Ukraine Invasion: Fighting Ravages Mariupol City Centre

Fighting has reached the centre of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to official reports.

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko told the BBC; “Yes, they were really active today. Tanks and machine-gun battles continue. Everybody is hiding in bunkers.

“More than 80 per cent of residential buildings in Mariupol are either damaged or destroyed, he added, and 30 per cent of them cannot be restored. There’s no City Centre left. There isn’t a small piece of land in the city that doesn’t have signs of war.

Earlier on Saturday morning, the Russian Defence Ministry said Russian forces were “tightening the noose” around the city of Mariupol, adding that fighting was ongoing in the city centre.

In a one-hour call between the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, today, Macron said he was “extremely concerned” about the situation in Mariupol, the French presidential office said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said late on Friday it lost access to the Sea of Azov “temporarily” as invading Russian forces were tightening their grip around the Sea’s major port of Mariupol, Reuters reports.

According to Reuters, the Ministry said in a statement; “The occupiers have partially succeeded in the Donetsk operational district, temporarily depriving Ukraine of access to the Sea of Azov.”

However, the Ministry did not specify in its statement whether Ukraine’s forces have regained access to the Sea.

Also, Russia said on Friday its forces were “tightening the noose” around Mariupol, where an estimated 80 per cent of the city’s homes had been damaged more some 1,000 people may still be trapped in makeshift bomb shelters beneath a destroyed theatre.

Mariupol, with its strategic location on the coast of the Sea of Azov, has been a target since the start of the war on February 24 when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched what he called a “special military operation”.

The city lies on the route between the Russian-annexed peninsula of Crimea to the west, and the Donetsk region to the east, which is partially controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

Russia claimed as early as March 1 that its forces had cut off the Ukrainian military from the Sea of Azov.