By DAVID AVERRE FOR MAILONLINE
Part
of the Karazin National University campus in the city of Kharkiv is
destroyed after being struck by a Russian missile which was seemingly intended
for a nearby police or interior ministry building
Russia's invasion - which met with heavy defeat in its
initial plan to seize key targets and infrastructure in precision strikes -
entered a new phase on Monday, with the aim seemingly to surround and bombard
cities such as Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mariupol, Sumy and Kherson.
Kherson has been overrun by Russian forces according to
the Kremlin, but Ukrainian army units and civilian defence forces have
otherwise put up fierce resistance and largely stalled the Russian onslaught on
the ground, prompting Putin to launch an indiscriminate bombing campaign of
Ukraine's two largest cities - Kyiv and Kharkiv.
The civilian death toll has increased significantly in
the past three days since Russia began its bombardment, with Ukrainian
authorities yesterday reporting 352 civilian deaths since the start of the
invasion, including 14 children.
Roughly 874,000 people have fled the country, with the UN
refugee agency warning the number will likely cross the 1 million mark soon.
Countless others have taken shelter underground in metro stations, basements
and makeshift shelters.
The overall death toll from the seven-day war is not
clear, with neither Russia nor Ukraine releasing an official number of troops
they have lost.
Ukraine's State Emergency Service said more than 2,000
civilians have died, though it was impossible to verify that claim.
The UN human rights office on Monday had tallied 136
civilian deaths, but acknowledged the actual toll was surely far higher.
The civilian death toll is likely to have increased
dramatically since then in the wake of sustained bombing campaigns of several
cities, with missiles slamming in to several administrative and civilian
targets including schools and hospitals.
The move has seen Putin accused of war crimes, after
multiple reports of the use of cluster bombs on residential high-rises and
non-military structures.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan
confirmed Monday that a probe will be launched into Russia's bombing campaign:
'I wish to announce that I have decided to proceed with opening an
investigation into the situation in Ukraine, as rapidly as possible'.
'I am satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to
believe that both alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity have been
committed in Ukraine,' he added.
This morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who
has become a symbol of Ukrainian defiance and courage since the war began, told
his people that Russians 'know nothing about our capital. About our history.
But they have an order to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all.'
The president, unshaven and wearing a military-style
khaki T-shirt, said the West's response was not enough, calling for more
international support, including backing Ukraine's bid to join the European
Union.
'This is no time to be neutral,' he added.
As he spoke, troops were preparing barricades to defend
the city of Zaporizhzhia - including setting up defences around the
reactors of Energodar power plant. Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to
Ukraine's interior ministry, called on generals to bypass the city while
warning they could create a 'new Chernobyl' if the plant is damaged.
'Because of Putin's madness, Europe is again on the brink
of a nuclear catastrophe,' he wrote on Facebook. 'The city where the largest
nuclear power plant in Europe is located is preparing for a battle with the
invaders.
The comments came after Zelensky's statement in the early
hours of Tuesday morning in which he said there would 'definitely be an
international tribunal' for what he described as a 'violation of all
conventions' and added that 'no one in the world will forgive [Putin] for
killing peaceful Ukrainian people.'
The Kremlin though has denied that the Russian military
used cluster munitions in Ukraine and insisted that the Russian forces have
only struck military targets.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that 'the
Russian troops don't conduct any strikes against civilian infrastructure and
residential areas.'
But Peskov's claim contradicts abundant evidence of
indiscriminate shelling of homes, schools, and hospitals across Ukraine.
Firefighters
battle to put out a blaze in Kharkiv as the city came under renewed airstrikes
today, with an official saying there is almost no area of the city left that
has not been hit
Speaking in a conference call with reporters, he wouldn't respond to questions about whether the Kremlin is happy with the pace of the offensive and wouldn't comment on Russian military casualties.
Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov also declared
Monday that Russia 'did not and does not have any land-based, short or
medium-range missiles', though he did not explicitly deny the widespread reports
of Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian cities.
A military source told MailOnline that videos of the
onslaught showed 'cluster' munitions had been used.
'The BM-21 Grad is a multiple launch rocket system used
for 'area denial', dropping cluster bombs on a concentrated area,' the expert
said.
'It's mainly used on enemy troops before an offensive.
Used against civilians, it's not only a war crime, but has only one purpose –
to spread terror and alarm among the civilian population.'
But despite Russia's ruthless bombing campaign and sustained ground assault, the Ukrainian army and its territorial defence forces have remained resolute.
Huge
convoys of Russian armour have rumbled into several Ukrainian cities, only to
be met with fierce resistance as well-armed troops used a mixture of their own
and NATO-supplied anti-tank weapons to wreak havoc on the invaders
Dozens of images and videos published on Monday showed
Ukrainian forces parading defeated Russian soldiers who were captured as the
remainder of their units retreated or were killed.
Footage posted online show tied up 'demoralised and
exhausted' prisoners of war captured after they failed to break through
defences in Kyiv and Kharkiv over the weekend.
Several of the videos were posted on a Telegram channel
set up on Saturday by Ukraine's Interior Ministry called 'Find Your Own'.
Many Russian troops claimed that they believed they were
conducting training exercises in the border regions and did not know they were
being sent to invade Ukraine.
The Russian onslaught seems to have been slowed
considerably, but there are fears that this lack of success on the ground will
give rise to a prolonged bombing campaign designed to inflict maximum damage
and beat Ukraine's cities into submission.
