Putin claims victory in Mariupol, U.S. calls it ‘disinformation’

KYIV, April 21 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the biggest battle of the war in Ukraine on Thursday, declaring the port city of Mariupol “liberated” after nearly two months of siege.

However, hundreds of fighters and civilians were still holed up inside a huge steel works. Putin ordered his troops to blockade the complex “so that not even a fly” could escape.

The U.S. State Department said it understood Ukrainian forces still held ground in Mariupol and called Putin’s claim to have liberated the city “yet more disinformation from their well-worn playbook”. Washington authorized another $800 million in military aid for Ukraine, including heavy artillery. read more

Ukraine said Putin wanted to avoid a final clash with its forces in the city as he lacked the troops to defeat them.

In video messages, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy begged Western nations to send more weapons and to impose more economic sanctions on Moscow. In a virtual address to a World Bank forum he said Ukraine needed $7 billion per month to make up for economic losses caused by Russia’s invasion.

“This is just the first step (for Russia) to gain control of eastern Europe, to destroy democracy in Ukraine,” he said in a video address to the Portuguese parliament. “We are fighting not only for our independence, but for our survival, for our people so that they do not get killed, tortured and raped.”

Zelenskiy accused the Russian army of committing many atrocities in Ukraine, including in Mariupol, and urged countries to break relations with Moscow.

Russia denies targeting civilians and rejects what Ukraine says is evidence of atrocities, saying Ukraine has staged them. Moscow calls its incursion a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies reject that as a false pretext for an illegal war of aggression.

World Bank President David Malpass estimated physical damage to Ukraine’s buildings and infrastructure had reached roughly $60 billion and would rise further as the war continues. He told a World Bank conference on financial assistance to Ukraine the estimate did not include the growing economic costs of the war.

Mariupol, once home to 400,000 people, has seen not only the most intense battle of the war that started when Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24, but also its worst humanitarian catastrophe.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians were cut off for nearly two months under Russian siege and bombardment. read more

Journalists who reached Mariupol during the siege found streets littered with corpses, nearly all buildings destroyed, and residents huddled freezing in cellars, venturing out to cook scraps on makeshift stoves or to bury bodies in gardens.

Ukraine estimates tens of thousands of civilians have died in Mariupol, some buried in mass graves. The United Nations and Red Cross say the civilian toll is at least in the thousands.

Ukrainian fighters…