US rallies to Ukraine’s side as rescue expands after theatre bombing
Rescuers raced to find civilians trapped in a bombed Mariupol theatre on Thursday after the US accused Vladimir Putin of war crimes and stepped up arms shipments for Ukraine’s defence.
With the invasion entering its fourth week and no let up in the fierce shelling of Ukraine’s frontline cities, US President Joe Biden called Putin a war criminal for the first time, comments the Kremlin said were “unforgivable”.
While the civilian toll has grown in devastated urban areas, Russia’s ground forces have failed to marshal the military power to make decisive territorial gains, particularly in the north of Ukraine.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has largely stalled on all fronts,” the UK Ministry of Defence said in an update on Thursday morning, adding that Putin’s military “continue to suffer heavy losses”.
In a further sign of US determination to support Ukraine’s defence, Biden approved the delivery of new US weapons systems to Kyiv, including a batch of light Switchblade drones that can be carried into the battlefield and explode when flown into targets.
The package of aid, which the Pentagon valued at $1bn, also included anti-aircraft and anti-armour missiles. But it fell short of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s request for the US and Nato to embrace a no-fly zone or directly supply fighter jets to the country.
“In the darkest time for our country, for the whole of Europe, I call on you to do more,” Zelensky told Congress. He was addressing Germany’s Bundestag by video link on Thursday morning.
As Russia continued to resort to aerial bombardments of civilian areas, at least one person died in the capital Kyiv when a residential building was struck by a downed Russian missile, according to emergency services.
Rescue efforts were also under way in the besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol, as authorities attempted to reach people trapped in a theatre after the Russian air force dropped a bomb on the building.
“Today the occupiers destroyed the dramatic theatre — a place where more than a thousand people had sought refuge,” Vadym Boichenko, Mariupol’s mayor, said in a statement late on Wednesday. “We will never forgive this.”
Vitaly Falkovsky, a local official, said there were fears that “hundreds of people” could be trapped under the rubble. But it was impossible to ascertain the precise number of victims, because of the continued Russian bombardment. “The city is constantly being shelled by the enemy,” he said.
Satellite imagery of the theatre taken earlier this week showed the Russian word for “children” painted in large letters on the ground outside the building.
The fact that it had become a refuge for Mariupol residents “raises serious concerns about what the intended target was in a city where civilians have already been under siege for days and telecommunications, power, water, and heating have been almost completely cut off”, said Belkis Wille of Human Rights Watch. Ukraine’s foreign ministry called the bombing of the theatre a “war crime”.
The Russian embassy in the US denied any Russian involvement in the attack on the theatre, calling it “fake news”. It said fighters of Ukraine’s “Azov” battalion had been holding civilians in the theatre hostage and had themselves blown the building up.
Boichenko said progress had been made in evacuating civilians from Mariupol, which is encircled by Russian troops. “Over the past two days, 6,500 private cars have left Mariupol,” he said. “People left under shelling, under Grad [multiple-rocket launchers] and rockets.”
The theatre attack followed reports from the US embassy in Kyiv on Wednesday alleging Russian forces had shot dead 10 people waiting in line for bread in Chernihiv, north-east of Kyiv. Russia denied the attack. Ukrainian and Russian military claims cannot be verified.
Russia’s relentless shelling has set the backdrop to negotiations with Ukraine on a political settlement to end the war, which both sides claimed had made progress in recent days.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said on Wednesday that “absolutely specific wordings” were “close to being agreed” in negotiations, including security guarantees for Moscow and neutrality for Kyiv. The Kremlin said options for Ukraine modelled on Austria and Sweden were under discussion.
Zelensky said talks with Moscow were beginning to “sound more realistic” and on Thursday reiterated that Ukraine could accept international security guarantees that stopped short of its longstanding aim to join Nato.
“My priorities in the negotiations are absolutely clear: to end the war, [achieve] security guarantees, sovereignty, restoration of our territorial integrity, real guarantees for our country, real protection for our country,” Zelensky said in a video address released early on Thursday.
Some western diplomats remain cautious over Russia’s intentions in the negotiations, particularly as there were no signs of Moscow easing up on its military assault.
Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, told NPR any deal must ensure a Russian withdrawal was “in effect irreversible”, so Russia “won’t pick up and do exactly what it’s doing in a year or two years or three years”.
