Russia-Ukraine crisis: Zelensky condemns shelling as bodies line streets of Mariupol

Ukrainian authorities condemned Russian artillery attacks on cities in the northeast and the continuing siege of the southern port city of Mariupol, of which Moscow said it had taken almost full control, following almost two months of bloody fighting.

After failing to overcome Ukrainian resistance in the north, the Russian military has refocused its ground offensive on Donbas, while launching long-distance strikes at targets elsewhere, including the capital, Kyiv.

Eighteen people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in shelling in the past four days in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“This is nothing but deliberate terror: mortars, artillery against ordinary residential quarters, against ordinary civilians,” he said late on Sunday.

Russia denies targeting civilians and has rejected what Ukraine says is evidence of atrocities as staged to undermine peace talks. It calls its action a special military operation to demilitarise Ukraine and eradicate what it calls dangerous nationalists.

The West and Kyiv accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of unprovoked aggression.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said troops in the pulverised port of Mariupol were still fighting on Sunday, despite a Russian demand to surrender by dawn.

“The city still has not fallen,” he told ABC’s “This Week” programme, adding that Ukrainian soldiers continued to control some parts of the southeastern city.

On Saturday, Russia said it had control of urban areas, with some Ukrainian fighters remaining in the Azovstal steelworks overlooking the Sea of Azov.

Capturing Mariupol, the main port in the Donbas region, would be a strategic prize for Russia, connecting territory held by pro-Russian separatists in the east with the Crimea region that Moscow annexed in 2014.

On the streets of Mariupol, small groups of bodies were lined up under colourful blankets, surrounded by destroyed trees and scorched buildings.

Residents, some pushing bicycles, picked their way around destroyed tanks and civilian vehicles while Russian soldiers checked the documents of motorists.

Among them was Irina, who was evacuating with a niece wounded in the shelling.

“I have a daughter in DNR,” she said, referring to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. “Maybe we will try to move there for the time being.

“I hope they will re-build (Mariupol). The most important thing is utility systems. Summer will pass fast and in winter it will be hard.”

“May there be peace for war-torn Ukraine, so sorely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged,” he said.