ZAPORIZH, Ukraine (AP) – New satellite images show obvious mass graves near Mariupol, where local authorities have accused Russia of burying up to 9,000 Ukrainian civilians to cover up the massacre in the ruined port city, which is almost entirely under Russian control.
The images came just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared victory in the battle of Mariupol on Thursday, despite the presence of about 2,000 Ukrainian fighters still hiding in a giant steel plant. Putin ordered his troops to seal the fortress “so that not a fly would pass” instead of storming it.
Putin’s decision to block the Azovstal steel plant probably shows a desire to limit Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol and release Russian forces stationed elsewhere in eastern Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said in an assessment on Friday.
Satellite imagery provider Maxar Technologies has released photos showing more than 200 mass graves in a city where Ukrainian authorities say Russians are burying Mariupol residents killed in the fighting. The images show long rows of graves stretching far from an existing cemetery in the town of Manchush, outside Mariupol.
Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko accused the Russians of “hiding their war crimes” by taking the bodies of civilians out of the city and burying them in Manhush.
The graves can hold up to 9,000 dead, Mariupol City Council said in a statement on Thursday in the Telegram news app.
Boychenko called Russia’s actions in the city “the new Babi Yar”, a reference to the site of numerous Nazi massacres in which nearly 34,000 Ukrainian Jews were killed in 1941.
“The bodies of the dead were brought by truck and in fact were simply dumped in mounds,” Boychenko’s aide Pyotr Andryushchenko told the Telegram.
There was no immediate reaction from the Kremlin. When mass graves and hundreds of dead civilians were found in Bucha and other cities around Kyiv after Russian troops withdrew three weeks ago, Russian authorities denied their soldiers had killed civilians there and accused Ukraine of organizing the atrocities.
In a statement, Maxar said a review of previous images showed that Manchus’ graves had been excavated in late March and expanded in recent weeks.
After nearly two deadly months of bombing that have largely turned Mariupol into a smoldering ruin, Russian forces appear to control the rest of the strategic southern city, including its vital but now badly damaged port.
But several thousand Ukrainian troops, according to Moscow’s estimates, have persisted for weeks at the steel plant, despite strikes by Russian forces and repeated demands for their surrender. About 1,000 civilians were also trapped, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly accused Russia of launching attacks to block the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol.
At least two Russian attacks on Thursday hit the city of Zaporozhye, an intermediate station for people fleeing Mariupol. No one was injured, the district governor said.
Among those who arrived in Zaporozhye after fleeing the city were Yuri and Polina Lulats, who spent nearly two months in a basement with at least a dozen other people. There was no running water and little food, said Yuri Lulak.
“What was happening there was so horrible that you can’t describe it,” said the Russian-speaking native, who used a derogatory word about Russian troops, saying they were “killing people for nothing.”
“Mariupol is gone. There are only graves and crosses in the yards, “Lulak said.
The Red Cross said it expected to evacuate 1,500 people by bus, but the Russians allowed only a few dozen to leave and pulled some people off the buses.
Dmitry Antipenko said he lived mostly in a basement with his wife and father-in-law amid death and destruction.
“There was a small cemetery in the yard and we buried seven people there,” Antipenko said, wiping away tears.
Instead of sending troops to finish the defenders of Mariupol in the steel plant in a potentially bloody frontal attack, Russia apparently intends to maintain the siege and wait for the fighters to surrender when they run out of food or ammunition.
It is estimated that more than 100,000 people are trapped with little or no food, water, heat or medicine in Mariupol, which had a pre-war population of about 430,000. More than 20,000 people were killed in the siege, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The city has attracted worldwide attention as a scene of some of the worst suffering of the war, including deadly air strikes on a maternity hospital and theater.
Boychenko rejected any notion that Mariupol had fallen into Russian hands.
“The city was, is and remains Ukrainian,” he said. “Today, our brave warriors, our heroes, are defending our city.
The capture of Mariupol would be the Kremlin’s biggest victory since the war in Ukraine. This would help Moscow secure more than the coastline, complete the land bridge between Russia and the Crimean peninsula that Russia seized in 2014, and free up more forces to join the larger and potentially more consistent battle. , which is now the eastern industrial center of Ukraine, Donbass.
Speaking jointly with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Putin said: “Completion of the military work on the liberation of Mariupol is successful” and congratulated Shoigu.
Shoigu predicts that the Azovstal steel plant could be taken in three to four days. But Putin said it would be “pointless” and expressed concern for the lives of Russian troops, deciding not to send them to clear the expanding enterprise, where sworn defenders were hiding in a maze of underground passages.
Instead, the Russian leader said, the military should “block this industrial zone so that not a fly can penetrate.”
The plant covers 11 square kilometers (4 square miles) and is covered with about 24 kilometers (15 miles) of tunnels and bunkers.
“Russia’s program now is not to take over these really difficult places where Ukrainians can stay in urban centers, but to try to take over territory, as well as to encircle Ukrainian forces and declare a huge victory,” retired British Rear Admiral Chris said. Money.
Russian authorities have been claiming for weeks that the capture of the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbass is the main goal of the war. Moscow forces have opened a new phase of fighting this week on a 300-mile (480-kilometer) front from the northeastern city of Kharkov to the Sea of Azov.
As Russia continues heavy air and artillery attacks in those areas, it does not appear to have gained significant positions in the past few days, according to military analysts, who say Moscow’s forces are still stepping up the offensive.
Despite Russia’s renewed focus, its troops are still suffering from losses previously suffered in the conflict, according to the British assessment. To try to restore their exhausted forces, the Russians resorted to sending non-functioning equipment back to Russia for repairs, the statement said.
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon’s assessment, said Ukrainians were hindering Russian efforts to push south of Izyum.
In the United States, President Joe Biden has pledged an additional $ 1.3 billion in new weapons and economic aid to help Ukraine, and he has vowed to do much more than Congress to support the flow of weapons, ammunition and money.
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Associated Press journalists Mstislav Chernov and Felipe Dana in Kharkiv, Ukraine; Danica Kirk in London; and Robert Burns and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report, as did other PA officials around the world.
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