Thousands of people trapped in Mariupol have been "forcibly taken" to Russia, Ukrainian officials say - with the latest attack on the besieged city reportedly destroying an art school being used as a bomb shelter.
People are feared trapped under the rubble of the school building, where about 400 people had taken refuge, Mariupol's city council said, but there was no immediate information on the number of casualties.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the siege of Mariupol - where hundreds of thousands of people are trapped and facing relentless bombardment - is "a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come".
Latest updates on Russia's attack on Ukraine
Mariupol's city council said several thousand residents had been forcibly deported into Russian territory over the past week.
It said Russia "illegally took people" from Livoberezhniy district and from a sports club building which was being used by more than a thousand people as a bomb shelter.
The Kremlin has claimed buses carrying "refugees" from Mariupol began to arrive to Russia on Tuesday.
Mariupol residents 'taken to filtration camps'
Mariupol's mayor Vadym Boychenko compared the actions of Russian forces to the Nazis capturing and deporting civilians during the Second World War.
He said: "It is known that the captured Mariupol residents were taken to filtration camps, where the occupiers checked people's phones and documents.
"After the inspection, some Mariupol residents were redirected to remote cities in Russia; the fate of others remains unknown.
"What the occupiers are doing today is familiar to the older generation, who saw the horrific events of World War Two, when the Nazis forcibly captured people.
"It is hard to imagine that in the 21st century people would be forcibly deported to another country.
"Not only are Russian troops destroying our peaceful Mariupol, they have gone even further and started deporting Mariupol residents."
Siege of Mariupol 'will go down in history of war crimes'
The attack on the art school comes after Russia bombed a theatre in Mariupol that was being used as a bomb shelter, with more than a thousand of people feared trapped.
Officials said 130 people were rescued but many more could remain under the debris.
Mariupol, a strategic port on the Azov Sea, has been encircled by Russian troops, cut off from energy, food and water supplies and faced a relentless bombardment.
Mr Zelenskyy has said the siege of Mariupol "will go down in history" for what he said were war crimes committed by Russian troops.
"To do this to a peaceful city, what the occupiers did, is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come," the Ukrainian president said in a video address to the nation.
Russia 'replenishing losses and transferring foreign mercenaries'
In a separate speech, the Ukrainian president also criticised the Swiss food giant Nestle, which has decided not to withdraw from Russia for the time being, unlike many other international companies.
Russia struck Ukraine on Sunday with cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, the Interfax news agency reported.
Ukraine's ministry of defence said that its forces had shot down three Russian combat helicopters.
It said Russian forces had spent Saturday focusing on "replenishing current losses, restoring partially destroyed equipment, transferring foreign mercenaries to border areas with Ukraine..." rather than conducting "offensive operations".
The UK Ministry of Defence said Russian forces continued to encircle a number of Ukraine's eastern cities and it looked likely Vladimir Putin's troops would continue to use heavy firepower "to support assaults on urban areas... at the cost of further civilian casualties".
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Russia said on Saturday it had unleashed its latest hypersonic missile on Ukraine for the first time since its full-scale invasion.
The weapon - known as Kinzhal, meaning dagger - destroyed an underground warehouse storing missiles and aircraft ammunition in the west of Ukraine, a Russian defence ministry official said.
Meanwhile, dozens of Ukrainian soldiers are feared to have been killed after a military base was attacked amid Russia's full-scale invasion.
Up to 200 troops were thought to have been inside the barracks in Mykolaiv, in the south of the war-torn country, when they were targeted on Friday.
At least 50 bodies have been recovered, a Ukrainian serviceman told the AFP news agency.
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2022-03-20 09:18:47Z
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