Russia gives Mariupol an ultimatum to surrender in the next few hours

• LLUIS MIQUEL HURTADO

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  @llmhurtado

  Kyiv

Updated Sunday, March 20, 2022-21:29

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Moscow remains ready for anything.

Amid Ukraine's claims of new human rights violations and possible war crimes, Russian troops prepare to

.

The epicenter of Ukrainian pain is Mariupol, besieged and bombed for two weeks and where the population is being the victim of hostilities.

The Russian Defense Ministry has said the city

.

"Hand over your weapons," Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, director of the Russian National Center for Defense Management, said in a report distributed by the Defense Ministry.

In Mariupol there is "a terrible humanitarian catastrophe," Mizintsev said.

"Anyone who lays down their arms will be guaranteed a safe exit."

The Ukrainian forces have been surrounded by the invading troops who, according to Kiev,

that served as a refuge for about 400 people.

"Yesterday [on Saturday], the Russian occupiers unloaded bombs on the art school number 12", assured government sources.

"An act of terror that will be remembered for centuries to come," President Zelensky said.

Among the dead, they assured, were women, children and the elderly, who used the shelter building, while the fighting continues outside.

, giving up this city with a complex ethnic balance.

A significant part of the population is ethnically Russian, which constitutes an additional source of tension between the population and the different forces present, including members of the far-right Azov battalion.

The taking of Mariupol could mean the opening of a corridor towards the separatist regions of Donbas, through which Russian troops already circulate at will, reducing the status granted from people's republics to mere satrapies of Moscow.

But the Russian victories are coming at a high price.

Confirmed the impossibility of advancing quickly on Ukrainian forces that have proven to be more fierce than expected by Russian strategists, experts are already talking about a "war of attrition".

Beyond the number of soldiers killed in combat, which Russia can afford to sweep under the rug, there are top military commanders that are impossible to hide.

One of them is Andrey Paliy, deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet.

Russian media confirmed his death in the battle for Mariupol.

As it happens, Paliy was born and raised in kyiv.

In 1993, after the fall of the Soviet Union, he refused to take the oath to Ukraine, joining the fleet that now harasses Ukrainian ports and denies the departure of all types of ships, including commercial ones, from Ukraine.

Similar to what is happening in Mariupol,

as the war drags on .

In a country with around 75% of the Ukrainian population, and 17% Russian -especially concentrated in the east-, it is being irremediable that philias and phobias become ever higher walls.

Today it is enough to know Russian, or to speak Ukrainian with a noticeable Russian accent, to arouse suspicion even among ordinary citizens.

Although there are many Ukrainians of Russian ethnicity against the invasion, yesterday, appealing to security reasons, Ukrainian President

announced the suspension of the activity of a series of political formations connected with the Russian Federation.

The most affected is the Platform for Life, which holds 44 of 450 seats in the lower house, thus forming one of the main opposition blocs.

Its leader, Viktor Medvedchuk, is a personal friend of Vladimir Putin.

The war is breaking up entire communities.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned that

, a quarter of the population, Ukrainians who have been forced to flee their homes due to the war.

"Among the faults of those who wage war, anywhere in the world, is the suffering inflicted on civilians forced to flee their homes," UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi denounced in a trill.

Not all Ukrainians are leaving the country, leading to even greater life uncertainty.

UNHCR has recorded the departure of 3.4 million people from Ukraine, the vast majority of whom are women and children, as Ukrainian law does not allow men of fighting age to leave.

This allows it to reinforce defense lines such as those of the capital, which was once again put to the test by Russian artillery last night.

kyiv continues to ask abroad for military support.

According to the Sky News Arabia chain, Slovakia has agreed to a barter with the US, so that it will receive from them a PATRIOT anti-aircraft defense system in exchange for delivering a Soviet S-300 to Ukraine.

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