Ukrainian authorities said Sunday that Russia’s military bombed an art school sheltering about 400 people in Mariupol, and tearful evacuees from the devastated port city described how “battles took place over every street,” weeks into the siege. The fall of Mariupol would allow Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine to link up. But Western military analysts say that even if the surrounded city is taken, the troops battling a block at a time for control there may be too depleted to help secure Russian breakthroughs on other fronts. Three weeks into the invasion, Western governments and analysts see the conflict shifting to a war of attrition, with bogged down Russian forces launching long-range missiles at cities and military bases as Ukrainian forces carry out hit-and-run attacks and seek to sever their supply lines. Ukrainians “have not greeted Russian soldiers with a bunch of flowers,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN, but with “weapons in their hands.” Moscow cannot hope to rule the country, he added, given Ukrainians’ enmity toward the Russian forces. The strike on the art school was the second time in less than a week that officials reported an attack on a public building where Mariupol residents had taken shelter. On Wednesday, a bomb hit a theater where more than 1,000 people were believed to be sheltering. There was no immediate word on casualties in the school attack, which The Associated Press could not independently verify. Ukrainian officials have not given an update on the search of the theater since Friday, when they said at least 130 people had been rescued and another 1,300 were trapped by rubble. City officials and aid groups say food, water and electricity have run low in Mariupol and fighting has kept out humanitarian convoys. Communications are severed. The strategic port on the Sea of Azov has been under bombardment for over three weeks and has seen some of the worst horrors of the war. City officials said at least 2,300 people have died, with some buried in mass graves. Some who were able to flee Mariupol tearfully hugged relatives as they arrived by train Sunday in Lviv, about 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) to the west. “Battles took place over every street. Every house became a target,” said Olga Nikitina, who was embraced by her brother as she got off the train. “Gunfire blew out the windows. The apartment was below freezing.” Maryna Galla narrowly escaped with her 13-year-old son. She said she huddled in the basement of a cultural center along with about 250 people for three weeks without water, electricity or gas. “We left (home) because shells hit the houses across the road. There was no roof. There were people injured,” Galla said, adding that her mother, father and grandparents stayed behind and “don’t even know that we have left.” Unexpectedly strong Ukrainian resistance has dashed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hopes for a quick victory after he ordered the Feb. 24 invasion of his neighbor. In recent days, Russian forces have entered Mariupol, cutting it off from the sea and devastating a massive steel plant. But taking the city could prove costly. “The block-by-block fighting in Mariupol itself is costing the Russian military time, initiative, and combat power,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a briefing. In […]

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