Ludmyla Denisova: Latest News

Ukrainian authorities in the besieged ruins of Mariupol said Friday that about 300 people died when a Russian airstrike blew up a theatre where hundreds of civilians were sheltering — a catastrophic loss of civilian life that, if confirmed, is likely to further crank up pressure on western nations to step up military aid.In a vain attempt to protect those inside the grand, columned theatre from missile and airstrikes that Russia has rained down on cities, an enormous inscription reading “CHILDREN” in Russian was posted outside the building and was visible from the air.For days, the government in the battered port city was unable to give a casualty count for the March 16 attack. The post on its Telegram channel Friday cited eyewitnesses.

KHARKIV, Ukraine - About 300 people died in a Russian airstrike last week on a theater being used as a bomb shelter in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the city's government said Friday, citing eyewitnesses.When the theater was struck March 16, an enormous inscription reading "CHILDREN" was posted outside in Russian, intended to be visible from the skies above.It was not immediately clear whether emergency workers had finished excavating the site or how the eyewitnesses arrived at the horrific death toll. Soon after the airstrike, Ludmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian Parliament’s human rights commissioner, said more than 1,300 people had been sheltering in the building.RELATED: Russia-Ukraine war: Civilian casualties grow amid shellingMariupol has been the scene of some of the worst devastation of the war, which has seen Russia relentlessly besiege and pummel Ukraine's cities.

ruins of a theater blown apart by a Russian airstrike in the besieged city of Mariupol, while scores of Ukrainians across the country were killed in ferocious urban attacks on a school, a hostel and other sites.Hundreds of civilians had been taking shelter in the grand, columned theater in central Mariupol after their homes were destroyed in three weeks of fighting in the southern port city of 430,000.More than a day after the airstrike, there were no reports of deaths. With communications disrupted across the city and movement difficult because of shelling and other fighting, there were conflicting reports on whether anyone had emerged from the rubble."We hope and we think that some people who stayed in the shelter under the theater could survive," Petro Andrushchenko, an official with the mayor’s office, told The Associated Press.

Russian airstrikes in the besieged city of Mariupol, while ferocious Russian bombardment killed dozens in a northern city over the past day, the local governor said.The strikes the previous evening had left a large section of the grand, three-storey theatre building in the centre of Mariupol collapsed in a smoking ruin, according to photos released by the city council.Inside, hundreds of men, women and children — up to 1,000 according to some officials — had taken shelter in the basement, seeking safety amid Russia’s strangulating three-week siege of the strategic southern port city in Ukraine.Rescuers worked to clearing rubble that had blocked the entrance to the basement, despite new strikes reported elsewhere in the city Thursday. Miraculously, the shelter stood firm, officials said.“The building withstood the impact of a high-powered air bomb and protected the lives of people hiding in the bomb shelter,” Ukraine’s ombudswoman Ludmyla Denisova said on the Telegram messaging app Thursday.She and Ukrainian parliament member Sergiy Taruta said some survivors had emerged.