Zelenskyy warns destruction of Ukraine's military in Mariupol will 'end negotiations'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned Russia, in an address to the Ukrainian state media, that the continuing siege of Mariupol or unrelenting assaults and bombardment on the Ukraine military barracks would “end negotiations” with Moscow. “The destruction of all our guys in Mariupol – what they are doing now – can put an end to any format of negotiations,” Zelenskyy said in an interview on April 16, Saturday as Capital Kyiv braced for renewed Russian military onslaught. 

While the president's office said Saturday that the Ukrainian soldiers were still holding out the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, heavy shelling and missile attacks rocked several areas as Russian forces accelerated their offensive following the loss of their strategic and one of the largest Black Sea flagship. 

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry had claimed that its forces struck two Neptune missiles that sunk the Russian warship. In a fierce response on April 16, Russia’s military command warned of renewed missile strikes on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv. Officials in Moscow said that they were targeting Ukraine's military sites.

Firefighters work to extinguish multiple fires after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Credit: Associated Press/Felipe Dana

 An explosion is seen in an apartment building after a Russian army tank fires in Mariupol, Ukraine. Credit:AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka

On April 16, rockets rained down on the residential area of Kharkiv, a city in northeast Ukraine resulting in eight civilian deaths including a child. Elsewhere, bodies of more than 900 civilians, mostly shot dead at close range, were unearthed. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on his Telegram channel that the Russian missile assault that hit Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district killed one person and wounded several others in renewed targeting of the Capital. He appealed to the civilians who fled the city earlier in the war not to return. 

“We’re not ruling out further strikes on the capital,” Klitschko said. “If you have the opportunity to stay a little bit longer in the cities where it’s safer, do it.”

Russian soldiers target armoured vehicle plant of Ukraine’s military

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that its soldiers targetted an armoured vehicle plant of Ukraine’s military, meaning to mention one located in the Darnytskyi district. Although he did not give out specific details. The plant is among the multiple Ukrainian military sites that were hit with “air-launched high-precision long-range weapons” as of Saturday. Locals have also reported seeing the Russian soldiers digging the bodies from residential courtyards and prohibiting new burials.

Republic reported earlier, in reference to Ukraine’s Defence Ministry's account, that in an apparent bid to hide the war casualties, Russia’s soldiers have been operating mobile crematoria in Mariupol. “In order to hide the evidence of their crimes, [Russian] occupiers used mobile crematoria in Mariupol,” the Defense Ministry of Ukraine said. Bodies of hundreds of tortured and murdered citizens were burnt by Russian troops. "The world has not seen a tragedy on the scale of Mariupol since the Nazi camps," mayor of the besieged port city of Mariupol Vadym Boichenko meanwhile added.