(CN) — In the fourth week of a war becoming ever more apocalyptic, Russia is starting to use more long-range missile attacks against military targets and continuing to bomb Ukrainian cities it has encircled.
Each day brings new reports of deadly strikes on military barracks, ammunition depots and civilian buildings and a nonstop stream of horrific images of the corpses of civilians and soldiers, burning buildings, sobbing women, wounded children, blown-up tanks and downed aircraft, massive explosions and shell-shocked refugees carrying a few belongings.
The horrors taking place – and captured and shared instantly to millions of people around the globe by smartphones, dash cams, security cameras, drones, television cameras, satellite imagery – have led the world to the brink of a major conflict and put it at risk of nuclear war.
For now, the prospects of a ceasefire or peace seem very distant as the rhetoric on all sides continues to escalate along with a war that’s entered a kind of bloody stalemate as both sides inflict major losses. Russian forces are slowly advancing and surrounding several cities, but Ukrainian forces remain in possession of key cities – Kyiv, the capital, Kharkiv, the second-largest city, and Odessa, the country’s vital Black Sea port.
Monday saw Russia use more long-range missiles, artillery and aerial bombs. On Saturday, Russia claimed it used a hypersonic missile to strike at an underground ammunition depot in western Ukraine. It used long-range precision strikes in recent days to kill scores of soldiers, including Western foreign volunteers, at an army base near the Polish border and to destroy a barracks near Nikolaiv in southern Ukraine, killing at least 50 soldiers.
In the early morning hours of Monday, it hit a shopping center in Kyiv, killing at least eight people. Russian sources alleged Ukrainian forces were using the shopping center. It also pounded a military training center in Rivne in western Ukraine, wounding several people, according to Ukrinform, a Ukrainian state news agency.
The most horrific events are taking place in Mariupol, a key southeastern port city on the Sea of Azov where fighting raged in the city center all weekend. On Monday, Kyiv rejected Moscow's ultimatum for it to surrender the city and the urban center of 430,000 people is being destroyed.
“There can be no question of surrendering or laying down weapons,” said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
Last Wednesday, a theater was struck where hundreds of people, perhaps even more than 1,000, were reportedly sheltering in basements. There has been no further information about how many people may be buried under the rubble. On Sunday, a school where about 400 people reportedly were sheltering was struck too. There has been little information about the potential victims there either. The fighting is hindering rescue efforts, city officials say.
Images from Mariupol show a place where the majority of buildings are damaged by bombs and bullets and where bodies of dead soldiers and civilians lie in the streets.
Ukrainian forces in Mariupol are affiliated with the hardcore Azov Battalion and there seems little likelihood they will surrender easily to Russian forces. Kyiv has said it cannot help those fighters left in the city.
On Monday, Major Denys Prokopenko, an Azov commander, told CNN that 3,000 civilians have been killed in the city, according to Ukrinform.
“The death toll among civilians is growing every day, and now it is more than 3,000,” he said, as posted on his Telegram channel. “But nobody knows the exact number because people are buried together in the same dump, without names. Many bodies are just outside in the streets without being buried. Some people are under the ruined buildings, buried alive.”
