Search on for survivors amid theatre rubble

KYIV • Rescue workers were searching for survivors in the rubble of a theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol yesterday, after Ukraine said a powerful Russian air strike hit the building where hundreds of people had been sheltering from the war.

The port city is encircled by Russian forces and has seen some of the fiercest bombardment of the conflict.

"The heart is breaking from what Russia does to our people, our Mariupol, and our Donetsk region," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a late-night address on Wednesday, referring to the theatre attack.

Mr Petro Andrushchenko, an adviser to the city's mayor, said some people had survived the blast.

"The bomb shelter held. Now the rubble is being cleared. There are survivors. We don't know about the (number of) victims yet," he told Reuters, adding that rescue work was under way to reach survivors and establish the number of casualties, which was still unknown.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said yesterday that the allegation that Russia had bombed the theatre was a "lie", and repeated Kremlin denials that its forces have targeted civilians.

"Russia's armed forces don't bomb towns and cities," she said.

Ms Tetyana Ignatchenko, spokesman for the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, said there had been 1,000 people inside the Donetsk Regional Theatre of Drama in Mariupol a week ago.

"But after that, many people were able to escape. We can't say exactly how many people were in the theatre. We can only assume 400 to 500. Half of them."

Officials posted images that appeared to show the once gleaming, whitewashed three-storey theatre hollowed out and ablaze, with bricks and scaffolding piled high.

Days before the apparent attack, satellite images shared by private company Maxar clearly showed the word "deti" - or "children" in Russian - etched out in the ground on either side of the building.

The city is a key target for Moscow, potentially linking Russian forces in Crimea to the west and the Donbass region to the east and cutting off Ukrainian access to the Sea of Azov.

For days, Russian forces have bombarded the city once home to half a million residents, cutting off power, food and water supplies.

Ukrainian officials branded the bombing a war crime.

"It is impossible to find words to describe the level of cynicism and cruelty with which Russian invaders are destroying peaceful residents of a Ukrainian city by the sea," an official statement read.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE