Missile attack mauls Ukrainian port city
DONETSK, Ukraine — Abarrage of rockets struck homes and a market in the Azov Sea port city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, killing as many as 30 people and wounding 97 others, officials said.
It was the latest indication that after a relative lull in the fall, the war has flared up again in eastern Ukraine, with lethal artillery strikes landing in both rebel- and Ukrainian-controlled regions.
A leader of the Russianbacked rebels, Alexander Zakharchenko, has said his forces are now on the offensive, and on Saturday he said a military assault had begun against Mariupol, a strongly proUkrainian seaside city with a prewar population of about 400,000 but now bulging with thousands of refugees from Crimea and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine.
“We began our attack on Mariupol,” Zakharchenko said at a memorial for victims of a recent artillery bombardment of a bus stop in Donetsk. Both sides blame the other for that attack, and estimates of the number of dead are contested, from eight to 13.
Zakharchenko said that separatist forces had also begun an attack on a road and railroad hub north of Donetsk, and that this attack and the assault on Mariupol were “revenge” for deaths in the war in Donetsk.
About 60 missiles landed in the eastern part of the city in two attacks, said Ilya Kiva, the Donetsk region deputy police chief.
“Several streets, many residential houses, two food markets were hit,” Kiva said in a phone interview. “People died by whole families either in their apartment or in the street strolling or going to the market.”
President Petro Poroshenko held an emergency meeting of his military officials and cut short a trip to Saudi Arabia.
“The time has come to name their sponsors. The help given to militants, weapons deliveries, equipment and the training of manpower — is this not aiding terrorism?” Poroshenko said in a recorded statement.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday blamed the rebels for the Mariupol attack and called on Russia “to end its support for separatists imme- diately.”
Armed with what appeared to be new tanks and other heavy weapons from Russia, rebels in recent days captured the ruins of the Donetsk airport and their leaders say openly they are now on the march.