- Ukraine has rejected a Russian offer to allow two safe corridors out.
- Mizintsev didn’t have to wait that long for an answer.
- Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk rejected the idea outright.
Ukraine has turned down a Russian offer to let two safe passages out of Mariupol in exchange for Ukrainian fighters laying down their arms as reported by USA Today.
Notion rejected
Residents of the southern port city had until 5 a.m. Monday to answer, according to the Russian news agency TASS, which cited Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Defense Control Center.
Mizintsev didn’t have to wait long to get a response. Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister, flatly rejected the notion.
“There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms. We have already informed the Russian side about this,” she told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda. “I wrote: ‘Instead of wasting time on eight pages of letters, just open the corridor.'”
The pounding of Mariupol intensified Sunday and a top U.S. official expressed concern about the prospect of Russian-organized “concentration and prisoner camps” as Russia’s bloody assault on Ukraine waded deeper into its fourth week.
Art school bombed
The Mariupol city council accused the Russian military of bombing an art school where about 400 people had taken shelter.
There was no immediate word on casualties at the school, but the city council said on social media the building was destroyed and people could remain under the rubble.
“Russia continues the genocide of the Ukrainian people and civilians of Mariupol,” the post said. “Every war criminal will answer for his crimes against humanity, against the people of Mariupol.”
The assault on Mariupol prompted a local police officer, in a video verified by the Associated Press, to appeal for help to President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Passports seized
Ukrainian passports were taken from people who were given a piece of paper that “has no legal weight and is not recognized throughout the civilized world,” the city council said. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Sunday that she could not confirm those reports but expressed concern about the prospect of Russian-organized “concentration and prisoner camps.”
U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said it is “unconscionable for Russia to force Ukrainian citizens into Russia and put them in what will basically be concentration and prisoner camps.”
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Source: USA Today
