Russia demanded that Ukrainians in the besieged port city of Mariupol lay down their arms Monday in exchange for safe passage out of town, but Ukraine rejected the offer.
The Russian demand came hours after Ukrainian authorities alleged that Moscow's forces bombed an art school that was sheltering about 400 people.
Russian forces would allow two corridors out of the coastal city, heading either east toward Russia or west to other parts of Ukraine, the Russian news agency TASS reported. It cited a statement from Col.-Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Defence Control Center.
TASS reported that Mariupol residents had been given until 10 a.m. Moscow time Monday to respond to the offer.
But Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk rejected the notion.
"There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms. We have already informed the Russian side about this," she told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda.
"I wrote: 'Instead of wasting time on eight pages of letters, just open the corridor.'"
- Ukraine's Zelensky says siege of Mariupol 'a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come'
Mariupol Mayor Piotr Andryushchenko also rejected the offer, saying in a Facebook post he didn't need to wait until morning to respond and cursing at the Russians, according to the news agency Interfax Ukraine.
The Russian Ministry of Defence also said authorities in Mariupol could face a military tribunal if they sided with what it described as "bandits," the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
City, country under siege
The strategic port on the Sea of Azov in the country's east has been under bombardment for over three weeks and has seen some of the worst horrors of the war. City officials said at least 2,300 people have died, with some buried in mass graves.
City officials and aid groups say food, water and electricity have run low in Mariupol and fighting has kept out humanitarian convoys. Communications are severed.
The fall of Mariupol would allow Russian forces in southern and Eastern Ukraine to link up. But Western military analysts say that even if the surrounded city is taken, the troops battling a block at a time for control there may be too depleted to help secure Russian breakthroughs on other fronts.
Three weeks into the invasion, Western governments and analysts see the conflict shifting to a war of attrition, with bogged down Russian forces launching long-range missiles at cities and military bases as Ukrainian forces carry out hit-and-run attacks and seek to sever their supply lines.
Unexpectedly strong Ukrainian resistance has dashed Russian President Vladimir Putin's hopes for a quick victory after he ordered the Feb. 24 invasion of the country. In recent days, Russian forces have entered Mariupol, cutting it off from the sea and devastating a massive steel plant. But taking the city could prove costly.
Ukraine and Russia have held several rounds of negotiations but remain divided on several issues. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is willing to drop Ukraine's bid to join NATO but wants security guarantees from Russia. Moscow is pressing for Ukraine's complete demilitarization.
Evacuations ongoing
Previous bids to allow residents to evacuate Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities have failed or have been only partially successful, with bombardments continuing as civilians sought to flee.
Mariupol authorities said nearly 40,000 people had left the city in the last week, most in their own vehicles, despite the bombardment. That alone amounts to nearly 10 per cent of the city's pre-war population of 430,000.
10 million Ukrainians displaced by Russian invasion, UN estimates
1 day agoDuration 2:53As conflict in Ukraine escalates, the United Nations estimates approximately 10 million people have been displaced by Russia's invasion. 2:53
Mariupol's city council alleged on Saturday that Russian soldiers had forcibly relocated several thousand residents, mostly women and children, to Russia. AP could not confirm the claim.
Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine said Sunday that 2,973 people have been evacuated from Mariupol since March 5, including 541 in the last 24 hours.
Alleged bombing of art school
Earlier Sunday, Ukrainian authorities accused Russia's military of bombing an art school in Mariupol, and tearful evacuees from the devastated port city described how "battles took place over every street," weeks into the siege.
The alleged strike on the art school was the second time in less than a week that officials reported an attack on a public building where Mariupol residents had taken shelter. On Wednesday, a bomb hit a theatre where more than 1,000 people were believed to be sheltering.
There was no immediate word on casualties in the school attack, which The Associated Press could not independently verify. Ukrainian officials have not given an update on the search of the theater since Friday, when they said at least 130 people had been rescued and another 1,300 were trapped by rubble.
Speaking in a video address early Monday, Zelensky said that about 400 civilians were taking shelter at the art school when it was struck by a Russian bomb.
"They are under the rubble, and we don't know how many of them have survived," he said. "But we know that we will certainly shoot down the pilot who dropped that bomb, like about 100 other such mass murderers whom we already have downed."
Russian bombardments across Ukraine
In Ukraine's major cities, hundreds of men, women and children have been killed in Russian bombardment. Millions have moved to underground shelters or fled the country.
Russian shelling on Sunday killed at least five civilians, including a nine-year-old boy, in the eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest, according to regional police.
The United Nations has confirmed 902 civilian deaths in the war but concedes the actual toll is likely much higher. It says nearly 3.4 million people have fled Ukraine.
Estimates of Russian deaths vary, but even conservative figures are in the low thousands.
The British Defence Ministry said Russia's failure to gain control of Ukrainian airspace "has significantly blunted their operational progress," forcing them to rely on weapons launched from Russia.
- 'There is no time to grieve': Ukrainian refugees arriving in Warsaw focus on helping each other
Separately, the Russian Defence Ministry said a Kinzhal hypersonic missile hit a Ukrainian fuel depot in Kostiantynivka, a city near Mykolaiv. The Russian military said Saturday that it used a Kinzhal for the first time in combat to destroy an ammunition depot in the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine.
Russia has said the Kinzhal,xjmtzyw carried by MiG-31 fighter jets, has a range of up to 2,000 kilometres and flies at 10 times the speed of sound. The Pentagon says it has not yet confirmed its use in Ukraine.
