Another Russian commander was killed over the weekend. The Kremlin-installed governor of Sevastopol said Post-Captain Andrei Paliy died while fighting near Mariupol.
Ukrainians claim to have killed five Russian generals since war broke out roughly one month ago.
Paliy was born in Kyiv and graduated from the Kiev Higher Naval Political School, according to an English translation from Radio Free Europe. The former deputy company commander in the National Guard of Ukraine later left his post to serve in Russia’s Northern Fleet.
Paliy fought with Russian troops against Georgia in 2008 and commanded Russian troops in Syria.
OFFICIALS: RUSSIA BOMBED MARIUOPOL SCHOOL HOUSING 400
While Ukraine has claimed to have killed five generals, Moscow has not commented on the deaths of any of them.
Russian troops have destroyed much of Mariupol’s infrastructure as they attempt to capture the key port city. Reports over the weekend said Russian troops followed the bombing of a theater where hundreds of civilians were sheltering last week by bombing a school housing another 400 people.
Shortly after the school bombing, Russia offered to open two corridors to provide safe passage for civilians if Ukraine surrendered the city. Ukrainian officials rejected the offer.
“There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told the news outlet Ukrayinska Pravda. “We have already informed the Russian side about this.”
Besides a brutal bombing campaign, one Ukrainian lawmaker has accused Russia of also trying to starve the residents of Mariupol to force them to surrender.
“Russians don’t open humanitarian corridors, they don’t let humanitarian convoys enter the city, and we clearly see now that the goal of the Russians is to start to [create] hunger [in the city] to enforce their position in the diplomatic process,” Dmytro Gurin said. “And if the city does not surrender, and the city will not surrender, they won’t let people out. They won’t let humanitarian convoys into the city.”
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Mariupol offers a way for Russian troops in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the breakaway regions in Donetsk and Luhansk to combine forces, giving Russia a push in a conflict that has proven to be more protracted than most world leaders expected.
