Mariupol now facing major cholera outbreak, warn UK defence chiefs

The occupied southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol is at risk of a major cholera outbreak, UK defence chiefs have said, as Russia struggles to provide basic services to captured territories.

According to its latest defence intelligence update released early on Friday, access to safe drinking water has been inconsistent, while major disruption to telephone and internet services continues in those areas seized by Russia since the start of the conflict in February.

It highlights the risks faced by the population of Mariupol, which finally fell to Vladmir Putin’s forces last month after weeks of relentless bombardment.

The Ministry of Defence said: “Medical services in Mariupol are likely already near collapse: a major cholera outbreak in Mariupol will exacerbate this further.

“Ukraine suffered a major cholera epidemic in 1995, and has experienced minor outbreaks since, especially around the Azov Sea coast - which includes Mariupol.”

UK defence chiefs also say there is likely to be a critical shortage of medicines in Kherson, another southern Ukrainian city.

Meanwhile Russia continues to focus its efforts in the east of Ukraine with fighting continuing around the key city of Severodonetsk in the Luhansk province of the eastern Donbas region.

The UK defence intelligence update said: “Russia is again in control of most of the city, but its forces have made little progress in attempts to encircle the wider area from the north and south.”

On Thursday Western officials said Vladimir Putin’s army has suffered up to 20,000 deaths in his invasion of Ukraine and is running low on high precision missiles.

Intense fighting continued in Severdonetsk on Thursday as Ukraine’s Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said the situation in the city was “extremely complicated”.

“They don’t spare their people, they are just sending men like cannon fodder... they are shelling our military day and night,” he told Reuters in an interview.

The commander of Ukraine’s Svoboda National Guard Battalion, Petro Kusyk, said Ukrainians were drawing the Russians into street fighting to neutralise their artillery advantage.

“Yesterday was successful for us - we launched a counteroffensive and in some areas we managed to push them back one or two blocks. In others they pushed us back, but just by a building or two,” he said in a televised interview.

However, he said his forces were facing a “catastrophic” lack of counter-battery artillery to fire back at Russian guns.

The city’s mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said about 10,000 civilians were still trapped in the city - roughly a tenth of its pre-war population.