Russia's bloody invasion of Ukraine appeared to falter tonight amid escalating fears Moscow’s troops are deliberately resorting to targeting civilians.
Ukraine says 2,000 civilians have been killed and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned of “credible reports of civilians coming under fire ”.
It emerged that Russia had bombed a humanitarian convoy in Mariupol and stricken Sumy civilians again came under fire from artillery that killed 21 non-combatants, including two children.
By day 13 of Vladimir Putin ’s invasion, Stoltenberg said 38 children had been killed in the fighting, 200 schools destroyed, along with 34 hospitals and 1,500 residential homes.
It is feared many more children have been killed by Russian forces.
Ukraine claims Moscow has lost more than 12,000 troops in fighting, a staggering 303 tanks, 48 warplanes, 80 helicopters and over 1,000 armoured personnel carriers.
Demands for ways to safely evacuate civilians have surged along with intensifying shelling by Russian forces, who have advanced in southern Ukraine but stalled in some other regions.
Military sources on the ground have told the Mirror Russian forces may have reached a critical mass point where they may have lost critical momentum and could lose.
They have lost their second very senior officer Major General Vitaly Gerimov, 45, in ferocious fighting near the stricken city of Kharkiv, east Ukraine, a major blow to Moscow.
Russia is also falling back on recruiting Syrian troops to backfill their invasion, it is believed, sparking fears Ukraine could become a country beset by proxy battles for years.
One said: “It is beginning to feel like Russian forces have started flailing about and are becoming increasingly desperate.
“They are throwing increasingly long-range missiles at cities, hitting civilians, because they just don’t seem to know what next to do.
“They have lost so many air assets to Ukraine’s troops and now they are trying to get into cities - which hugely boosts the need for a higher number of troops.
“The attacks just are not coordinated and there are increasing reports of desertions and people being taken prisoner.”
Efforts to put in place ceasefires along humanitarian corridors have repeatedly failed amid Russian shelling.
Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov said as well as killing 38
children Russia had also wounded over 70.
The situation is becoming increasingly untenable in the city of Mariupol,
which is without water, heat, sanitary systems or phones.
Mariupol’s capture could allow Moscow to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.
An estimated 200,000 people - nearly half the population of 430,000 - hope to flee the port city.
Ukraine was also tonight making arrangements to get people out of the suburb of Irpin, although it was not clear if that would be along with one of the five official corridors the Russians promised.
Ukrainian officials had pushed back on the proposals as several of the routes would funnel people into Russia or its ally Belarus, which was a launchpad for the invasion.
President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the expansion of humanitarian corridors, and more support from the Red Cross, adding that a Mariupol child had died from dehydration.
In a video address from an undisclosed location, he said a child had died of dehydration in Mariupol, in a sign of how desperate the city's population has become.
He said there was no firm agreement on the route out of Mariupol, so "Russian troops can simply shoot on this transport on the way".
The president again pleaded for air support from western countries. A senior US official said multiple countries were discussing whether to provide warplanes to Ukraine.
Ukraine's armed forces HQ said in a statement that Ukrainian troops are continuing defence operations in the suburbs of Mariupol.
The general staff said "demoralised" Russian forces are looting in places they have occupied, commandeering civilian buildings like farm hangars for military equipment.
Ukrainian defence forces were also involved in operations in Chernihiv and the outskirts of Kyiv, the general staff said.
In Kyiv, soldiers and volunteers have built hundreds of checkpoints to protect the city of nearly four million, with sandbags, tyres and spiked cables.
Some barricades looked significant, with heavy concrete slabs and sandbags piled more than two storeys high, while others appeared more haphazard, books used to weigh down stacks of tyres.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said: "Every house, every street, every checkpoint, we will fight to the death if necessary.”
It also emerged drunken Russian soldiers shot dead a ten-year-old girl in a village near Kyiv.
Anastasia Stoluk died in Shybene, 40 miles north of Kyiv, on February 28,
her cousin Anya Stoluk, 18, said.
The soldiers refused to allow Nastya's mother, Luba, to go to the cemetery so she was buried in the yard, Anya added.
Anya's adoptive mother Vera Dmitrien- ko, 40, said: "People say that the soldiers just got so bored. They looted all the stores, of course they got a lot of alcohol ... and got drunk and started shooting.
“They shot into Nastya's house, she was there with her uncle, and she died immediately. Her uncle was taken to hospital and we still don't have any information from him."
Dmitrienko said soldiers had started shooting after a Ukrainian teenage boy found a gun and fired it in the air.
"The soldiers heard it but since they were so drunk they didn't know where it was from so they just started shooting everywhere they could see.
“They shot in four houses and in one of those houses was Nastya," she said.
