Russia-Ukraine War Live Updates:
300 sorties in the past 24 hours have been flown and nearly a month after Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24, Moscow has meanwhile ramped up its air and sea operations, presses.
On Monday, Ukrainian Leader Volodymyr Zelensky said his country would be “destroyed” before it surrenders its cities to invading Russian Forces and as the key to ending the war, he doubled down on a call for direct talks with Vladimir Putin.
US President Joe Biden held a call with European leaders to address the increasingly “brutal tactics” employed by Moscow-undeterred by unprecedented Western sanctions as Russia defended overnight strikes that reduced a Kyiv shopping mall to rubble.
Ukrainian President Zelensky said that “Ukraine cannot fulfil Russian ultimatums, we should be destroyed first”, despite a soaring civilian toll, the Ukrainian President made clear his countrymen would not “hand over” the capital, the Eastern City of Kharkiv, or the heavily bombarded and besieged Mariupol. A 30-Year-old Dima Stepanieko, who found himself flung to “the foot of his bed” by the explosion said that “It’s the biggest bomb to have hit the city until now”.
To store the rocket systems and ammunition, an orthodox priest walking through the wreckage whispered prayers while cursing “Russian Terrorists”. The mall was being used to store rocket systems and ammunition, as per the claims by Russia.
But Putin’s troops have been increasingly accused of deliberately targeting civilians, including in Mariupol, the scene of an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe and more importantly, almost 350,000 people are trapped without water and electricity in Southern Port which has been relentlessly assaulted by Russia in what European Union Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell described as a “massive war crime.”
