Russia's special military operations against Ukraine are entering their third week, and more and more humanitarian tragedies have been exposed. Just yesterday, a number of foreign media reported that a large theater in Ukraine was attacked, and hundreds of people were hiding in the theater, and the casualties are unknown.
On March 16, Arabiya reported that a grand theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, had been bombed while hundreds of civilians were hiding in the theater building. The Russian Defense Ministry accused Ukrainian troops of blowing up the theater building, while Kiev authorities said it was Russian troops who bombed residential buildings in the city.
Authorities in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol announced on Wednesday that Russian troops had bombed a theater that housed "hundreds" of civilians, according to Agence France-Presse on March 16. Official photos of the theater building, part of which were completely destroyed, were released and smoke billowed from the rubble. Officials said a plane dropped a bomb at the building. The city government was trying to determine the number of casualties, but the bombardment of residential areas hampered their efforts in this regard.
On March 16, Russia's RT Channel reported that the Russian Defense Ministry rejected allegations in Kiev that Russian troops had carried out an attack on the theater building in the city of Mariupol, noting that the Ukrainian "Azov" battalion had blown up the building.
Since the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine, in addition to the casualties of combatants on both sides, civilian deaths have also been common. On March 16, the Ukrainian military reported that Russia had so far fired 950 missiles into Ukraine, killing thousands of civilians, and russian warships bombed four villages near Odessa in the southwest of the country on the 16th.
The emergency services in the eastern part of Ukraine's Kharkov region said at least 500 residents of the city of Kharkiv had been killed since Russia began military operations in Ukraine on Feb. 24. According to the UN Human Rights Office, a new statistic shows that ukraine has confirmed a civilian death toll of 691 and another 1,143 injuries, adding that the actual number could far exceed those figures.
On March 14, the Ukrainian military fired on Donetsk with a cluster bomb "Dot-U" missile, which was shot down over the government building in the center of Donetsk, killing 20 people and injuring 36 people on the ground, all women and children waiting for the bus. Edward Basulin, spokesman for the Donetsk People's Police, said that if the Dot-U missiles were not shot down by the air defense system over Donetsk and the cluster munitions were turned on to cover the central square, the casualties would be at least a hundred times higher than they are now.
When war breaks out, no one can be spared. The best way to avoid civilian deaths is to seize the armistice. At present, Russia and Ukraine have launched many rounds of negotiations, and it remains to be seen when an armistice will be possible!