New drone footage and satellite imagery reveals the scale of the devastation in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol after weeks of relentless Russian bombardment.
Mariupol has been described as “hell on earth” by some of the city’s resident’s who managed to escape following weeks of pummelling by Russian forces using missile attacks and shelling.
Despite the onslaught, Ukrainian forces have until now managed to prevent its fall.
Russia’s offensive on the city has been sustained with such intensity as Moscow appears set on establishing a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014. Taking Mariupol and the Black Sea coastline would give the Kremlin’s forces a secure link to the captured peninsula.
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Footage filmed from a drone above the district of Livoberezhnyi, in eastern Mariupol, shows smoke billowing into the air, destroyed apartment blocks, damaged trees and areas of wasteland scattered with debris.
A large number of buildings appear damaged, some with visible craters and missing sections of wall.
Separate satellite imagery of Mariupol collected by Maxar on Tuesday showed further widespread destruction caused by Russian artillery shelling and airstrikes on residential housing areas, civilian infrastructure and factories.
The images show buildings on fire, including high-rise apartment blocks, and the damaged Azovstal metallurgical factory.
Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking on Tuesday in his nightly video address, said efforts to establish humanitarian corridors for Mariupol residents were almost all being "foiled by the Russian occupiers, by shelling or deliberate terror”.
How much of Mariupol is still under Ukrainian control remains unclear, with fleeing residents reporting fighting street by street.
Russia's RIA news agency said Russian forces and units of Russian-backed separatists had taken about half of the city, citing a separatist leader.
Mariupol officials said at least 2,300 people had died in an update provided last week, but the true toll is likely to be much higher.
Airstrikes have destroyed a theatre and an art school where civilians were sheltering in the last week.
Local authorities in the city said intense Russian airstrikes were turning it into the "ashes of a dead land".
