LVIV, Ukraine(Washington Insider Magazine) – Russian soldiers bombarded a mosque harboring more than 80 individuals, including children, in the coastal city of Mariupol, the Ukrainian authorities said Saturday, as battle continued on the edges of the city, Kyiv.
There was no early news on the number of people killed or injured as a result of the bombardment of the magnificent city-center mosque. According to ABC NEWS, Mariupol has seen some of the worst effects of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, with unrelenting barrages defeating repeated efforts to bring in water and food, evacuate stranded civilians, and bury all of the deceased.
According to the Ukrainian Embassy in Turkey, 86 Turkish citizens, including 34 children, took refuge in Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent’s and his wife Roksolana’s mosque. The white-walled mosque and its high minaret, which opened in 2007 and was designed like a mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, were proudly promoted as a popular aesthetic lure by municipal officials before Mariupol became a victim of Russian bombardments.
Artillery barrages in numerous regions around Kyiv drove inhabitants fleeing for cover as air raid alarms sounded across the national capital. Russian ground forces stationed north of Kyiv throughout most of the fight have closed to within 25 kilometers (15 miles) of the city center, according to the British Defense Ministry.
The enormous column of Russian troops has also stretched out, indicating that an effort to encircle Kyiv is possible, according to the British ministry.
As artillery shelled Kyiv’s northwestern suburbs, 2 columns of smoke ascended southwest of the capital, one white and one black, following an attack on an ammunition stockpile in Vaslkyiv resulted in hundreds of minor explosions. In an apparent attempt to attack Kyiv’s supply of food, a frozen food storage close outside the capital was also hit.
Russia’s gradual and steady tightening of the noose around Kyiv, as well as the shelling of other population areas with artillery and air attacks, are reminiscent of methods used by Russian troops to suppress armed opposition in the past, most notably in Chechnya and Syria.
Mariupol, with its strategically important Black Sea port, has witnessed some of the worst suffering. According to the mayor’s office, the dead toll in Mariupol has surpassed 1,500 after 12 days of attacks. 3 people were killed in an attack on a maternity facility in the metropolis of 446,000 people this week, which triggered international anger and accusations of war crimes.
According to the World Health Organization, Russian soldiers have attacked at least 2 dozen medical centers and hospitals since their invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Heavy artillery struck a cancer hospital and many residential structures in Mykolaiv, a city 489 kilometers (304 miles) west of Mariupol, on Saturday, according to Ukrainian officials.
Around hundred patients were at the hospital during the incident, according to the hospital’s senior doctor, Maksim Beznosenko, however no one was killed.
