Ukraine war: Mariupol pleads with Russia to let desperate civilians out as MP says Moscow wants to ‘starve city into surrender’

“Once again it is clear that the occupiers are not interested in the city of Mariupol. They want to level it to the ground and make it the ashes of dead land,” the city council says in a statement.

Russia is bombing Mariupol into the “ashes of a dead land”, its city council has said, as an MP accused Moscow of trying to starve the besieged Ukrainian city into surrender.

Officials said Russian forces had dropped two large bombs on the southern port city, but gave no details of casualties or damage.

“Once again it is clear that the occupiers are not interested in the city of Mariupol. They want to level it to the ground and make it the ashes of a dead land,” the council said in a statement.

Ukrainian forces are still holding off Russian attempts to capture Mariupol – where hundreds of thousands of residents are believed to be trapped with little food, water and power amid a daily barrage of Russian attacks since the war began.

“There is nothing left there,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address to the Italian parliament on Tuesday, as his government urged Russia to allow humanitarian supplies into the city and to let desperate civilians out.

The UK Ministry of Defence said it had provided Ukraine with “over 4,000 NLAWs” (anti-tank weapons) to “continue their resistance against Russian aggression”.