International outrage over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grew on Thursday as U.S. and Ukrainian officials said civilians waiting in line for bread and sheltering in a theatre had been killed by Russian forces.
U.S. President Joe Biden called Russian leader Vladimir Putin a war criminal in comments the Kremlin said were “unforgivable” as it insisted the war in Ukraine was “going to plan” amid talk of compromise at peace talks.
Moscow has yet to capture any of Ukraine’s biggest cities despite the largest assault on a European state since World War Two. More than 3 million Ukrainians have fled and thousands have died as the war enters its fourth week.
In the capital Kyiv, at least one person was killed and three were wounded when a residential building was struck by a downed Russian missile emergency services said on Thursday.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday Russian forces dropped a powerful bomb on a theatre in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, leaving many civilians trapped and an unknown number of casualties. Reuters could not independently verify the information.
Maxar Technologies, a private U.S. company, distributed satellite imagery it said was collected on March 14 and showed the word “children” in large Russian script painted on the ground outside the red-roofed building.
The theatre had been housing at least 500 civilians, according to Human Rights Watch.
“This raises serious concerns about what the intended target was in a city where civilians have already been under siege for days and telecommunications, power, water, and heating have been almost completely cut off,” Belkis Wille from the rights group said.
Moscow denies targeting civilians and Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had not struck the building, RIA news agency said.
Thirteen buses carrying around 300 refugees from Mariupol have arrived in Russia’s Rostov region, Russia’s Interfax news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying on Thursday.
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said Russian forces had shot dead 10 people waiting in line for bread in Chernihiv, northeast of Kyiv. Russia denied the attack and said the incident was a hoax.
