More children’s blood on Putin’s hands: Father weeps over the body of his son killed by Russian shelling
Serhii, a father from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, was pictured weeping over the boy of his teenage son Iliya inside a maternity ward that has been converted into a field hospital today – after the boy was fatally wounded by a Russian shell.
‘Hundreds’ of civilians are thought to have died in Mariupol, which has now been under constant bombardment by Russian troops for more than 24 hours – with all power, water, and heating to the city down.
The government say Russian forces are trying to cut off food supplies, and have blown up trains and blocked roads to stop people fleeing, in what the mayor likened to ‘genocide’. Despite the vicious shelling, the city still remains in the hands of Ukrainian forces – as a defiant Volodymyr Zelensky vowed today that Ukraine will be rebuilt with Russian money as he praised his troops’ ‘heroic’ defence.
Kharkiv, in the east, and Chernihiv, in the north west, also remained under Ukrainian control despite coming under heavy rocket fire. There were also fears the Russians were about to launch a major amphibious assault against the port city of Odessa after a large fleet of ships was spotted near Crimea in the early hours. Kyiv, the capital, was also bombed overnight by remained standing on Thursday with a 40-mile convoy still stalled nearby – as Ukrainian commanders began to talk of counter-attacking.