LVIV, Ukraine — As the besieged city of Mariupol rejected a demand to surrender, Russian forces mounted attacks across Ukraine overnight and into Monday, including a missile strike that officials said hit a Kyiv shopping center and killed at least eight people.
With fears growing that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is turning into a bloody war of attrition, Mariupol leaders rebuffed the Russian proposal — which offered evacuation routes for Ukrainian troops if they left by Monday morning — even after the reported bombing of a local art school where officials said hundreds of people had taken shelter.
Mariupol’s mayor swiftly ruled out giving in to the enemy troops that have surrounded his city, which has become a symbol of Ukrainian suffering and destruction. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk also dismissed the Russian demand.
“There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms,” she told the Ukrainian Pravda news organization.
In an overnight address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the bombing of the art school, where he said 400 people had taken refuge, was further proof against Russian claims that it’s not targeting civilians.
“There were no military positions,” Zelenskyy said. “They are under the debris. We do not know how many are alive at the moment.”
The bombing, in a war-torn city where few journalists are present and internet connections have become scant, could not be independently verified. Ukraine officials have also accused Russians of forcing thousands of Mariupol residents to be sent to Russia. The allegation has also not been independently confirmed.
Nearly a month after the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine began, more than 3.3 million people — about 1 in 13 — have fled the nation, according to the United Nations. Millions more have been internally displaced, with many jamming trains and buses bound for western Ukraine, which has seen significantly fewer attacks than the east, where the war began.
The United Nations reported Monday that more than 900 civilians have died, though the actual number is likely much higher.
With the capital of Kyiv still under Ukrainian control, the Russian military has resorted over the last week to shelling residential areas outside the center of the city, with missiles regularly hitting high-rise apartments and commercial strips. Some are direct impacts from Russian launches. Damage to at least one high-rise building last week was the result of a Ukrainian attempt to intercept fire.
Late Sunday, the Ukrainian emergency service reported that missiles struck a shopping center in the Podilskyi district, northwest of the central Kyiv, partially destroying it. At least eight people were killed, according to the Ukrainian emergency service.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that houses were also hit.
“Several explosions in the Podilskyi district of the capital. In particular, according to information available at the moment, shells hit some houses and one of the shopping centers. Rescuers, medics and police are already there,” Klitschko said on his Telegram channel.
The shopping center, called Retroville, had fast-food restaurants — including a KFC and a McDonald's — a movie theater and a gym, among other businesses. According to a Facebook post, it had shut down last month as the war began. It’s unclear if it was operating this week.
Amid the barrage of attacks, the city will undergo another 35-hour curfew, from 8 p.m. Monday until 7 a.m. Wednesday. Klitschko said that pharmacies, gas stations and stores would be closed all day Tuesday and that only emergency vehicles would be allowed in the streets during the curfew.
“I ask everyone to stay at home or in shelters when the alarm sounds,” Klitschko said.
A similar curfew was imposed last week at what Klitschko called a “dangerous moment” for the capital.
A British intelligence assessment said Monday that Russian troops were likely to continue to encircle and attack areas around Kyiv. The capital is Russia’s “primary military objective,” said the analysis from Britain’s Ministry of Defense, which estimated Russian forces to be about 15 miles outside Kyiv.
Despite the daily shelling in Kyiv, where many embassies closed or evacuated staff last month, one European nation said Monday that it would relaunch its presence in the city.
Prime Minister Janez Jansa of Slovenia, which had evacuated diplomats in February, said several would return to Kyiv. Jansa, who was among a delegation of European leaders to travel to Kyiv on a daring visit last week, wrote on Twitter that the workers volunteered to go back because the nation “needs direct diplomatic support.”
Elsewhere, a relief convoy that was destined for a northeastern area near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was hijacked overnight by Russians, Zelenskyy said. The claim could not be independently verified.
“Five drivers and one doctor,” Zelenskyy said. “We will try again and again to deliver to our people what they need.”
Ukraine also released a statement Monday accusing Russians of kidnapping thousands of children in the eastern region of Donbas and taking them to Russia. In a statement, the spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, said 2,389 children were taken from their parents Saturday. The information could not be independently confirmed.
Eight humanitarian aid and evacuation corridors were scheduled to open Monday, according to Ukrainian officials. Ukrainians say the Russian side routinely agrees to aid routes, only to block convoys. Russia denies the accusations.
In the western city of Lviv, a relative safe haven from the violence, life continued at a normal pace Monday despite fears that Friday’s bombing of a decommissioned aircraft repair facility adjacent to the city airport augured a new front for Russian attacks. It was the first strike within the city limits, and authorities said one person was injured.
On Sunday, people crammed the streets of Lviv, where the population has increased dramatically because of a flood of displaced people. Beneath sunny skies, cafes and parks were packed. But city officials continue to regularly sound air sirens and warn residents to remain vigilant.
The White House said President Joe Biden would speak Monday with leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy on the Ukrainian crisis. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to be in Brussels, where an emergency meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be held to discuss the war.
One issue expected to be on the agenda is a proposal from Poland, a NATO member state, to send an international peacekeeping mission to Ukraine. NATO has dispatched similar missions after conflicts elsewhere, but they have not taken place while war was underway. Such a move would also no doubt be seen as provocative by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is bent on preventing any Ukrainian association with NATO.
Speaking in Brussels on Monday, the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell said Russians attacks on Mariupol amounted to war crimes.
“This is a war crime, a massive war crime, what’s happening in Mariupol,” Borrell said of the city on the Sea of Azov, where water and electricity have become scarce and Ukrainians say more than 80% of buildings are damaged or destroyed. “The city will be completely destroyed, and people are dying,” Borrell said.
Biden, who called Putin a war criminal last week, is scheduled Thursday to attend a European Council summit and a Group of 7 meeting on the topic of increasing sanctions against Russia. On Friday, Biden will travel to Poland, which is across the eastern border of Ukraine. More than half the refugees to leave Ukraine have fled to Poland.
While the death toll continues to climb, Zelenskyy has said he wants to enter direct negotiations with Putin.
“It’s time to meet, time to talk,” Zelenskyy said over the weekend.
On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the idea.
The progress in negotiations so far is “not what we would like and not what the dynamics of the situation require from the Ukrainian side in order to talk about a meeting between the two presidents,” Peskov said, according to Russian state news agency Tass. “They would not have any agreements to commit to.”
McDonnell reported from Lviv and Kaleem from London. Staff writer Marcus Yam contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.
