Hardly any food left, no electricity and no water – in view of the desperate situation in Mariupol, the mayor has asked for military support.
In the encircled port city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine, the situation is apparently becoming increasingly dramatic. Food ran out, there was no running water, no heating, no electricity, the city’s mayor Vadym Boychenko said in a video. He asked for military support and a corridor through which civilians could get to safety.
In an interview with the daily topics, the deputy mayor Sergei Orlov spoke of more than 40 hours of continuous shelling – schools and hospitals are said to have been hit. “Putin is pursuing a war like that in Aleppo,” Orlov said on BBC radio, according to the AFP news agency. “I am convinced he wants to destroy Ukraine and Mariupol is on the way to be destroyed.”
Selenskyj advisers cautiously confident
On the other hand, the balance of power seems to be different in the city of Mykolayiv west of Mariupol: According to the Ukrainian regional authorities, Russian troops were driven out there. But fighting continues in the outskirts, said Governor Vitalii Kim. He had announced in the morning that Russian soldiers had advanced into the city on the Black Sea. He later explained that the Russian army’s advances had been thrown back. Olexii Arestovych, adviser to the Ukrainian President, was cautiously confident about developments in Mykolaiv. The metropolis of Odessa, further to the west, is also not exposed to any immediate danger. He described the situation in Mariupol as “under control”. The British Ministry of Defense also reported this. According to the Reuters news agency, the civilian infrastructure continues to be subject to intense shelling by the Russian military.
