‘There can be no talk of any surrender’: Russia’s deadline passes with Ukraine refusing to give up Mariupol
A deadline for Ukrainians to surrender Mariupol to the Russians has passed, with Ukraine refusing to give up the city.
On Sunday, Russia said that Ukrainians could put down their weapons and raise white flags on Monday in exchange for safe passage out.
Two corridors would be allowed out of the port city, heading east to Russia or west to other parts of Ukraine, Russian Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev said.
Mariupol authorities were given until the early hours of Monday to decide.
‘There can be no talk of any surrender’
Few details were given of what would happen if the deal was rejected, although the Russian ministry of defence said the city’s authorities could face a military tribunal if they sided with “bandits”, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor both said there would be no surrender.
Follow the Daily podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker
Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk told news outlet Ukrainian Pravda: “There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms.
“We have already informed the Russian side about this.
“I wrote: ‘Instead of wasting time on eight pages of letters, just open the corridor’.”
Piotr Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, wrote in a Facebook post that he did not need to wait until morning to respond, and cursed at the Russians, according to news agency Interfax Ukraine.
Key developments:
• Thousands of Ukrainians from Mariupol have been “forcibly deported” to Russia, according to the city council
• Russia said it had launched a hypersonic missile attack on Ukraine for the second consecutive day on Sunday
• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Israeli parliament, calling for stronger action against Russia, and accusing Russia’s president Vladimir Putin of trying to carry of a “final solution” against Ukraine – a term used by Nazi Germany for its genocide of six million Jews in the Second World War
• US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said that Mr Putin’s ground forces are “essentially stalled”, telling CBS that Ukrainian resistance “had the effect of him moving his forces into a woodchipper”.
• About 10 million Ukrainians have fled their homes, the UN has said
• Thousands of anti-war protesters have been arrested in Russia
The Russians have attacked Mariupol almost relentlessly since the invasion of Ukraine began late in February, with the latest strike being at an art school that was sheltering around 400 people.
At least 2,300 people in Mariupol are said to have died
Speaking early on Monday, Mr Zelenskyy said: “They are under the rubble, and we don’t know how many survived.
“But we know that we will certainly shoot down the pilot who dropped that bomb, like about 100 such mass murderers whom we already have downed.”
Aid groups have said food, water, and electricity are running low in the city, with humanitarian access limited by the fighting.
The city’s authorities have said at least 2,300 people have died, some buried in mass graves.
Mariupol has, at the same time, been one of the most difficult cities for civilians to leave, with humanitarian corridors rarely in operation, and each side blaming the other for the failure.
The strike on the art school came just days after an attack on the city’s theatre, where more than 1,000 people were believed to be sheltering.
The number of casualties at the theatre is uncertain, with Ukrainian officials not having given an update since Friday, when they said at least 130 people had been rescued and another 1,300 were trapped in the rubble.
Meanwhile, emergency services said four people were killed by shelling in the capital city Kyiv on Sunday, with a shopping centre and residential buildings among the places hit.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian missile in the city’s northwest.
