Kyiv March 2 2022: Officials in the south-eastern city of Mariupol, near the border with Russia, say they fear large numbers of people may be dead after many hours of continuous shelling on the city.
Deputy Mayor Sergiy Orlov says a riverside district, normally home to 130,000 people including his father, has been “nearly totally destroyed”.
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“We cannot count the number of victims there, but we believe at least hundreds of people are dead. We cannot go in to retrieve the bodies,” he tells the BBC by phone.
“The Russian army is working through all their weapons here – artillery, multiple rocket launch systems, airplanes, tactical rockets. They are trying to destroy the city,” Orlov says.
He says Russian forces are several kilometres away on all sides.
“The Ukrainian army is very brave and they will continue to defend the city but the style of the Russian army is like pirates. They do not fight with their army, they just destroy entire districts,” Orlov says.
