LIVE – War in Ukraine: “more than a thousand people” took refuge in the bombed theater of Mariupol – Liberation

War between Ukraine and RussiafileOn the 22nd day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, denunciations continue to accumulate around the siege of Mariupol by the Russian army. On Wednesday evening, US President Joe Biden called Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” for the first time. In summary: – The Drama Theater of Mariupol, bombarded Wednesday by the Russian army, housed “more than a thousand people”, according to the Ukrainian municipality. The toll of the attack is still not known.- US President Joe Biden for the first time called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” on Wednesday evening.- The French anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the death on Monday in Ukraine of Pierre Zakrzewski, a Franco-Irish journalist. According to Volodymyr Zelensky’s former spokeswoman, Iuliia Mendel, “the Mariupol Drama Theater’s bomb shelter survived the brutal Russian missile.” “People are coming out of the rubble,” she wrote on Twitter. “People come out alive!” Ukrainian parliamentarian Sergiy Taruta also wrote on Facebook. The bomb shelter in Mariupol Drama Theater has survived the brutal Russian missile. At least, majority stayed alive after bombing. People are getting out from the rubble— Iuliia Mendel (@IuliiaMendel) March 17, 2022 9:38 am In front of the German Bundestag, Zelensky evokes a new “wall” in Europe. In a video address to the lower house of the German parliament, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday urged Germany to tear down the new “wall” erected in Europe against freedom since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Dear Chancellor (Olaf) Scholz, tear down this wall, give Germany the leadership role it deserves,” said the Ukrainian leader. “Every year politicians say never again. Now I see that these words are worthless. In Europe, a people is being destroyed,” he said again, reports the American channel CNN. 9:31 a.m. The Mariupol theater was deliberately targeted by the Russian army, according to a Ukrainian deputy. MP Dmytro Gurin told the BBC that ‘more than 1,000 people’ were sheltering in the city’s theater when it was shelled by the Russian army, despite a large message warning of the presence of children visible from the sky. “The pilot of the plane saw these words, and he still bombed the drama theatre,” said the Ukrainian deputy. “There is no Drama Theater anymore, as far as I remember, just the rest of the building. And we don’t yet know the number of dead,” he added. 9:15 am Volodymyr Zelensky says a fourth Russian general was killed in the fighting. According to an adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, Major General Oleg Mityaev was killed by the far-right Azov Battalion during fighting near Mariupol, Ukrainian media report. This is the fourth general to have been killed. According to the BBC, which quotes analysts, about twenty generals direct Russian operations in Ukraine. A fifth would therefore have been killed since the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Faced with the logistical and psychological difficulties of the Russian troops, the officers are forced to go to the front, exposing themselves to Ukrainian counter-attacks, as we explained in this article. 9:09 a.m. The Ukrainian authorities are hoping for humanitarian corridors during the day. The Ukrainian government said on Thursday that it hoped to open nine “humanitarian corridors” from several cities in the country, in particular from Mariupol, a city besieged by the Russian army and in the grip of deadly bombardments. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the government hoped to open roads later today. 8:36 a.m. More than 3 million refugees have fled Ukraine, according to the UN. According to the latest United Nations estimates, more than three million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24. Most have found refuge in Poland. “The Ukrainian people desperately need peace,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on Twitter. And people around the world demand it. Russia must stop this war now.” More than 3 million Ukrainian refugees have fled their country.The people of Ukraine desperately need peace.And the people around the world demand it.Russia must stop this war now. ) March 16, 2022 8:28 In Kyiv, a civilian was killed by missile fragments damaging a residential building. A building in the capital was hit by fragments from a downed missile, killing one person, the city’s emergency services reported. Three other people were injured. The 16-story building was hit at 5:02 a.m., the emergency service said in a statement. Thirty people were also evacuated from the building. All the windows of this Soviet-built building were blown out, and several neighboring buildings were also damaged, Agence France-Presse journalists noted on the spot. A man is evacuated from a residential building damaged by an airstrike, near Kyiv, Ukraine, March 17, 2022. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine. Reuters)8:16 a.m. A shelled educational facility near Kharkiv. The Guardian reports that an educational institution in the town of Merefa, in the Kharkiv region, was hit by Russian missiles overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, according to Ukrainian emergency services. They said they received an emergency call overnight, reporting that a two-story building was damaged and on fire. So far, no casualties have been reported. Rescue teams are still trying to put out the fire.An educational institution hit by shelling in the town of Merefa, Kharkiv region, on March 17, 2022. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine. AFP)8:12 a.m. Russian offensive “blocked on all fronts”, according to British intelligence services. The British Ministry of Defense published its latest intelligence report on the situation in Ukraine on Thursday morning. He claims that the Russian invasion of the country is “largely blocked on all fronts”. “Russian forces have made minimal progress on land, at sea or in the air in recent days and they continue to suffer heavy casualties,” the ministry noted. Who adds: “The Ukrainian resistance remains vigorous and well coordinated. The vast majority of Ukrainian territory, including all major cities, remains in Ukrainian hands.” 7:45 am For Zelensky, Russia is a “terrorist state”. In a video posted overnight from Wednesday to Thursday on his Facebook page, the Ukrainian president did not mince his words with regard to Russia. “The world must finally officially recognize that Russia has become a terrorist state,” he said, saying that “Russian aircraft deliberately dropped a bomb on a downtown theater” in Mariupol. “Hundreds of people were hiding there to escape the shelling. The building is destroyed. The number of victims is still unknown. My heart is broken”, says Volodymyr Zelensky again. The Ukrainian president has called for “new sanctions” because “the Russian economy still makes it possible to support the military machine”. Volodymyr Zelensky also wanted to address the Russian people directly, urging them to consider whether “the siege of Mariupol was much different from that of Leningrad” during World War II. The city – now renamed Saint Petersburg – had been surrounded for some 900 days by the Wehrmacht, between 1941 and 1944, a siege from which it emerged bloodless. 7:28 a.m. The Russian anti-war journalist refuses Macron’s asylum offer. Russian journalist Marina Ovsiannikova, who became an anti-war muse after appearing on a pro-Kremlin television newscast to denounce the offensive in Ukraine, refuses the offer of Emmanuel Macron, who said he was ready on Tuesday to offer her ” consular protection”. “I don’t want to leave our country. I am a patriot, my son is even more so. We don’t want to leave, we don’t want to go anywhere,” she said in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel. She also believes that her coup “was above all a pacifist action: it is in Russia’s and the world’s interest in ending this war as soon as possible. This is a war against a brother people! No sane person can accept that.” The young woman, born in Odessa, Ukraine, to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother, also wanted “to show that the Russians are against this war too, which many people in the West do not understand. The majority of intelligent and educated people here oppose this war. Most people who work for national television understand very well what is going on. They know only too well that they are doing something wrong. They are not convinced propagandists, often anything but that!” 7:00 a.m. “More than a thousand people had found refuge” in the bombed theater of Mariupol. During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, the municipality of Mariupol indicated, in a message published on Telegram, that “more than a thousand people had taken refuge” in the Dramatic Theater of the city, bombarded Wednesday by the army Russian. “The plane dropped a bomb on the building […]. It is impossible to establish the balance sheet in the immediate future because the bombardments of the residential districts continue”, indicated the town hall. A satellite shot of the Mariupol Drama Theater added to the fright: taken on Monday by the specialized American company Maxar Technologies, it shows that the word “children” was written on the ground, in huge white letters and in Russian, in front and behind the building.The Mariupol Drama Theater on Monday, with the word ‘children’ written in Russian on either side of the building. (maxar technologies/AFP) 6:45 a Panamanian merchant ship sunk by Russian fire in the Black Sea. A merchant ship flying the Panamanian flag has been sunk by Russian missile fire in the Black Sea, Panama Maritime Authority Administrator Noriel Arauz announced Wednesday evening. “We know that three boats (flagged Panamanian) were victims of attacks by Russian missiles,” Noriel Arauz told reporters. One of these ships “sunk, and two are staying afloat but have suffered material damage,” he added, adding that the crews are safe and sound. On February 25, after a first attack against a ship flying the flag of Panama, the authorities of the Central American country asked “urgently” to avoid sailing in Ukrainian and Russian waters in the Black Sea and the Sea of ​​Azov. In all, some 200 to 300 commercial vessels would be prevented from leaving the Black Sea by the Russians, including a dozen vessels flying the Panamanian flag, dedicated in particular to the transport of cereals.