AP video shows tanks shelling apartment block

PTI, Mar 13, 2022, 8:11 AM IST

Image credit: AP

Mariupol: Video shot by an Associated Press journalist shows a Russian tank firing shells at an apartment block in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

The video shows shells exploding as they hit the apartment block that was already severely damaged, sparking balcony fires. It also shows a tank emblazoned with a giant Z crashing into destroyed buses before letting loose a shell and before Ukrainian fighters destroyed it.

It was not possible to determine if the Russian positions had been fired on from the targeted locations before they opened fire.

The journalist was also among a group of medical workers who came under sniper fire. His video also shows a weeping medical worker named Anastasia Erashova, who had been shot in the hip by sniper fire. One of her children had been killed by shells. Erashova sat weeping as she held a surviving child who was asleep.

“We came to my brother’s (place), all of us together. The women and children went underground and then some mortar struck that building. We were trapped underground, and two children died. No one was able to save them,? she said through tears. “I don’t know where to run to. Who will bring back our children? Who?”

A deputy head of Russia’s flagship carrier Aeroflot says he has resigned and left the country.

Andrei Panov, Aeroflot’s deputy director in charge of marketing, wrote on Facebook on Saturday that “the old life is over.” Earlier this month, Russian news reports claimed that Aeroflot’s CEO Mikhail Poluboyarinov also has left the country. Aeroflot has denied that.

Aeroflot has been badly hit by Western sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine. Western allies have barred Aeroflot planes from their skies and banned the supply of spare parts, among other measures taken against the airline. Aeroflot responded to the sanctions by cutting all flights abroad. (AP)