Over 1,200 killed in Mariupol since start of invasion, deputy mayor says
The city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine is without power or water after more than a week of heavy shelling and aerial attacks from Russian forces, Serhiy Orlov, deputy mayor of Mariupol, said in a press briefing Wednesday.
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More than 1,200 Mariupol residents have been killed in the bombardments, Orlov said, adding that half of those killed are ethnic Russians whom Russia claims it is saving.
A huge steel mill that employs 30,000 people and a maternity hospital with 600 beds are among the obliterated structures in the strategic port city, Orlov said.
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Orlov accused Russia of indiscriminately bombarding the city because its forces were unable to break through its defenses, saying that Mariupol would not surrender and calling on the outside world to help save it by imposing a "no-fly" zone.
"We understand that Mariupol was a showroom of free Ukraine -- a dynamic bustling city compared to ghost towns of the so-called DNR," Orlov said. "We must not fall. We must win and then rebuild. We can only live and develop in a free and independent Ukraine."
-ABC News' Patrick Reevell