INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Ukraine claimed Thursday that Russia had destroyed a theater harboring more than 1,000 people in the besieged southern port city of
Mariupol, with the toll as yet unknown.Officials posted images that appeared to show the once gleaming whitewashed three-story theater
hollowed out and ablaze, with bricks and scaffolding piled high."The invaders destroyed the Drama Theater
A place where more than a thousand people found refuge
And some said they were lucky to survive, but unfortunately not all were lucky," he said in a video message."The only word to describe what
has happened today is genocide, genocide of our nation, our Ukrainian people
But I am confident that the day will come when our beautiful city of Mariupol will rise out of the ruins again."The city is a key strategic
target for Moscow, potentially linking Russian forces in Crimea to the west and the Donbas to the east and cutting off Ukrainian access to
with which Russian invaders are destroying peaceful residents of a Ukrainian city by the sea," an official statement read.Mykhailo Podolyak,
an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, decried Russia's "cruelty" and ridiculed those in the West rejecting the idea of a no-fly zone
for "fear of WW3" with Russia, as they sit "in a Berlin cafe."Russia's defense ministry denied that its forces bombed the city and stated
the building was destroyed in an explosion set off by Ukraine's nationalist Azov battalion.It claimed "peaceful civilians could be held
hostage" at the site.Moscow has already blamed the military unit for last week's bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, which sparked
an international outcry.Human rights groups said the picture in Mariupol was still unclear."Until we know more, we cannot rule out the
possibility of a Ukrainian military target in the area of the theater, but we do know that the theater had been housing at least 500
people have been killed in the besieged city, according to Ukrainian authorities.Residents fleeing the city have spoken of bodies left to
rot on the streets, and of navigating minefields and Russian airstrikes in their escape.Russian forces on Wednesday targeted a railway
station in the southern Ukraine city of Zaporizhzhia, where thousands of refugees from Mariupol were trying to move further away from the
