Ukraine says Russia seized relief workers in Mariupol convoy

Ukrainian leaders have accused Russia of seizing 15 rescue workers and drivers from a humanitarian convoy trying to get desperately needed food and other supplies into the bloodied port city of Mariupol.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky estimated that 100,000 civilians remain in Mariupol, the scene of some of the war’s worst devastation, as Russia presses a nearly month-old offensive by bombarding cities and towns.

Those who have made it out have described a shattered city.

“They bombed us for the past 20 days,” said 39-year-old Viktoria Totsen, who fled into Poland.

“During the last five days, the planes were flying over us every five seconds and dropped bombs everywhere — on residential buildings, kindergartens, art schools, everywhere.”

Mr Zelensky, speaking on Tuesday in his nightly video address to his nation, accused Russian forces of blocking the aid convoy despite agreeing to the route ahead of time.

“We are trying to organise stable humanitarian corridors for Mariupol residents but almost all of our attempts, unfortunately, are foiled by the Russian occupiers, by shelling or deliberate terror,” he said.

The Red Cross confirmed a humanitarian aid convoy trying to reach the city had not been able to enter.

The convoy’s attempt to deliver assistance came as Russian navy vessels joined in what have been weeks of Russian air and land strikes into Mariupol, US officials said.

A senior US defence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to give the Pentagon’s assessment, said Russian ships in the Sea of Azov added to the shelling of Mariupol.

The official said there were about seven Russian ships in that area, including a minesweeper and a couple of landing vessels.

The hands of one exhausted Mariupol survivor shook as she arrived by train in the western city of Lviv.

“There’s no connection with the world. We couldn’t ask for help,” said Julia Krytska, who was helped by volunteers to make it out with her husband and son. “People don’t even have water there.”

US President Joe Biden is due to head to Europe for an emergency Nato summit on Thursday on Russia’s invasion and increasingly hostile stance toward the West, where Nato members and other European allies are strengthening their defences.

Mr Biden is travelling to Brussels and Poland, which has received more than two million Ukrainian refugees since the invasion began on February 24. He is expected to seek continued unity among western allies and to announce more sanctions on Russia.

Asked on CNN what Russian President Vladimir Putin has achieved in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Well, first of all, not yet. He hasn’t achieved yet.”

But he insisted the military operation is going “strictly in accordance with the plans and purposes that were established beforehand”.

Mr Putin’s aims remain to “get rid of the military potential of Ukraine” and to “ensure that Ukraine changes from an anti-Russian centre to a neutral country,” Mr Peskov said.

In Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, continued shelling and gunfire shook the city early on Wednesday, with plumes of black smoke rising from the western outskirts.

Heavy artillery fire was heard on Tuesday too from the north west, where Russia has sought to encircle and capture several suburbs.

Ukraine’s defence ministry said its forces partially lost three suburbs in that area, but recaptured another, Makariv, west of Kyiv.

A video posted by Ukrainian police showed them surveying damage in Makariv, including to the town’s police station, which an officer said took a direct hit to its roof.

The police drove by destroyed residential buildings and along a road pocked by shelling. The town appeared all but deserted.

Russian forces bombed and destroyed a bridge in the encircled northern city of Chernihiv that crossed the Desna River and connected the city to Kyiv, regional governor Viacheslav Chaus said on Wednesday.

Deliveries of humanitarian aid and evacuations of civilians went over the bridge. Local authorities have warned of a humanitarian disaster in the city, which has no water or electricity.

A western official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss military assessments, said Ukrainian resistance has brought much of Russia’s advance to a halt but has not sent Moscow’s forces into retreat.

“We have seen indications that the Ukrainians are going a bit more on the offensive now,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters separately in Washington.

He said that was particularly true in southern Ukraine, including near Kherson, where “they have tried to regain territory”.

Russia’s far stronger, bigger military has many western military experts warning against overconfidence in Ukraine’s long-term odds.

Russia’s practice in past wars in Chechnya and Syria has been to grind down resistance with strikes that flattened cities, killed countless civilians and sent millions fleeing.

But its forces appeared unprepared and have often performed badly against Ukrainian resistance.

The US estimates Russia has lost a bit more than 10% of the overall combat capability it had at the start of the fight, including troops, tanks and other material.

Western officials say Russian forces are facing serious shortages of food, fuel and cold-weather gear, leaving some soldiers suffering from frostbite.

The invasion has driven more than 10 million people from their homes – almost a quarter of Ukraine’s population – according to the United Nations.

Thousands of civilians are believed to have died.

Estimates of Russian military casualties vary widely, but even conservative figures by western officials are in the low thousands.

Mr Putin’s troops are facing unexpectedly tough resistance that has left the bulk of Moscow’s ground forces miles from the centre of Kyiv, and they are making slow progress on apparent efforts to cut off fighters in eastern Ukraine.

The Russians increasingly are concentrating their air power and artillery on Ukraine’s cities and civilians.

Talks to end the fighting have continued by video. Mr Zelensky said negotiations with Russia are going “step by step, but they are going forward”.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said he saw progress “coming into view on several key issues” and that the gains are enough to end hostilities now. He gave no details.

The western official, though, said there were no signs Moscow is ready to compromise.

In their last update on March 15, Mariupol officials said at least 2,300 people had died in the siege.

Accounts from the city suggest the true toll is much higher, with bodies lying uncollected. Airstrikes over the past week destroyed a theatre and an art school where many civilians were taking shelter.

Mr Zelensky, in his address, said more than 7,000 people were evacuated from Mariupol on Tuesday. Those who remain suffer “in inhuman conditions, under a full blockade, without food, without water, without medicine and under constant shelling, under constant bombardment”, he said.

Before the war, 430,000 people lived in Mariupol.

Perched on the Sea of Azov, Mariupol is a crucial port for Ukraine and lies along a stretch of territory between Russia and Crimea. The siege has cut the city off from the sea and allowed Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea.

It’s not clear how much of the city Russia holds, with fleeing residents saying fighting continues street by street.

Further west, in the seaside city of Odesa on Tuesday, street musicians played under cloudless skies as barricades lined the streets and couples parted ways at the station in tears amid fears of an escalated Russian assault.

Fondly known as the Pearl of the Black Sea, Odesa was awash with a bittersweet air — sandbags and security forces clashing with romantic jazz rippling from the train station speakers.

“I can’t understand what has happened,” said Igor Topsi, a 56-year-old musician who has been playing the drums on the streets of Odesa for over three decades.

At the central station, a young man on the platform said goodbye by phone to his girlfriend sitting inside the train. Only a pane of glass separated them.