A drama theatre in Ukraine that was sheltering hundreds of civilians fleeing the conflict-ridden areas of the city of Mariupol was bombed on Wednesday allegedly by Russian aircraft, as per media reports. Ukraine has accused Russia Thursday of bombing a theatre that was sheltering more than 1,000 civilians in the city of Mariupol, after US President Joe Biden branded Vladimir Putin a "war criminal." Russia's defence ministry denied it had targeted the theatre, instead claiming that the building had been mined and blown up by members of Ukraine's far-right Azov Battalion.
Lets look at the top 10 updates on this big story:
1) Officials across Ukraine are struggling to count the civilian dead -- with authorities saying 103 children have been killed since the invasion began -- who have been targeted in homes, hospitals, ambulances and food queues, according to AFP report.
2) The United Nation's top court, International Court of Justice (ICJ), on Wednesday ordered Russia to suspend its invasion of Ukraine, saying it was "profoundly concerned" by Moscow's use of force.
3) Satellite images of the theatre on March 14 shared by private satellite company Maxar showed the words "children" clearly etched out in the ground in Russian on either side of the building. Officials posted a photo of the building, whose middle part was completely destroyed, with thick white smoke rising from the rubble after they said a bomb was dropped from an airplane.
4) Russia's defence ministry denied it had targeted the theatre, instead claiming that the building had been mined and blown up by members of Ukraine's far-right Azov Battalion.
5) Russia and Ukraine have continued talks in a bid to negotiate a settlement. Ukraine has rejected proposals put forward by Russia to become a neutral country, like Austria or Sweden.
6) Ukraine came as President Volodymyr Zelensky made a searing appeal for help to the US, which responded by pledging $1 billion in new weapons to fight Russia's invading army. In an address to the US Congress, Zelensky invoked Pearl Harbor, the 9/11 attacks and Martin Luther King Jr as he showed lawmakers a video of the wrenching effect of three weeks of Russian attacks. Zelensky, dressed in military green, demanded Washington and its NATO allies impose a no-fly zone, so that "Russia would not be able to terrorize our free cities."
7) Additionally, the US president also stepped up his condemnation of the Russian leader, describing him as a "war criminal." US national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, in the first publicly disclosed contact and told the Russian leader that if Moscow is "serious about diplomacy then Moscow should stop attacking Ukrainian cities and towns," the statement said.
8) Biden and NATO have resisted Zelensky's pleas for direct involvement against nuclear-armed Russia, warning it could lead to World War Three -- though the Ukrainian leader told NBC that "may have already started." But on Wednesday Biden announced the United States' latest package of new weapons aid to Ukraine added up to $1 billion and that the US would help the ex-Soviet state acquire longer-range anti-aircraft weapons.
9) Meanwhile, Kremlin called the comment "unacceptable and unforgivable on the part of the head of a state whose bombs have killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world."
10) The World Health Organization said that healthcare facilities and personnel were being attacked at an unprecedented rate. "We've never seen globally... this rate of attacks on healthcare," the WHO's emergencies director Michael Ryan told reporters, warning that "this crisis is reaching a point where the health system in Ukraine is teetering on the brink."
(With inputs from agencies)
