Pro-Putin Chechen special forces are now fighting house-to-house in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol while ‘hundreds’ of children and women remain trapped in the rubble of a theater bombed by Russian troops.
A video shared by Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov shows Chechen special forces going door to door in the bombed-out city.
The video then showed Chechen fighters coming out of a building with children in their arms.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said: “Tanks and machine gun battles continue. There’s no city centre left. There isn’t a small piece of land in the city that doesn’t have signs of war.”
Ukrainian politician Serhiy Taruta said that around 130 people had been rescued from the destroyed theater but hundreds are still trapped under rubble and cannot be evacuated as rescue services have been demolished by invaders.
Taruta took to Facebook and wrote: “No one understands. Services that are supposed to help are demolished, rescue and utility services… are physically destroyed. A lot of doctors have been killed. This means that all the survivors of the bombing will either die under the ruins of the theater, or have already died.”
Nick Osychenko, the CEO of a Mariupol TV station, said that he saw lifeless bodies on almost every block as he and his family fled the city.
“We were careful and didn’t want the children to see the bodies, so we tried to shield their eyes,” he shared. “We were nervous the whole journey. It was frightening, just frightening.”
Speaking to the BBC, Ukrainian MP Dmytro Gurin said that some people have evacuated but many are still trapped in shelters as rescuers couldn’t reach them due to Russian soldiers shelling it.
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