Russia's War In Ukraine

A Ukrainian lawmaker said on Friday that Russia's brutality during its invasion of the country is evidence it cannot be trusted to uphold future peace and described its acts as "genocide."

Kira Rudik, a member of Ukraine's parliament, told CNN in an interview from Kyiv that fellow lawmakers were heartbroken over the news on Thursday of evacuation corridors in the besieged city of Mariupol — where estimates of tens of thousands of civilians are trapped — failing to hold.

“We had at least five buses of women and children ready to go, and we were not able to take them out because Russians didn't stop firing. We were not able to get the ceasefire from them, though beforehand they promised to do that,” Rudik said.“So, could you even imagine what these women and children felt sitting there in the buses for, I don’t know, a couple of hours waiting if their life will be spared or not. And they were not. They had to return back.”

Russian atrocities have made it apparent to Ukrainians that the entirety of the nation must be defended at all costs, she said, noting the slain civilians found in cities north of Kyiv after Russian forces retreated.

"We are aware about what's facing us if we fail. I have been to Bucha. I know what they will do to us. And I don't want this to happen to myself, to any of the people that I love. That's why we are fighting. We'll be fighting for every single inch right until the end."

Rudik said she had faith in the international community to try and help put pressure on Russia moving forward, but called out countries for taking “halfway” acts — condemning the invasion yet still conducting trade with Russia.

Referencing Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, she added, “I understand that it takes time for the world to adapt to the truth that we in Ukraine have known for eight years. You cannot trust Russia.”

Rudik told CNN she did not have faith in settlements or negotiations because of Russian aggression, equivalating Putin’s acts with Nazi Germany in World War II.  

“This is why we are explaining to the world that what's happening in Ukraine is called genocide. This is why we're explaining to the world that you cannot get into any peaceful agreement with Russia, because in comparison it is like going into a peaceful agreement with Hitler and saying, ‘Oh, we will talk to him and probably he will spare some lives of the Jews,'" she said.

Further evacuations of Mariupol: Shelling near the extraction point prevented people from being evacuated Thursday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk had said.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the Donetsk regional military administrator, said 79 residents of the besieged city of Mariupol were safely evacuated to Zaproizhzhia on Thursday.

Russia-Ukraine War: Satellite Images Appear To Show Mass Graves In Mariupol; Humanitarian Corridors Remain Closed – Live

Russia has been hiding evidence of its “barbaric” war crimes in Mariupol by burying the bodies of civilians killed by shelling in a new mass grave, the city’s mayor said on Thursday, as a US satellite imagery company released photos that appeared to match the site.

The mayor, Vadym Boichenko, said Russian trucks had collected corpses from the streets of the port city and had transported them to the nearby village of Manhush. They were then secretly thrown into a mass grave in a field next to the settlement’s old cemetery, he said.

The invaders are concealing evidence of their crimes. The cemetery is located near a petrol station to the left side of a circular road. The Russians have dug huge trenches, 30 metres wide. They chuck people in.”

“The bodies of the dead were being brought by the truckload and actually simply being dumped in mounds,” an aide to Boychenko, Piotr Andryushchenko, said on Telegram.

The graves could hold as many as 9,000 dead, the Mariupol city council said on Thursday in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

The mayor estimated that more than 20,000 Mariupol residents had been killed since Russian forces began attacking the city during the early days of Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Most bodies had now been removed, he said, with some disposed of in mobile crematoriums.

Later on Thursday, the US company Maxar Technologies released images of what appeared to be a mass grave in the same area. The site had been expanded in recent weeks to contain more than 200 new graves, Maxar said.

Related: Russian forces accused of secret burials of Mariupol civilians

Ukraine And Russia: What You Need To Know Right Now

(Reuters) - Ukrainian fighters were clinging to their last redoubt in Mariupol after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the biggest battle of the war, declaring the port city "liberated" following weeks of relentless bombardment.

FIGHTING

* Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces control most of Mariupol but Ukrainian troops remain in a part of it. About 120,000 civilians were blocked from leaving, he said.

* Hundreds of Ukrainian troops remain bunkered down at Mariupol's Azovstal steel factory. Putin told his troops to blockade it.

* British military intelligence said a full Russian assault on the plant would likely mean heavy Russian casualties and Putin's decision to blockade it would free up forces for elsewhere in the east.

* Heavy shelling continued in the eastern Donbas as Russia tried to advance towards settlements, the British Ministry of Defence said in a regular bulletin.

DIPLOMACY

* U.S. President Joe Biden pledged $800 million in more weaponry for Ukraine and said he would ask Congress for more money to help the Ukrainian military.

* Newly disclosed "Ghost" drones that are part of America's latest arms package for Ukraine were developed by the U.S. Air Force for attacking targets and are destroyed after a single use, the Pentagon said.

* British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak and his Canadian counterpart Chrystia Freeland walked out of an International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington to protest the invasion of Ukraine when Russia's delegate spoke.

ECONOMY

* Ukraine is working with lawyers on a mechanism to use frozen Russian funds to compensate it for its economic losses, its justice minister told Reuters.

* World Bank President David Malpass said the food security crisis caused by the war was likely to last months and that Ukraine had suffered some $60 billion worth of physical damage.

* U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged countries that have not yet condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine to do so and to avoid violating sanctions imposed on Russia.

Story continues

QUOTES

* "There's no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground through these industrial facilities ... Block off this industrial area so that not even a fly can get through": Putin on sealing off the steel plant.

"If you have a helmet and a bulletproof vest, but you do not have a gun in your hands, you are doomed": Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, appealing for military aid.

(Compiled by Alexandra Hudson, Rosalba O'Brien, Robert Birsel and Kim Coghill)