The Russian military says the first phase of what it calls a “military operation” in Ukraine is over.

– The combat capability of Ukraine’s armed forces has decreased significantly, which means that (we) – and I emphasize this once again – can focus our greatest resources on achieving our main goal, to liberate the Donbas, says Sergei Rudskoy, Chief of Operations of the Russian General Staff.

The Pentagon has previously estimated that Russia has shifted its focus from Kyiv to Donbas in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces appear to be trying to isolate and cut off Ukrainian resistance pockets.

300 dead

According to local authorities in the city of Mariupol, hundreds of people were killed in the attack on a theatre earlier in March.

The information is based on testimony and has not been verifiable by independent sources.

It is unclear whether rescue workers worked their way through all the rubble at the site, or how the eyewitnesses arrived at the task.

The attack on the theatre in Mariupol will apparently go down in history as one of the first unjust, unacceptable and incomprehensible attacks during the first month of the war.