Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Satellite imagery of what appeared to be rows of freshly excavated mass graves on the outskirts of Mariupol has drawn increasing attention to the horrors of war as Russia hits Ukrainian steel protests Friday. factory of the city and other goals in the quest to capture the industrial east of the country.
“Every day they drop several bombs on Azovstal,” Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said about the besieged steel production. “The fighting, the shelling, the bombing doesn’t stop.”
Cities in the Donbass region also came under Russian fire at night, and attacks hampered efforts to evacuate civilians.
The region, home to coal mines, metal plants and factories for heavy equipment, is preparing for an epic clash as Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to save a victory from an eight-week war that is widely seen as a mistake and a humanitarian catastrophe.
On Thursday, Putin declared victory in the battle for the strategic southern port city of Mariupol, although some 2,000 Ukrainians remained hidden in a sprawling steel plant that had been bombed for weeks. Putin ordered his troops not to storm the fortress, but to seal it.
Meanwhile, Maxar Technologies has released new satellite images that it says show more than 200 graves in a city near Mariupol, leading to accusations that the Russians are trying to cover up the massacre of civilians in the city.
Initial estimates by Ukrainians say the graves could contain 9,000 bodies, but Andryushenko said there could be more. Ukrainian authorities say more than 20,000 civilians have been killed in the nearly two-month siege of Mariupol.
“The graves have been excavated and corpses are still being dumped there,” said the mayor’s aide.
Putin said on Friday that Russia had allowed Ukrainian forces at the steel plant to surrender, with assurances that they would keep them alive, and had offered “decent treatment and medical care”, according to a telephone conversation with the European Council president. Charles Michel, provided by the Kremlin.
“But the regime in Kyiv does not allow them to take advantage of this opportunity,” Putin accused.
Repeated attempts to evacuate civilians from the city have failed because Russia failed to comply with the ceasefire, Ukrainian authorities said.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians would not be opened in Ukraine on Friday because it was too dangerous. She called on civilians to be “patient” and “stay there”.
Days after Russia’s offensive in the east, the campaign has not yet turned into a full-scale attack, with military analysts saying Moscow’s forces are still growing. But scattered cities in the east have been hit by incoming shells, pushing citizens into panic.
Slavyansk, a city of about 100,000 people in eastern Ukraine, was shelled overnight, according to Mayor Vadim Lyakh, who said no one was injured. But he urged residents to leave and said a convoy of buses would be organized. In Rubizhne, Russian fire prevented attempts to bring in buses, said Luhansk Governor Sergei Haidai.
Heavy shelling was also heard at night in Kharkiv, a northeastern city outside Donbass that is seen as one of the portals the Russians intend to use to surround Ukrainian forces in Donbass from the north, south and east.
If successful, the campaign will give Putin a vital part of the country and a much-needed victory to show the Russian people the growing casualties in the war and the economic hardships caused by Western sanctions.
But analysts say Russian forces have not yet made major breakthroughs in Donbass or gained significant positions. A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon’s assessment, said Ukrainians were hampering Russia’s efforts to push south of Izyum, which is outside Donbass.
On Friday, Rustam Minekayev, a senior Russian military official, outlined Russia’s military goals, which seemed broader than the Kremlin had said in recent weeks. He said Russian forces were seeking full control not only of eastern Ukraine but also of southern Ukraine.
He said such a move would pave the way for the Moldovan nation, where Russia supports the breakaway region of Transnistria. Moldovan authorities are closely monitoring Putin’s actions in Ukraine.
Russia’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, said talks between the two countries had “stalled” as Moscow had not received a response from Kyiv to its latest proposals, details of which have not been released.
Putin’s chief negotiator during the talks, Vladimir Medinsky, said he had several lengthy talks Friday with the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He did not give details of what was being discussed, nor did he say whether there was any progress.
The battle of Mariupol is seen as the key to the eastern attack. Its takeover will complete the land bridge between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which was captured by Moscow in 2014, and will free Putin’s forces to take part in a larger campaign in the east.
Mariupol is the site of some of the worst suffering from the war, and satellite images published on Thursday hint at even more. In the images, long rows of dirty mounds stretch far from the existing cemetery in Manchush, outside Mariupol.
There was no immediate reaction from the Kremlin to the satellite images. When mass graves and hundreds of civilian casualties were discovered in Bucha and other cities around Kyiv after Russian troops withdrew three weeks ago, Russian authorities denied that their soldiers had killed civilians there and falsely accused Ukraine of organizing the atrocities.
The UN Office of Human Rights has once again condemned the Russian invasion.
“During these eight weeks, international humanitarian law has not only been ignored, but also seemingly thrown aside,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michel Bachelet.
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Fish reported from Zaporozhye, Ukraine. Associated Press reporters Mstislav Chernov and Felipe Dana in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Juras Karmanau in Lviv and Robert Burns and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to the report, as did other PA officials around the world.
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