The Kremlin’s ambassador to the United Nations has told Sky News a theatre reportedly full of hundreds of civilians which was destroyed in the besieged city of Mariupol was not bombed by Russia.
Some survivors have apparently been pulled from the rubble by rescue teams following Wednesday’s airstrike which Ukrainian officials said was carried out by President Putin’s forces.
Up to 1,000 men, women and children were thought to have been sheltering in the basement of the theatre for safety and the words ‘children’ were reportedly displayed in large letters at the site prior to the attack.
But the Russian ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, denied his country played any part in the incident and said there was “an information war taking place on a larger scale than the battlefield”.
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He told Sky’s US correspondent Martha Kelner: “The theatre in Mariupol was not bombed by Russia.”
Mr Nebenzya added: “I have seen so many fakes. We have this information war which is raging on a much greater scale than on the battlefield, and I will not be surprised at anything because who wins the information war – the one who wins the war.”
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Speaking earlier at the UN Security Council, he claimed people who had left Mariupol said on 13 March that the Azov Battalion, a far-right Ukrainian militia, had been holding a “huge number of people” in the building and was “preparing a bloody provocation”.
In his speech in New York, he acknowledged the large ‘children’ words, said Russian armed forces were “informed of the situation” and the building “was never considered as a target for a strike”.
The shelter is believed to have stood firm in the bombing, and rescuers have been clearing rubble blocking the entrance to the basement.
Mariupol has suffered the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the three-week war, with hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in basements with no food, water or power.
Mr Nebenzya said the southern city had previously had an “infamous jail and torture centre” at the airport which he compared to “neo-Nazism”.
And he claimed Ukrainian radicals were “clinging to the city” and “covering up maybe proof of their crimes …and they understand they will have to be held accountable”.
“That’s why they stand ready to drag into the grave almost the entire population of Mariupol”.
He claimed the authorities in Mariupol “use people as human shields, they do not allow them to evacuate and they place right next to residential buildings heavy weaponry in violation of humanitarian law”.
The Kremlin has also said it does not target civilians in what President Putin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry, said Kyiv was trying to frame Russia for the Mariupol incident.
“The Kyiv regime immediately tried to blame the Russian military, who, in its view, allegedly dropped a bomb from the air on the theatre,” said Ms Zakharova.
“Of course, this is a lie. It is well known to everyone that the Russian armed forces do not bomb cities. No matter how many videos are doctored by NATO structures and how many video clips and photo fakes are pumped out, the truth will come out.”
Meanwhile, in the northern city of Chernihiv, at least 53 people had been brought to morgues over the last 24 hours, after being killed amid heavy Russian air attacks and ground fire, local governor Viacheslav Chaus told Ukrainian TV.
Ukraine’s emergency services said a mother, a father and three of their children, including three-year-old twins, were killed when a Chernihiv hostel was shelled.
And at least 21 people were killed when Russian artillery destroyed a school and a community centre in Merefa, near the north-east city of Kharkiv, according to mayor Veniamin Sitov.
