Ukraine’s president has said his country could never surrender Kyiv, Mariupol or Kharkiv to the forces of Vladmir Putin who was branded a “war criminal” for atrocities being committed.
Volodymyr Zelensky vowed that Ukraine would never bow to ultimatums from Russia after rejecting one issued by the Kremlin for people to lay down their weapons and leave Mariupol in the south of the country by 5am on Monday morning.
He stressed that cities such as Kyiv, Mariupol or Kharkiv would not accept Russian occupation.
“We have an ultimatum with points in it. ‘Follow it and then we will end the war’,” Mr Zelensky said in an interview published by Ukrainian public broadcasting company Suspilne. “Ukraine cannot fulfill the ultimatum.”
Ukraine defied the Kremlin demand that its troops in the city lay down arms before dawn, where tens of thousands of civilians have been besieged — cut off from food, water and electricity supplies.
As more details of the horror being strewn by Russian forces in Mariupol were emerging, Mr Zelensky condemned the “mass murderer” pilots bombing the city.
Meanwhile, the president’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, accused Russia of committing a “real act of genocide” against the besieged city of Mariupol, where he said around 400,000 citizens have been surrounded without “food, water, light, air” for weeks.
In a statement to UK Government officials during an emergency visit to London on Monday, Mr Reznikov said Moscow must be stopped “because it will go further” and said several cities “have already been wiped off the face of the earth”.
Also in London, Cabinet minister Sajid Javid backed considering a Nuremberg-style trial to try Russian president Mr Putin in his absence for war crimes in Ukraine.
“I’m appalled by the atrocities that are unfolding in Ukraine and the despicable attacks that we are seeing on civilians,” he told LBC Radio. “As far as I’m concerned, these are the acts of a war criminal.”
Russian military commanders gave people inside Mariupol until 5am (3am UK time) on Monday to surrender and be allowed out of the city in the country’s south through safe corridors. But Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said: “Of course we rejected these proposals, as there was little trust that the Russians would stick to their word, having previously attacked evacuation convoys.
Thousands of civilians are feared to have been killed in the city where a theatre, believed to have been housing more than 1,000 civilians, and a school sheltering 400 have been hit.
Russian shelling thwarted efforts to rescue those trapped under the Drama Theatre, from where some 130 people were brought out alive last week.
Speaking in a video address early on Monday, Mr Zelensky said about 400 civilians were taking shelter at the art school in the besieged Azov Sea port city when it was struck by a Russian bomb.
“They are under the rubble, and we don’t know how many of them have survived,” he said. “But we know that we will certainly shoot down the pilot who dropped that bomb, like about 100 other such mass murderers whom we already have downed.”
The US Embassy in Kyiv tweeted: “As heroic rescuers worked to rescue children and others following the horrific bombing of the Mariupol theatre, forces attacked a designated shelter at an art school there with 400 inside. The killing must stop, read the 4th Geneva Convention.”
The deadline to surrender raised fears that Mr Putin could resort to even more barbaric attacks, possibly using chemical weapons, to force Mariupol, where fighting has been taking place in the city centre, to quickly surrender.
Mariupol was home to 400,000 people before the war. It has been under siege and bombardment, with no food, medicine, power or fresh water, since the early days of Russia’s invasion which began on February 24.
However, a Russian-backed separatist leader in eastern Ukraine said it would take more than a week to take control of the strategically-important city, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.
“I am not so optimistic that two or three days or even a week will close the issue. Unfortunately, no, the city is big,” Denis Pushilin, head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, said, according to the report.
In other key developments:
- Boris Johnson discussed ensuring the government in Kyiv has the “tools it needs to defend itself” in a call on Monday with US President Joe Biden, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Olaf Scholz and Italy’s Mario Draghi.
- Mr Javid warned the bloodshed in Ukraine could get a “lot uglier” as Mr Putin’s troops have become bogged down and are instead resorting to even heavier bombing and shelling of towns and cities.
- The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, announced a “reinforced curfew” in the Ukrainian capital from 8pm on Monday until 7am on Wednesday. He said shops, pharmacies and petrol stations would not open on Tuesday. Parts of the city have come under fire repeatedly from Russian forces. “I ask everyone to stay at home — or in shelters when the alarm sounds,” he stressed
- Russian air forces hit a Ukrainian army facility in Rivne Region with cruise missiles, Russia’s defence ministry said on Monday morning.
- More than 7,000 people were evacuated from cities through humanitarian corridors on Sunday, over half from Mariupol, said the Ukrainian government.
- Eight people were killed in Kyiv when a shopping centre was hit.
- The Kremlin said peace talks between Russia and Ukraine had not yet made significant progress. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said progress had to be made for there to be a basis for a possible meeting between Mr Putin and Mr Zelensky. Sir Richard Barrons, a former commander of UK Joint Forces Command, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that if the Russians seized Mariupol, their next “logical” target would be the port of Odesa.
- Britain has issued some 9,500 visas to refugees under the Ukraine Family Scheme, said Mr Javid.
- Nearly 10 million people in Ukraine were revealed to have been internally displaced or to have fled the country.
- A “prank” video call with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace surfaced after Britain blamed Russia for several hoaxes targeting Government ministers.
