Ukrainian officials on Monday angrily rejected a Russian demand that their forces in the besieged strategic port city of Mariupol lay down their arms and raise white flags in exchange for safe passage out of town.
Ukraine rejected the offer hours after it was reported that Russian forces had bombed an art school that was sheltering some 400 people.
While the fight for control of the strategically important city remained intense, Western governments and analysts see the broader conflict shifting to a war of attrition.
Russian Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev said it would allow two corridors out of Mariupol, heading either east toward Russia or west to other parts of Ukraine.
According to CBS News, Mariupol residents were given until 5 a.m. Monday to respond to the offer. Russia didn’t say what action it would take if it was rejected.
But Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said no.
“There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms. We have already informed the Russian side about this,” she told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda. “I wrote: `Instead of wasting time on eight pages of letters, just open the corridor.'”
Mariupol Mayor Piotr Andryushchenko also rejected the offer, saying in a Facebook post he didn’t need to wait until morning to respond and cursing at the Russians, according to the news agency Interfax Ukraine.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said authorities in Mariupol could face a military tribunal if they sided with what it described as “bandits,” the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Previous bids to allow residents to evacuate Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities have failed or have been only partially successful, with bombardments continuing as civilians sought to flee.
Speaking in a video address early Monday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said about 400 civilians were taking shelter at the art school when it was struck by a Russian bomb.
“They are under the rubble, and we don’t know how many of them have survived,” he said. “But we know that we will certainly shoot down the pilot who dropped that bomb, like about 100 other such mass murderers whom we already have downed.”
