First death toll for deadliest single attack since invasion began, as mass graves reported in besieged city
Authorities in Mariupol have said as many as 300 people were killed in a Russian bombing of a theatre last week, putting a death toll for the first time on the deadliest single attack since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine more than a month ago.
The figure, based on the accounts of witnesses, came as the United Nations human rights team in Ukraine said it had reports of mass graves in the southern port city, including one that appeared to hold 200 people.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, implored Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, to cut trade ties with Russia and join other EU countries in supplying arms to Ukraine. “Listen, Viktor, do you know what’s going on in Mariupol?” Zelenskiy said, adding that Hungary needed “to decide who you are with”.
Joe Biden visited the Polish town of Rzeszów, near the Ukrainian border, in a symbolic show of support for Nato’s eastern European members and for a first-hand look at international efforts to help more than 2 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled the country.
Vladimir Putin compared the cancellation of events involving Russian artists in protest over the invasion to the burning of books in Nazi Germany. “Today they are trying to cancel a 1,000-year-old country,” Putin said.
