Russian-backed separatists on road to Mariupol

Russian backed separatists assembled on tanks at a checkpoint on road to the besieged city of Mariupol on Thursday. Some separatists mounted on top of tanks while others stood on the road and waved to passing vehicles. The mayor of the besieged port city of Mariupol put the number of civilians killed there during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting at more than 5,000 Wednesday, including 210 children.

Vadym Boichenko said Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death. Boichenko said more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed. The attacks on the strategic southern city on the Sea of Azov have cut off food, water, fuel and medicine and pulverized homes and businesses. British defense officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000.

A humanitarian relief convoy accompanied by the Red Cross has been trying for days without success to get into the city. Russian forces are fighting street by street to capture the city; doing so would allow Russia to secure a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.

Russian forces are strangling the city on the Sea of Azov as they press forward in their war that began February 24. Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine had accused Ukrainian forces of setting fire to a Ukrainian naval vessel in Mariupol on Wednesday as “provocation” to “discredit the Russian military.”