Russian forces have opened fire on one of the convoys of residents fleeing the town of Mariupol on the Azov coast, at least five of whom have been seriously injured, a Ukrainian Pravda news portal told Zaporizhia’s military administration in eastern Ukraine and the Ukrainian chiefs of staff said on Wednesday.
According to the report, a convoy of artillery attacks on the highway near the town of Stepnohorsk in Zaporizhia County hit the convoy on Wednesday afternoon at around 4 p.m. The county leadership knows about five injured so far. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, there are also fatalities in the attack, but no figures have been released yet.
‼️This is all that remains of the Drama Theater in #Mariupol
According to local media, up to 1,000 people could have been inside the building. All of them are now under the rubble of the building. The exact number of casualties is still unknown. pic.twitter.com/4L3D8lt39E
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 16, 2022
Barely an hour later, the Mariupol City Council reported that Russian forces had bombed the drama theater building in the city center, which currently serves as a shelter for hundreds of locals. According to the city administration, it is not yet possible to assess the damage caused by the air strike, because Mariupol is constantly being shot down, so the number of victims is not known either. All that was reported was that after the blast, the central part of the drama theater collapsed and the entrance to the shelter in the building was blocked by debris. The regiment of Azov, which defended the city, said there could have been up to a thousand people in the building. They added in a statement that Russian forces were aware that the theater was operating as a shelter, as the building was officially designated a refuge for those who lost their homes and livelihoods as a result of the attacks.
At the Russian Ministry of Defense, a Russian news agency reported, it was immediately denied that Russian forces had dealt a blow to the theater building. They claim to have been mined and blown up by members of the Azov regiment.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko reported on the Telegram messaging portal that projectiles crashed into several residential buildings in Kyiv’s Pogyil district on the right bank of the Dnieper River (Dnipro) on Wednesday night, relatively close to the city center. The fires have been localized, but extinguishing work is still ongoing. No casualties have been found yet, the mayor wrote.
Meanwhile, Andriy Yermak, head and deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Kirilo Tymoshenko, reported that Mayor Ivan Fedorov, who had been taken hostage a few days ago, had been released from captivity by Russian forces. Jermak added that the head of the Zaporizhia County City is in talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
MTI
Photo: Twitter / Mariupol Now
