Russia urged to allow Mariupol evacuation as UN office calls Ukraine war a ‘horror story’

The European Union has urged Moscow to allow the urgent evacuation of residents from the ruined Ukrainian city of Mariupol, as the United Nations human rights office described Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a "horror story" of crimes against civilians.

The Kremlin blamed Kyiv for the crisis in the devastated port on the Azov Sea, as a senior Russian military commander said his country wanted full control of southern Ukraine and direct access to a Moscow-backed breakaway region of neighbouring Moldova.

Russian forces now occupy most of Mariupol, but more than 100,000 people are still in the city, including perhaps 1,000 who took refuge in the sprawling Azovstal metalworks with hundreds of Ukrainian troops who refuse to surrender.

"The EU supports Ukraine's appeal to the Kremlin to allow the safe evacuation of Mariupol's civilians. Humanitarian corridors have to be created immediately, with necessary ceasefire assurances, from Azovstal and other areas of the city to other parts of Ukraine," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday.

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A day after Ukrainian officials said satellite imagery showed mass graves near Mariupol where Russia was hiding evidence of alleged war crimes, Mr Borrell decried Moscow's "cruel illegal onslaught ... including atrocities against civilians" and accused it of forcing thousands of Mariupol residents to flee to Russia or areas of eastern Ukraine that it now controls.

Safe passage

In a phone call with Russian president Vladimir Putin, European Council president Charles Michel "strongly urged for immediate humanitarian access and safe passage from Mariupol and other besieged cities".

According to the Kremlin, Mr Putin noted that his forces had not stormed Azovstal, and insisted that all Ukrainian troops, “militants from nationalist battalions and foreign mercenaries are guaranteed life and dignity in accordance with international law … However, the Kyiv regime does not allow them to use this opportunity.”

Mr Putin also rebuffed Mr Michel’s call for him to hold direct talks with Ukrainian leader Volodymr Zelenskiy, accusing Kyiv of being “inconsistent and unwilling to look for mutually acceptable solutions”.

A spokesman for United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres said he would meet Mr Putin in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss how "to bring peace to Ukraine urgently".

The meeting was announced hours after Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said Russia's war on Ukraine was "a horror story of violations perpetrated against civilians".

“Russian armed forces have indiscriminately shelled and bombed populated areas, killing civilians and wrecking hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure, actions that may amount to war crimes,” her office said in a statement.

‘Full control’

Moscow claims that it wants to "de-Nazify" and demilitarise Ukraine and protect its Russian speakers, but Rustam Minnekayev, the acting commander of Russia's central military district, said on Friday that it intended to "establish full control" over the country's eastern Donbas region and its south.

He said this would give Russia “a land corridor to [occupied] Crimea”, allow it to “affect vital parts of the Ukrainian economy” and provide “another route to Transnistria”, a Kremlin-backed breakaway region of Moldova where he claimed “there are also cases of the Russian-speaking population being oppressed”.