Ukraine rejects Russian demand to handover Port City of Mariupol

Russian demands that Ukrainian forces in Mariupol lay down arms and hoist white flags on Monday in exchange for safe passage out of the beleaguered key port city were vehemently rebuffed by Ukrainian officials.

Even as Russia intensified its bombardment of Mariupol, its offensive in other parts of Ukraine has faltered. Western governments and analysts see the larger conflict deteriorating into a battle of attrition, with Russia continuing to bombard cities.

Russian shelling in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv destroyed a commercial complex near the city center, killing at least eight people and left a sea of wreckage amid damaged high-rises. Russia also shelled a chemical factory in northeastern Ukraine, creating an ammonia leak, and hit a military training base in western Ukraine with cruise missiles, according to Ukrainian officials.

The encircled southern city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov has seen some of the worst horrors of the war, under Russian pounding for more than three weeks. Strikes hit an art school sheltering some 400 people only hours before Russia’s offer to open two corridors out of the city in return for the capitulation of its defenders, according to Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian officials rejected the Russian proposal for safe passage out of Mariupol.

“There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda. “We have already informed the Russian side about this.”

Attempts to evacuate people of Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities have failed or only partially succeeded, with shelling continuing as population attempted to flee. At least 2,300 people have died in the siege, according to Mariupol officials, with some buried in mass graves.

Food, water, and power have all run out in Mariupol, according to city officials and aid organizations, and humanitarian convoys have been kept out by fighting. The lines of communication have been cut.

Talks between Russia and Ukraine have resumed, but they have not succeeded in bridging the gap between the two countries, with Russia insisting that Ukraine disarm and Ukraine asking that Russian forces leave the entire nation.

President Biden was scheduled to meet with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom later Monday to discuss the conflict, before traveling to Brussels and then Poland later this week for in-person meetings.