MARIUPOL, Ukraine (Dispatches) — Russian forces pounding the port city of Mariupol shelled a mosque that was sheltering more than 80 people, including children, the Ukrainian government said Saturday. Fighting also raged in the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, and Russia kept up its bombardment of other resisting cities.
There was no immediate word of casualties from the shelling of Mariupol’s elegant, city-center mosque. The encircled city of 446,000 people has endured some of Ukraine’s worst misery since Russia launched its military operation.
Meanwhile, French and German leaders spoke Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a failed attempt to reach a ceasefire. According to the Kremlin, Putin laid out terms for ending the war, including Ukraine’s demilitarization and its ceding of territory, among other demands.
Ukraine’s military said Saturday that Russian forces captured Mariupol’s eastern outskirts, tightening the armed squeeze on the strategic port. Taking Mariupol and other ports on the Azov Sea could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky encouraged his people to keep up their resistance.
Later Saturday, Zelensky reported that 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers have died in fighting since the Feb. 24 start of the Russian assault.
Zelensky also accused Russia of employing “a new stage of terror” with the alleged kidnapping the mayor of Melitopol, a city 192 kilometers (119 miles) west of Mariupol. After residents of the occupied city demonstrated for the mayor’s release Saturday, the Ukrainian leader called on Russian forces to heed the calls.
In multiple areas around the capital, artillery barrages sent residents scurrying for shelter as air raid sirens wailed. Britain’s Defense Ministry said Russian ground forces that had been massed north of Kiev for most of the war had edged to within 25 kilometers (15 miles) of the city center and spread out, likely to support an attempted encirclement.
Ukraine’s military and volunteer forces have been preparing for an all-out assault. Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Thursday that about 2 million people, half the metropolitan area’s inhabitants, had left and that “every street, every house … is being fortified.”
Putin held a 90-minute call with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday. Putin spoke about “issues related to agreements under discussion to implement the Russian demands” for ending the
war, the Kremlin said without providing details.
For ending hostilities, Moscow has demanded that Ukraine drop its bid to join NATO and adopt a neutral status; acknowledge the Russian sovereignty over Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014; recognize the independence of separatist regions in the country’s east; and agree to demilitarize.
The Ukrainian Embassy in Turkey said 86 Turkish nationals, including 34 children, were among the people who had sought safety in Mariupol’s mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and his wife Roksolana, which was modeled on one of the most famous and largest mosques in Istanbul.
Before Mariupol became a target of the biggest land conflict in Europe since World War II, the city promoted the white-walled building and its towering minaret as a scenic attraction. The death toll in Mariupol passed 1,500 on Friday, from 12 days of attack, the mayor’s office said.
With Mariupol’s electricity, gas and water supplies knocked out, aid workers and Ukrainian authorities described an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe. Aid group Doctors Without Borders said Mariupol residents are dying from a lack of medication and are draining heating pipes for drinking water.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, said Saturday that a Russian general was killed in fighting for Mariupol. Maj. Gen. Andrei Kolesnikov would be the third Russian general reported killed in action since the war started.
Kolesnikov’s death was not confirmed by the Russian military.
A senior Russian diplomat warned that Moscow could attack foreign shipments of military equipment to Ukraine. Speaking Saturday, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow has warned the United States “that pumping weapons from a number of countries it orchestrates isn’t just a dangerous move — it’s an action that makes those convoys legitimate targets.”
Russia’s troops are likely to be bolstered soon from abroad. Denis Pushilin, the Russia-backed head of a separatist region in eastern Ukraine, said Saturday that he expects “many thousands” of fighters from the Middle East to join the rebels and fight “shoulder-to-shoulder” against the Ukrainian army.
Thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been killed along with many civilians. At least 2.5 million people have fled the country, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
The Ukrainian chief prosecutor’s office said Saturday at least 79 children have been killed and nearly 100 have been wounded. Most of the victims were in the Kiev, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Sumy, Kherson and Zhytomyr regions, the office said, noting that the numbers aren’t final because active fighting continues.