Russian airstrike 'hits Mariupol art school with 400 Ukrainians sheltering inside' as siege of city continues - and terrifying footage 'shows troops firing lung-busting thermobaric rockets'
• The city council in the besieged city of Mariupol claimed an art school sheltering 400 people was bombed
• Ukraine President Volymyr Zelensky said Russia's siege was a 'terror that would be remembered for centuries'
• Local authorities said Russian troops forcefully deported thousands of people from Mariupol last week
• More than 1,300 are still feared trapped in the bombed ruins of a theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol
• President Volodymyr Zelensky last night vowed to continue the rescue mission after the 'outright terror'
• The losses across Ukraine sparked a poignant protest in Lviv with 109 prams arranged for the child victims

By STEPHEN WYNN-DAVIES FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:05, 20 March 2022 | UPDATED: 10:36, 20 March 2022

Authorities in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol say that the Russian military has bombed an art school where about 400 people had taken refuge.

Local authorities said Sunday that the school building was destroyed and people could remain under the rubble, but there was no immediate word on casualties.

Terrifying footage has emerged apparently showing Russia firing deadly thermobaric rockets which are claimed to melt human organs.

Moscow defence sources claimed: 'The TOS-1A Solntsepek was used against Ukrainian nationalists by the people's militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic with the support of the Russian army during a special operation in Ukraine.'

Meanwhile, authorities in Ukraine's eastern city of Kharkiv say at least five civilians, including a nine-year-old boy, have been killed in the latest Russian shelling.

Earlier Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia's siege of the port city was 'a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come'.

His comments came after local authorities said Russian troops had forcefully deported several thousand people from the besieged city last week, after Russia had spoken of 'refugees' arriving from the strategic port.

'Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported onto the Russian territory,' the city council said in a statement on its Telegram channel late on Saturday.

'The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhniy district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing.'

Zelensky said the siege of Mariupol would 'go down in history of responsibility for war crimes'.

'To do this to a peaceful city... is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come.'

He also said peace talks with Russia were needed although they were 'not easy and pleasant'. He said he discussed the course of the talks with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday.

'Ukraine has always sought a peaceful solution. Moreover, we are interested in peace now,' he said.

Meanwhile, Russia's military isn't even recovering the bodies of its soldiers in some places, Zelensky said.

'In places where there were especially fierce battles, the bodies of Russian soldiers simply pile up along our line of defense. And no one is collecting these bodies,' he said. He described a battle near Chornobayivka in the south, where Ukrainian forces held their positions and six times beat back the Russians, who just kept 'sending their people to slaughter'.

Russian news agencies, citing the country's defence ministry, have said buses carrying several hundred people - which Moscow calls refugees - have been arriving in Russia from Mariupol in recent days.

The Russian TASS news agency reported on Saturday that 13 busses were moving to Russia, carrying more than 350 people, about 50 of whom were to be sent by rail to the Yaroslavl region and the rest to temporary transition centres in Taganrog, a port city in Russia's Rostov region.

Russia's Defence Ministry said this month that Russia had prepared 200 busses to 'evacuate' citizens of Mariupol.

RIA Novosti agency, citing emergency services, reported last week that nearly 300,000 people, including some 60,000 children, have arrived in Russia from the Luhansk and Donbas regions, including from Mariupol, in recent weeks.

Russia's Defence Ministry said this month that more than 2.6 million people in Ukraine have asked to be evacuated.

The city council in the Azov Sea port city said Sunday that 39,426 residents, almost ten per cent of the 430,000 who live there, have safely evacuated from Mariupol in their own vehicles. It said the evacuees used more than 8,000 vehicles to leave via a humanitarian corridor via Berdyansk to Zaporizhzhia.

Air raid sirens sounded across major Ukrainian cities early on Sunday but there were no immediate reports of fresh attacks.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been trapped in Mariupol for more than two weeks, sheltering from heavy bombardment that has severed central supplies of electricity, heating, food and water supplies, and killed at least 2,300 people, some of whom had to be buried in mass graves, according to local authorities.

The governor of the northeastern Sumy region, Dmytro Zhyvytskyy, said Sunday that 71 infants have been safely evacuated via a humanitarian corridor.

Zhyvytskyy said on Facebook that the orphans will be taken to an unspecified foreign country. He said most of them require constant medical attention. Like many other Ukrainian cities, Sumy has been besieged by Russian troops and faced repeated shelling

Meanwhile, the Russian military says it has carried out a new series of strikes on Ukrainian military facilities with long-range hypersonic and cruise missiles.


An evacuation of civilians from secure corridors pictured in Mariupol, Ukraine on March 18


Service members of pro-Russian troops drive an armoured vehicle in Mariupol, Ukraine on Saturday


A discarded pram pictured as an evacuation of civilians from secure corridors took place in Mariupol, Ukraine on March 18


Earlier on Sunday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia's siege of the port city of Mariupol was 'a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come'


Service members of pro-Russian troops in uniforms without insignia drive an armoured vehicle during Russia's invasion of Mariupol


A man helps Ukrainian soldiers searching for bodies in the debris at a military school hit by Russian rockets, in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine

Kingofdsouth:

All you saying the usa are afraid of Russia, I don’t really understand your problem. First of all, the war is not directly connected to them, and they can even decide not to give aids to Ukraine. But at least they are helping. So you want the US to abandon their normal life and plunge the whole world into a world war. That would be foolish to wish for that because even us in Africa will be gravely abandon. Oga them, make una let me live to achieve my many dreams oo

Kingofdsouth:

All you saying the usa are afraid of Russia, I don’t really understand your problem. First of all, the war is not directly connected to them, and they can even decide not to give aids to Ukraine. But at least they are helping. So you want the US to abandon their normal life and plunge the whole world into a world war. That would be foolish to wish for that because even us in Africa will be gravely abandon. Oga them, make una let me live to achieve my many dreams oo

ken6488:
It is directly connected USA doing a proxy war

ken6488:

It is directly connected USA doing a proxy war

Kelvin3476:
SO RUSSIAN LAND TROOPS HAF FINISHED ? SO THEY ARE NOW USING NUKES ... HAHAHA

sunboy:


Not directly connected. No US military installments were invaded or bombs by the Russians. US don’t even need to help Ukraine, but it choose to.

That money they sending to suppose Ukraine could be used to build shelters for homeless across the country, can be used to fix the social security that’s projected to be broken, can used to give tax credit and reduce its burden on its citizen but instead it choose to help Ukraine. Yet some people are expecting the US to help declare no fly zone or put soldiers on the ground ? Smh

jmoore:

Because USA fired a missile at Kremlin?

Smh

ken6488:
You guys are too dumb.
Or maybe you guys know the truth but decided to deceive yourself

This is a full blown out proxy war even kids know this.


Ukraine is just a pawn to test Russia military

jmoore:


Actually you are the one obviously dumb!!

Which country is under attack? Ukraine or Russia?

Very dumb prorussian supporters!!

ken6488:

Actually it is Russian that is be disturbed by the west via Ukraine

Russia has to do what is needed to be done

sunboy:

That’s still a conventional weapon not nuke.

jmoore:

There are 5 NATO countries that border Russia. You would have made sense if Russia was attacking any of those NATO countries. But it chose to attack Ukraine that is not part of NATO.

ken6488:


Rubbish stupid lies, do you think you are speaking with a kid?

USA no well Russia is not her mate, by now b52, f35 would have been bombing Russia, they know fully well Russia is not a little country for them to bully


Which building shelter?

It was openly announced a military aid to Ukraine,

Same USA that is telling Poland to give them jets or same USA telling them to give them anti air defense?

Stop this your nonsense lie, it will not safe Ukraine, USA is Clearly avoiding war with Russia directly

It will not end well

jmoore:


Actually you are the one obviously dumb!!

Which country is under attack? Ukraine or Russia?

Very dumb prorussian supporters!!