Bodies of civilians with signs of torture were found in the basements of liberated buildings in Mariupol, said the head of the Russian National Defense Management Center, Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev.

“Bodies of civilians with traces of brutal torture and carved neo-Nazi symbols of swastikas have been found in the basements of buildings in Mariupol liberated from the nationalists,” he said.

In addition, he explained that the rescued civilians have said that the nationalists threw explosive devices into the basements of the buildings where women and children were.

“The rescued civilians of the city confirm the flagrant facts of how the neo-Nazis, knowing that there were women and children in the cellars, deliberately threw grenades at them,” Mizintsev said.

He stressed that units bearing the symbols of the Third Reich operate in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. According to him, terror and genocide against his own people have become the norm in Ukraine.

“The comprehensive support of the United States and several countries of the European Union has unleashed the hands of Nazism on a national scale, only here military units that carry the symbols of the Third Reich operate within the armed forces and national military formations with the task to destroy everything that does not conform to their inhuman notions. The victims are elderly and women. Children from an early age are subjected to harsh propaganda of the sinister ideology of Nazism to turn them into followers of (Ukrainian nationalist Stepan) Bandera,” Mizíntsev said.

For its part, Ukraine has warned this Monday, March 28, that the city of Mariupol, besieged by Russian troops and where at least 5,000 people died, is experiencing a “catastrophic” situation when Russian and Ukrainian negotiators prepare for a new meeting in Istanbul.

“About 5,000 people were buried, but no one has been buried for 10 days because of the continuous bombing,” Tetiana Lomakina, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, told AFP.

The official, now in charge of the humanitarian corridors, also estimated that “given the number of people who are still under the rubble (…) there could be about 10,000 dead.”

Some 160,000 civilians remain trapped in the city, without adequate food, water or medicine, according to its mayor Vadim Boichenko.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry called the situation “catastrophic”. The Russian assault turned the city of 450,000 “into dust,” he added.

Numerous countries condemned Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and activated various batteries of individual and sectoral sanctions that seek to inflict the greatest possible damage on the Russian economy.