Ukraine said on Monday it would not obey ultimatums from Russia after Moscow demanded it stop defending besieged Mariupol, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are suffering through Russian bombardments laying waste to their city.
Mariupol has become a focal point of Russia’s assault on Ukraine, but attacks were also reported to have intensified on the country’s second city Kharkiv on Monday.
The conflict has driven almost a quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million people from their homes, and Germany predicted the refugee number could reach as high as 10 million in coming weeks.
Europe said Russia was using refugees as a tool and that it was prepared to take more action on top of existing sanctions to isolate Russia from global finances and trade.
Russia’s military had ordered residents of Mariupol to surrender by 5 a.m. local time on Monday, saying those who did so could leave, while those who stayed would be handed to tribunals run by Moscow-backed separatists.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government responded that it would never bow to ultimatums and said cities such as the capital Kyiv, Mariupol and Kharkiv would always defy occupation.
Russia’s invasion, now in its fourth week, has largely stalled, failing to capture any major city, but causing massive destruction to residential areas.
Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov that was home to 400,000 people, has run short of food, medicine, power and water. Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said its “heroic defenders” had helped thwart Russia elsewhere.
A part of Mariupol now held by Russian forces, reached by Reuters on Sunday, was an eerie wasteland. Several bodies lay by the road, wrapped in blankets. Windows were blasted out and walls were charred black. People who came out of basements sat on benches amid the debris, bundled up in coats.
Some, though, are managing to escape.
A total of 8,057 people were safely evacuated on Monday through seven humanitarian corridors from towns and cities under fire, said Vereshchuk. Among those brought to safety were 3,007 residents of Mariupol.
U.S.-RUSSIA WAR OF WORDS
Russia calls the war, the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two, a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from “Nazis”.