This aerial view of the stricken Ukrainian city of Mariupol shows how nearly every building has been ravaged by more than a month of continuous Russian bombardment.
Vast apartment blocks are now charred, hollowed-out wrecks, with most windows blown out, and barely a single structure on the skyline is still intact.
Smoke can be seen rising in the distance, an indication that the unrelenting shelling of civilian areas is ongoing, with Russian troops on the brink of overcoming staunch Ukrainian resistance in the key strategic port.
It comes amid growing signs that Russia could be on the brink of capturing devastated Mariupol, which had a population of 450,000 before the conflict started.
Today it was claimed that more than 1,000 Ukrainian marines had surrendered after running out of ammunition, food and water.
They were said to be trapped in the Azovstal iron and steel works on the city’s shoreline, and had been cut off from their supply line.
Local politicians, however, denied the reports, insisting that the elite troops had actually joined another battalion based in the same area.
The last Ukrainian soldiers are putting up a hellish last stand in tunnels underneath the abandoned plant, to make the attackers’ bid to conquer the Sea of Azov as hard as possible.
Mariupol’s mayor says 21,000 civilians have been killed during weeks of intense Russian bombardment, while 100,000 people are still waiting to be evacuated as humanitarian corridors have been repeatedly targeted by Vladimir Putin ’s forces.
Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine, including the appalling bombing of a theatre in Mariupol in which children were sheltering, were officially declared war crimes in a devastating international report ordered by 45 countries.
The attack on the Mariupol Theatre, in which 300 civilians died, was “most likely… an egregious violation” of humanitarian law, according to a new report for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation and Europe (OSCE).
In its interim findings, the report accused Putin and his generals directly of breaching international law, stating “those who ordered or executed it committed a war crime”.
The OSCE also dismissed Russia’s claims that its attack on a maternity hospital in Mariupol last month was “fake news”, saying the attack “must have been deliberate”.
It added: “This attack therefore constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law and those responsible for it have committed a war crime.”
The interim report ran to nearly 100 pages and said Russian forces have intentionally targeted healthcare sites.
The report only covers the conflict up to April 1, which means atrocities against civilians uncovered in towns like Bucha and Irpin as Russian forces pulled back from Kyiv in recent weeks have not yet been fully analysed.
Neil Bush, head of the UK’s delegation to the OSCE, said: “This report is just the first of likely many.
“We must, as an international community, hold accountable those responsible for the atrocities that have been committed in Ukraine, including military commanders and other individuals in the Putin regime.
“Soldiers and commanders who issue or follow illegal orders need to understand that their actions will be documented, and they will be held to account. Justice will be served.”
The chief prosecutor from the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, visited Bucha today, and observed bodies being exhumed for identification from mass graves.
He described the Kyiv suburb, where more than 400 civilians died, as a “crime scene”, and confirmed investigators “have reasonable grounds to believe the crimes within the jurisdiction of the court are being committed”.
“We have to pierce the fog of war to get to the truth,” he went on International forensic investigators painstakingly recovered remains from the mass graves in a churchyard to identify the victims, who include many women and children.
Overnight, US President Joe Biden branded Vladimir Putin a “dictator”, accusing him of genocide in Ukraine for the first time.
In his strongest criticism of the Kremlin leadership since the war began, President Biden warned Putin was trying to “wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian”.
Ukraine has claimed Russia has used mobile crematoriums in occupied regions to dispose of dead civilians.
Officials also claim they were used to hide the real losses of Russian troops.
Meanwhile a senior Ukrainian politician has warned there is a high likelihood that Russia will use chemical weapons against civilians.
The mayor of Kharkiv said seven civilians in the city have died in the last 24 hours - including a two-year-old child.
He also added that 22 have been injured following missile strikes on the besieged city.
It comes as foreign intelligence sources suggested Russia is planning to muster a force that will outnumber Ukrainian troops by five to one when it launches a renewed assault on the Donbas region in the east.
The redeployed force, consisting of tens of thousands of troops brought in from other areas, could begin its assault as early as the end of this week.
Some of Putin’s staunchest supporters in Russia believe he will still ultimately invade the whole of Ukraine, despite pulling back troops from Kyiv to concentrate on all of the Donbas.
They envisage Ukraine being wiped off the map and replaced with statelets obedient to the Kremlin - or submerged into the Russian Federation.
Loyalist Russian MP Anatoly Wasserman - born in Ukraine - has given a chilling vision of the plan of Putin’s hardline backers, using the leader’s euphemistic term “de-Nazification” to justify the barbaric attacks on innocent civilians.
“As long as Ukraine is independent, it remains a source of increased danger, first of all for itself, and then for everyone around,” he claimed.
“I know for sure that the de-Nazification of Ukraine, while maintaining its formal independence from the rest of Russia, is impossible. As long as Ukraine is listed as independent, it is forced to follow the Nazi programme of turning its Russian majority into something anti-Russian.
“So I am quite sure that the set goals of demilitarisation and deNazification will be achieved.”
