'Pure thug' Putin waging immoral war in Ukraine

The US president told a Friends of Ireland lunch on Capitol Hill that the Russian tyrant is “waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine”. Hours earlier, in a meeting with Ireland Taoiseach Micheál Martin, President Biden declared: “Putin’s brutality and what he’s doing and his troops are doing in Ukraine is just inhumane.”

His verbal onslaught came as rescuers in the besieged port of Mariupol defied further Russian assaults to reach survivors of a bombing raid that destroyed its drama theatre, where 1,000 people were sheltering.

The Russian pilot attacked despite two huge signs warning that hundreds of children were inside, said officials – who added that up to 90 per cent of the eastern city has been left in ruins by Putin’s murderous blitz.

Poland yesterday joined President Biden in calling him a “war criminal”.

Lesia Vasylenko, a Ukrainian MP, said Mariupol was being “destroyed from the sky” and repeated the call by her president Volodymyr Zelensky for Western nations to impose a no-fly zone over the country and stop Putin’s daily bombardment.

Scores of civilians were feared dead in the wrecked theatre, despite the Russian word for “Children” being daubed around it to deter any attack, as satellite images showed.

Mariupol’s heating and water have been cut off for more than a week, so families had gathered in the venue to keep warm and in the hope it was seen as a haven.

Officials were hoping the theatre’s bomb shelter had held firm beneath the rubble, increasing the chances of finding survivors. The devastation was revealed in “before and after” photographs.

President Zelensky accused Russia of targeting the theatre and local MP Dmytro Gurin said “more than 1,000 people” were inside at the time of the bombing.

He added: “The building is destroyed. We have more than 1,000 women and children in the bomb shelter, in the basement.

“We had an information that the bomb shelter survived and people there survived. We don’t know yet whether we have wounded people, or killed people.

“But it looks like most of them have survived and are ok.”

He claimed Russia was targeting civilians. He added: “The pilot from the airplane saw these words [children] and he bombed the dramatic theatre anyway.” The MP said one survivor reported the theatre had been destroyed “by a bomb of around 1,000 kilos [2,200lb].

“There is no dramatic theatre anymore, as I remember it. And we don’t know yet the number of dead”.

Kremlin officials denied Russia had bombed the building, describing the claim as a “lie”.

But both President Biden and Poland’s foreign minister Marcin Przydacz called Putin a “war criminal”.

Questioned by journalists, Mr Biden said in an apparent off-the-cuff comment: “Oh, I think he is a war criminal.” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki later said he had been speaking from his heart after seeing “barbaric” images of the war in Ukraine, rather than making any official declaration.

Furious Putin hit back through his spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

He said: “We believe such rhetoric to be unacceptable and unforgivable on the part of the head of a state, whose bombs have killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.”

Mr Przydacz declared that the bombing of the theatre was yet another sign that Putin’s invasion forces were resorting to more brutal tactics. He agreed with the US President’s characterisation of the Russian leader as a “war criminal.

Mr Przydacz added: “In my opinion the initial [Russian] plan was to destroy the military infrastructure [of Ukraine].

“The Kremlin believed the government of Ukraine will evaporate somehow. That was not the case.”

He continued: “Ukrainians are very brave defending their land and their values, their democracy, the country they built, they’ve been building for the last 30 years. So now

Mr Putin decided to hit civilian infrastructure. And what’s worse…I’ve seen a photo that’s around this theatre… it was written on the pavement that there are kids inside.

“It didn’t stop Mr Putin from bombing this and it’s really, as President Biden called him, this is the war criminal.”

As Russia’s assaults continued across Ukraine yesterday, officials began trying to open nine “humanitarian corridors” to evacuate traumatised residents from several cities including Mariupol.

Authorities in the city say around 30,000 people have left so far.The local council estimates that more than 350,000 people are still sheltering in Mariupol.

Ukraine’s deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that the Kyiv government was hoping all the routes would continue to operate, to help civilians escape the incessant shelling.

But on the ground attacks continued. At least one person died and three were injured after the debris of a downed missile hit a flat in the capital Kyiv.

Rescue workers were last night continuing the search for any survivors of the blast who might have been trapped under the rubble, said a spokesman for Ukraine’s State Emergency Services. Firefighters tackling the burning debris at the apartment block helped evacuate residents.

Elsewhere, an education building in the northern town of Merefa was shelled at 3.30am yesterday.

Local media said that a school and a community centre were hit but it seemed that there were no reported victims.

In the northern city of Chernihiv, the number of people killed when Russian forces opened fire on civilians queuing at a bakery rose to 13 yesterday.