there is no information about them.”
Ukrainian parliament member Sergiy Taruta gave the same figures, calling the scenario in Mariupol “a tragedy of a WORLDWIDE scale!”
“How many people continue to be under the ruins, how many injured and killed there, no one knows,” he mentioned, saying the theater was a sanctuary after 80 % of town’s houses have been broken by Russian shelling.
“A lot of doctors have been killed. This means that all the survivors of the bombing will either die under the ruins of the theater, or have already died,” he wrote.
In an replace late Friday, Mariupol’s metropolis council mentioned it knew of 1 critical harm — however had nonetheless been unable to succeed in the lots assumed nonetheless locked within the basement to get a demise toll.
“Due to constant air strikes and fighting within the city, it was almost impossible to dismantle the debris immediately after the shelling,” the council wrote on Telegram.
Captain Svyatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, told the Kyiv Post that rescue makes an attempt have been additionally being thwarted by ongoing “street fights in the city” by Russian troops.
“Enemy aircraft and artillery are working non-stop. The city is being leveled to the ground. … People are being taken hostage,” he mentioned.
The World Health Organization mentioned it had verified 43 assaults on hospitals and well being amenities, with 12 folks killed and 34 injured.
At the identical time, Ukraine’s “food supply chain is falling apart,” warned Jakob Kern, emergency coordinator for the disaster on the United Nations’ World Food Programme. “Movements of goods have slowed down due to insecurity and the reluctance of drivers.”
Western intelligence specialists have mentioned Russia has more and more relied on airstrikes as a result of its navy’s obvious failure to efficiently assault on the bottom.
As of Friday, greater than 14,200 Russian troops had been killed and greater than 3,000 navy autos destroyed, together with greater than 200 helicopters and planes, 450 tanks and practically 1,500 armored autos, Ukraine’s military claimed. Those numbers couldn’t be independently confirmed.
With Post wires
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