Ukraine rejected Russia’s demand that soldiers defending the embattled southern port of Mariupol surrender at dawn on Monday, even as a powerful blast rocked capital Kyiv and reduced a sprawling shopping mall to rubble.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been trapped in Mariupol, under siege and already laid to waste by Russian bombardment.
Russia’s military had ordered Ukrainians inside the city to surrender by 5am, saying those who did so would be permitted to leave while those who stayed would be turned over to tribunals run by Russian-backed separatists.
“There can be no question of any surrender, laying down of arms” in Mariupol, Ukrainian deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk responded.
After nearly a month of fighting, the war has reached a stalemate, with Russia turning to deadlier and blunter methods, including the targeting of civilians.
A New York Times reporter saw six bodies at the mall in Kyiv covered in plastic as rescue workers battled fires and pulled more victims from the wreckage on Monday morning.
