A bomb shelter in the Mariupol theatre - bombarded by Russian forces in a potential war crime - withstood the blasts and there were survivors from the attack, officials in the beseiged city have said.

       Early reports suggested that there were more than 1,000 people sheltering in the theatre when it was hit, fuelling fears that hundreds may have been killed in an attack which has been internationally condemned.

       “The bomb shelter held. Now the rubble is being cleared. There are survivors. We don’t know about the (number of ) victims yet,” Mariupol mayoral adviser Petro Andrushchenko told Reuters.

       “We hope and we think that some people who stayed in the shelter under the theatre could survive.”

       He said rescue work was underway to reach survivors and establish the number of casualties.

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       One Ukrainian MP said people were seen emerging alive from the shelter as rescuers started to dig through rubble on Thursday morning.

       The rubble had buried the entrance to the shelter inside the theatre, and it was not yet known how many people were killed or injured, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional administration.

       “Now there are pregnant women and women with children under the rubble there,” he said.

       The theatre had the words “children” in Russian painted on a pavement outside the building, in an apparent attempt to warn those carrying out the bombing.

       (via REUTERS)

       Ukraine has accused Russia of being responsible, a claim Moscow denies. Mr Kyrylenko said on Telegram that further air strikes had also hit a municipal swimming pool complex in the city where civilians were also sheltering.

       The city has been under continual bombardment from Russian artillery for almost a fortnight and is encircled. It has become a grim symbol of Ukraine’s desperate suffering during the three-week long war.

       More than 2,300 people had been killed in Mariupol before the theatre attack and earlier this week, officials said up to 20,000 may have died during the continual bombardments.

       Residents in the port city have described conditions there as a “living hell”, and have been left without food, power, forced to drink from radiators, and with many bodies remaining unburied.

       Wednesday’s theatre attack has been widely condemned and only hours after it occured, US President Joe Biden called Russian leader Vladimir Putin a “war criminal”.

       The Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba called the attack “another horrendous war crime”.

       Describing the attack as “unspeakable inhumanity”, the British ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons said the bombing was a “war crime”.

       Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Marcin Przydacz, echoed calling Mr Putin a “war criminal” in comments to the BBC and said his forces are resorting to brutal tactics to break the nation.

       “In my opinion the initial plan was to destroy the military infrastructure,” Mr Przydacz said.

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

       (via REUTERS)

       Six nations have demanded a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine on Thursday afternoon over the attack as a vote is scheduled on Friday to on a resolution demanding protection for Ukrainian civilians “in vulnerable situations”.

       The foreign minister of Lativa, Edgars Rinkēvi？s, said “those responsible must face severe punishment”.

       “Russian war crimes tribunal should not be held in Nuremberg or the Hague but in Mariupol or Kharkiv”.

       Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that the allegation that Russia had bombed the theatre was a “lie”.

       “Russia’s armed forces don’t bomb towns and cities,” she told a briefing.

       Meanwhile, it was reported that in the northern city of Chernihiv, at least 53 people had been brought to morgues over the past 24 hours, killed amid heavy Russian air attacks and ground fire, local governor, Viacheslav Chaus, told Ukrainian TV on Thursday.

       Ukraine’s emergency services said a mother, father and three of their children, including 3-year-old twins, were killed when a Chernihiv hostel was shelled.

       “The city has never known such nightmarish, colossal losses and destruction,” Chaus said.

       And at least 21 people were killed when Russian artillery destroyed a school and a community center before dawn in Merefa, near the northeast city of Kharkiv, according to Mayor Veniamin Sitov. The region has seen heavy bombardment in a bid by stalled Russian forces to advance.

       Fighting during the war has led to more than 3 million people fleeing Ukraine, according to the UN. The death toll remains unknown, though Ukraine has said thousands of civilians have died.

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