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Vladimir Putin’s forces have launched a “crazy” attack in Donbass, Ukrainian authorities said on Wednesday.
Heavy fighting is reported in the eastern industrial center of Ukraine, which Moscow intends to capture.
Russian troops stepped up their efforts to encircle and capture cities and continued the relentless bombing of the city of Severodonetsk in the Luhansk region.
Sergei Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, said the region was facing “the most difficult period” in the eight years since separatist fighting broke out.
“The Russians are advancing in all directions at once,” he said. “They brought an insane amount of fighters and equipment.
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“The invaders are killing our cities, destroying everything around us.”
Mr Haidai added that Luhansk was becoming “like Mariupol”.
Workers clearing the rubble of the ruined port city of Mariupol have found the bodies of 200 people in the basement of an apartment building, it said. The bodies were decomposing, said Petro Andryushchenko, the city’s assistant mayor.
He did not say when the mass grave was discovered, but the death toll made it one of the deadliest known attacks in the three months since the war began.
Mariupol was hit mercilessly during a siege that ended last week when some 2,500 Ukrainian fighters fled the vast steel mine they were hiding in.
At least 21,000 people have been killed in the battle for Mariupol, according to Ukrainian authorities.
They accused Russia of trying to cover up the horrors by importing mobile cremation equipment and burying the dead in mass graves.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the situation in Donbass “extremely difficult” as he called for more weapons.
In his evening address, he said: “I emphasize again and again, the longer this war lasts, the greater the cost of protecting freedom not only for Ukraine but for the whole free world.
“Therefore, the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine – MLRS, tanks, anti-ship and other weapons – is the best investment to maintain stability in the world and prevent very serious crises that Russia is still planning or has already provoked.
That comes when British defense chiefs warned today that Putin’s blockade of Odessa and other Ukrainian ports would lead to even higher food prices.
They stressed that there had been no “significant” movement of merchant ships through Odessa, a huge Black Sea port, since the invasion began on February 24th.
Their warning came hours after Ukraine’s ambassador to London appeared to have revealed that his country and the United Kingdom had been discussing Royal Navy ships deployed to create a safe corridor across the Black Sea for cargo ships.
In its latest intelligence briefing, the Defense Ministry said: “Ukraine’s land export mechanisms are unlikely to make up for this shortfall in shipping caused by the Russian blockade.
“As a result, significant quantities of Ukrainian grain remain in storage, which cannot be exported.
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