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Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Ukraine’s hardest-hit city, Mariupol, President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Monday — as his chief prosecutor called Russian President Vladimir Putin the “main war criminal of the 21st Century.”
Zelensky gave the chilling updated tally while also warning that invading troops appeared to be readying an even bigger assault to finally take the besieged city, which intelligence officials fear could be hit with phosphorous bombs.
“Mariupol has been destroyed, there are tens of thousands of dead, but even despite this, the Russians are not stopping their offensive,” Zelensky told South Korea’s parliament as he begged for more support.
Despite the devastating losses, “Russian troops will move to even larger operations,” Zelensky warned in a late-night video address Sunday.
“They may use even more missiles against us, even more air bombs,” he warned, insisting his nation was “preparing for their actions” and “will answer.”
Britain’s Ministry of Defense also warned Monday of an expected escalation by Russia, including on Mariupol, which is the lynchpin between Russian-held areas to the west and east.
“Russian forces prior use of phosphorous munitions … raises the possibility of their future employment in Mariupol as fighting for the city intensifies,” the UK said in its latest military intelligence report.
The same report also blamed “Russia’s continued reliance on unguided bombs” for the ongoing risk of “further civilian casualties.”
Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, also warned of “mounting evidence” that her nation will still “witness unprecedented and horrific” war crimes.
She told ITV News Sunday that more than 90% of Mariupol’s infrastructure has been wiped out, and at least 1,222 bodies were found in the regions around the capital, Kyiv.
“Vladimir Putin is the main war criminal of 21st century,” she told Sky News.
Venediktova said that so far her office has identified at least 500 invading troops responsible for at least 5,600 war crimes.
“It is not just war crimes, it is crimes against humanity,” she told the UK broadcaster.
The country’s top prosecutor blasted Friday’s deadly missile strike on Kramatorsk railway station where thousands were trying to flee the war.
“These people just wanted to save their lives … it was women, it was children,” she told Sky News of the more than 50 dead, including at least five kids.
Ludmila Zabaluk, head of the Dmytriv Village Department, north of Kyiv, said more than 50 bodies were found there.
“They shot them from close distance. There’s a car where a 17-year-old child was burned, only bones left. A woman had half her head blown off. A bit farther, a man lying near his car was burned alive,” she said.
The UN on Sunday said 4,232 civilian casualties had been recorded in Ukraine to date, with 1,793 killed and 2,439 injured. Officials have long conceded that the final tally will be far higher.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
About a quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million population have been forced from their homes, as cities turned into rubble, and thousands of people have been killed or injured — many of them civilians.
The chilling updates came as Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer was set Monday to be the first European leader to meet Putin since his brutal invasion.
He plans to tell Putin “what reality looks like outside the walls of Kremlin” — including that he “has de facto lost the war morally,” Austria’s Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said Monday.
“It should be in his own interest that someone tells him the truth. I think it is important and we owe it to ourselves if we want to save human lives,” Schallenberg said ahead of the planned meeting in Moscow.
With Post wires
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