In Mariupol, children were buried in mass graves | international | DW

“They are not fighting against the soldiers but against the population,” On Friday (18.03) the regional governor of Lviv, a large city in Western Ukraine, was fired a few dozen kilometers from the Polish border, and even then it survived the fighting.

Now Lviv, in turn, has become a target for Russian missiles. The bombed-out areas around the airport, although there are currently 200,000 displaced people in the city, have become a humanitarian crossroads on the road to exile.

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It is clear that civilians will be a target of the Russian army, which is struggling to achieve its military objectives. This is what we saw in Mariupol, a strategic port in the southeast of the country where 80% of the residential areas have already been destroyed.

About James Hebei, Minister of the British Armed Forces “It is a barbaric tactic. The Russians failed to take the city militarily. They believed that they could achieve their goal in a few days. Everything indicated that they would try to encircle these cities and use artillery and missiles to force the Ukrainians into submission. But the Ukrainians are showing no signs of surrender and must receive Big salute.”

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Mass graves

Therefore, the Russian steam controller will move more slowly than expected. Civilians in Mariupol, a besieged city, are paying a heavy price. The Kremlin said the fighting was now taking place in the city centre.

German Markus Keim, an expert on defense and security, explains that it is a matter of demoralizing the population:

“Russia attacks civilians on purpose, very frankly, and in a very purposeful way. This strategy has many dimensions. It is about breaking the spirit of resistance. And ‘liberating’ – in quotes – territories. This means pushing civilians out of their residential areas to bomb them more and then occupying these areas even more harshly.

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In Mariupol, residents are forced to bury their children in mass graves. There is no ceremony, everything happens quickly, because as the two reporters wrote for the Associated Press, the only foreign journalists still around right away, “The less time people spend outdoors, the better their chances of surviving.” in the face of bombing.