Russian Strikes Have Not Stopped, President Zelensky Proposes Bill To Extend Martial Law In Ukraine

Ukrainians take shelter from Russian attacks. (Wikimedia Commons/VOA/Yan Bochat)

JAKARTA - The intensity of Russian attacks in several areas of Ukraine has not stopped, making the number of dead, injured and those who fled the country continue to grow day by day, amid the bombing by the Moscow military.

Russia on Monday allowed the first convoy to escape from besieged Mariupol, home to the worst humanitarian crisis in the conflict.

"In the first two hours, 160 cars were left. The city continues to be bombed but this street is not bombed," Andrei Rempel, representative of the Mariupol city council, told Reuters as quoted on March 15.

But local authorities say as many as 2.500 civilians have been killed so far, a toll that could not be independently confirmed. Russia said it was not targeting civilians.

But Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, later said that Russia had once again blocked a humanitarian aid convoy trying to reach the city with supplies.

Finding safe passage for aid reaching Mariupol and civilians out has been a key demand of Kyiv in several rounds of peace talks. All previous attempts at a local ceasefire in the area have failed.

The impact of the Russian attack on Ukraine. (Wikimedia Commons/dsns.gov.ua/State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

Separately, at least nine people were killed and nine others injured in an airstrike on a television tower in Ukraine's northern Rivne region on Monday, Governor Vitaliy Koval said.

"There are still people under the rubble," he said in an online post.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said a pregnant woman photographed being evacuated injured from a maternity hospital in Mariupol that was bombed by Russia last week, had died along with her baby. Reuters was unable to verify this

Although videos show at least two pregnant women being brought out of the rubble, Russia says the hospital was not in use at the time and had been occupied by Ukrainian fighters.

Drone video released by Ukrainian troops in Mariupol shows a deserted wasteland of bombed buildings, many burning, with smoke rising into the sky.

While Russian forces have continued to press Kyiv from the northeast and northwest, they have so far made little progress towards the capital itself, although heavy fighting has left the suburbs in ruins.

In Kyiv itself, an apartment block was hit by a missile overnight, killing at least one person, officials said.

"The stairs are no longer there, everything is on fire," said apartment resident Maksim Korovii.

He and his mother ran to the balcony. "We managed to put on whatever clothes we had and walked from balcony to balcony and in the end, we came down through the entrance of the next building."

Meanwhile, in the south, where Russia has made more progress, residents of Odessa, a polyglot Black Sea port of 1 million people, fear their city could be next. They form a human chain on Monday, singing patriotic songs as they carry sandbags from the beach.

As for Donetsk, which has been controlled since 2014 by Russian-backed separatists, Russia's Defense Ministry said at least 20 people had been killed and 28 injured by what it said were Ukrainian missiles with cluster payloads. It releases footage of missiles on busy roads and vehicles being crushed by shrapnel

Instead, Ukraine accused Russia or its allies of carrying out the attack itself under the pretext: "This is clearly a Russian rocket or other ammunition," said Ukrainian military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin. Reuters was unable to verify the two accounts.

On Monday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy submitted a draft law (RUU) to parliament on Monday evening, in a bid to extend martial law in the country for another 30 days starting March 24, according to the presidency's website.

For information, United Nations (UN) data as of Monday showed that more than 2.8 million people had fled Ukraine due to the Russian invasion, becoming Europe's fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War Two.