Putin’s troops take 400 workers and patients hostage in Mariupol hospital, deputy mayor says
VLADIMIR Putin's troops have taken hundreds of hospital staff and patients hostage in the besieged city of Mariupol, the city's deputy mayor said.
The troops are said to be forcing nearby residents out of their homes and into the hospital after days of relentless Russian shelling in the southern port city.
Mariupol has been under fire for more than two weeks and local officials estimate the siege has killed more than 2,300 people.
Sergei Orlov said about 400 people are now being stopped from leaving the Mariupol Regional Intensive Care Hospital.
He told the BBC: “We received information that the Russian army captured our biggest hospital... and they’re using our patients and doctors like hostages.
“We can confirm this information and also the governor of Donetsk region has confirmed this information. We received information that there are 400 people there."
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Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, said Russian troops were pulling people from nearby buildings and forcing them inside the hospital.
The Russian soldiers have reportedly threatened to shoot anyone who tries to escape.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Mariupol was quickly running out of food and residents are struggling for water, heating and medicine.
And Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine's deputy prime minister, said there were serious problems trying to deliver humanitarian aid to the desperate city of 430,000 people.
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She said a convoy filled with supplies was stuck at nearby Berdyansk.
In a glimmer of hope, around 20,000 people have managed to flee the city by driving along a humanitarian corridor agreed with Russian forces.
About 4,000 cars fled northwest to Zaporizhzhia in what is believed to be the biggest evacuation yet from Mariupol, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior aide to Zelensky.
But Russian forces are pounding Ukrainian cities and edging closer to the capital Kyiv in a relentless bombardment that keeps deepening the humanitarian crisis.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko has warned of a "difficult and angerous moment" for the city as Russian forces step up strikes on residential buildings.
Zelensky said barrages hit four multi-storey buildings in the city and killed dozens.
The strikes on the 20th day of Russia's invasion disrupted the relative calm after an initial advance by Putin's forces was stopped in the early days of the war.
Explosions around the city caused massive structural damage - with shockwaves from a blast tearing through the entrance of a downtown subway station that residents have been using as a bomb shelter.
Kyiv has now imposed a 35-hour curfew after the intense shelling.
A senior US defence official said the Russians were increasingly using long-range fire to hit civilian targets inside Kyiv - but their ground forces were making little to no progress around the country.
The official said the Russian troops were still about nine miles from the centre of the capital.
We received information that the Russian army captured our biggest hospital... and they’re using our patients and doctors like hostages
Sergei Orlov
Russian forces have also stepped up strikes on Irpin and the northwest Kyiv suburbs of Hostomel and Bucha, the head of the capital region, Oleksiy Kuleba, said.
Meanwhile, in the country's east, more than 60 Russian strikes hit Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, overnight.
Regional administration chief Oleh Sinehubov said the bodies of dozens of civilians were pulled from destroyed apartment buildings.
On the diplomatic front, a top Ukrainian negotiator, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, described the latest round of talks with the Russians as "very difficult and sticky".
He said there were fundamental contradictions between the two sides - but added there was room for compromise.
Mr Podolyak said the talks will continue on Wednesday.
The UN said some 700 civilians in Ukraine have been killed - although the true figure is probably much higher.
Two Fox News journalists were tragically killed on Monday when the car they were travelling in was hit by fire on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Sasha Kuvshynova, who was helping Fox crews navigate the area, died in the attack.
The attack also injured their co-worker, Benjamin Hall.
made the heartbreaking announcement of Mr Zakrzewski's passing in a memo to staff on Tuesday.
He was remembered fondly by fellow reporters as a passionate, talented journalist and an incredible person.
Floods of tributes have been paid to the popular cameraman - and just last December he was honored by Fox News as an "unsung hero".
Tributes were paid to Ms Kuvshynova as someone who was "vibrant and full of life" - as well as being ";incredibly talented" at her job.
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Senior field producer Yonat Friling said: "She loved music and she was funny and kind. she was 24 years old. She worked with our team for the past month and did a brilliant job. May her memory be a blessing."
They are the latest members of the press killed while trying to shine a light on the horrendous war being raged by Putin on Ukraine.
All you need to know about Russia's invasion of Ukraine
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