Despite agreeing to allow civilians to escape from the port of Mariupol in the southeast and the eastern town of Volnovakha, Vladimir Putin’s forces once again opened fire at the former city.
This sent people running for shelter an hour after the Russian troops had agreed to halt their bombardments.
It comes after a week of vicious bloodshed that has seen thousands of civilians butchered at the hands of Putin’s forces.
The ceasefire began at 9am UK time – offering the briefest window of respite for the besieged people of Ukraine.
And even then that was too long for shameless and bloodthirsty Russians.
Ukrainian officials had hoped to evacuated some 200,000 civilians from the city before the bombardment restarted.
According to Mariupol deputy mayor, Serhiy Orlov: “The Russians are continuing to bomb us and use artillery. It is crazy,” . There is no ceasefire in Mariupol and there is no ceasefire all along the route. Our civilians are ready to escape but they cannot escape under shelling.
“Civilians are having to take the route from Mariupol to Rozivka to Zaporizhzhia – but fighting continues along the supposed “humanitarian corridor.”
Russia meanwhile blamed Ukrainian nationalists for preventing the evacuation.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this morning confirmed the new humanitarian corridors – but urged those who could to “continue fighting”.
And in a bitter speech on Friday night he renewed calls for a no-fly zone, telling Nato that “all the people who die from this day forward will also die because of you”.
Mariupol has been one of the most brutalized cities of war as the Russian have blockaded it and cut off food, water, heating and transport in the depths of water.
It has been compared to the Nazi blockade of Leningrad in World War 2.
