Putin ‘prepared to kill as many civilians as it takes' as he bombs cities to destruction

FEARS were growing today that Vladimir Putin is “ready to kill as many civilians as he needs to” by bombing cities into destruction to crush Ukrainian resistance.

- Nicholas Cecil and Rachael Burford

With the Russian president vowing to relentlessly pursue his military aims, a civil chief in Mariupol in the south of Ukraine said his besieged city faced the same fate as Aleppo, which saw districts obliterated during the Syrian civil war.

“I believe that he wants to destroy Ukraine as a nation and Mariupol is on this way,” deputy mayor Sergei Orlov told the BBC. “Forty hours of continuous shelling. They shell with bombs, with rockets, with multiple launch rockets.... with everything he has.

“We already understand he is ready to kill as many civilians as he needs to.”

With water and electricity supplies already cut off in Mariupol, he added: “There is no way to stop Putin from killing our civilians from the sky until Nato wakes up and understands that it’s not a regional conflict — it’s a war against democracy, against freedom, against one of the biggest European nations.”