Stay updates: Russia invades Ukraine

Individuals sheltering in Mariupol from a few of the most intense preventing wherever in Ukraine are risking their lives every time they step foot outdoors their underground bunkers, a Ukrainian military commander stationed within the metropolis has advised CNN. 

With Russia’s assault in its fourth week, Main Denis Prokopenko of the Nationwide Guard Azov Regiment mentioned the besieged metropolis was now underneath virtually fixed bombardment. 

The Azov Battalion is an ultra-nationalist militia that has since been built-in into the Ukrainian armed forces.

Individuals are reluctant to go away their underground shelters even to pay money for necessities, that means they have been attempting to drink much less water and eat much less meals. One of many few instances individuals did go away the shelter was to organize scorching meals, he mentioned.  

“Individuals are cooking meals within the streets, risking their lives underneath the continual shelling and bombing. The temperature is minus 5 diploma Celsius on the street,” Prokopenko advised CNN. 

Primary companies like fuel, electrical energy and water are all out. 

Our bodies are left mendacity on the street as a result of there may be both nobody left to gather them or it is just too harmful to strive. 

Prokopenko mentioned nobody knew the precise variety of individuals killed.  

Details about an enormous assault three days in the past on a theater in Mariupol getting used as a shelter has been sluggish to emerge.  

Prokopenko mentioned he believed the constructing, which additionally acted as the town’s principal humanitarian meeting station, was offering momentary residence to about 800 individuals when it was hit. 

Former Donetsk regional head Sergiy Taruta mentioned on Thursday that 1,300 people have been within the constructing when it was bombed.

Prokopenko confirmed earlier studies that continued Russian artillery hearth made makes an attempt to get survivors out of the constructing very troublesome. 

Figures launched by a number of Ukrainian leaders, together with President Volodymyr Zelensky, say 130 individuals have been rescued, amongst them one particular person with critical accidents.