‘There are survivors’: Frantic rescue operation at bombed Mariupol theatre

Some people have survived the devastating bombing of a theatre in Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday as Vladimir Putin was accused by Joe Biden of being a “war criminal”.

Hundreds of civilians, including children, are believed to have been sheltering in the basement of the theatre which photos showed has been largely destroyed above ground.

But Petro Andrushchenko, an adviser to the city’s mayor, said on Thursday morning: “The bomb shelter held.

“Now the rubble is being cleared. There are survivors. We don’t know about the (number of ) victims yet.”

He said rescue work was under way to reach survivors and establish the number of casualties, which was still unknown.

Ukrainian MP Dmytro Gurin, whose parents are trapped in the city, said more than 1,000 women and children had been sheltering in the theatre’s basement.

He told the BBC on Thursday morning: “Minutes ago we had an information that the bomb shelter survived and people there survived.

“We don’t know yet whether we have wounded people, or killed people. But it looks like most of them have survived and are ok.”

Mr Putin is feared to be resorting to even more barbaric tactics, with what appear to be increasingly indiscriminate attacks, or actual targeting of civilian areas, as British defence chiefs said his invasion of Ukraine has “largely stalled on all fronts”.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional administration, said on Telegram on Wednesday evening that “several hundred” residents of Mariupol were in the Drama Theatre which is believed to have been hit by a huge Russian bomb.

Maxar Technologies, a private US company, distributed satellite imagery which it said was from March 14 and showed the word “children” in large Russian script painted on the ground outside the red-roofed building.

As hopes grew that some people had survived, Iuliia Mendel believed to be an ex-spokesperson to the President of Ukraine, tweeted: “The bomb shelter in Mariupol Drama Theatre has survived the brutal Russian missile.

“At least, majority stayed alive after bombing. People are getting out from the rubble.”

Illia Ponomarenko, defence reporter for the Kyiv Independent, messaged: “It’s a miracle - civilians that were hiding in a basement at the Drama Theater in Mariupol survived the air strike.

“Now they are getting evacuated from underneath the ruins.”

The Standard could not confirm whether anyone had yet to emerge from the destroyed building.

Mr Kyrylenko rejected the claims by the Russian military that the Azov battalion was headquartered in the theatre, stressing that “only civilians” were in it when it was struck on Wednesday.

He said the airstrike also hit the Neptune swimming pool complex. “Now there are pregnant women and women with children under the rubble there. It’s pure terrorism!” the official said.

In London, Foreign Office minister James Cleverly stressed evidence of the attack, and other alleged atrocities, needed to be collected so those responsible can be brought to trial for war crimes.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that the allegation that Russia had bombed the theatre was a “lie”.

“Russia’s armed forces don’t bomb towns and cities,” she told a briefing, in words totally at odds with the reality of what is happening in Ukraine.