- Russian bombing has devastated Mariupol over the past seven weeks of war.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said "tens of thousands" of civilians could be dead in Mariupol.
- Mariupol's fall would create a corridor between Russian-controlled Crimea and the Donbas region.
New satellite images show smoke and fire coming from Mariupol, the besieged Ukrainian port city which, despite devastating bombing by the Russians over the past two months, has not yet fallen.
Even with reports of dwindling resources, Ukrainian troops are continuing to fight, the city's deputy mayor told the BBC.
The port city has been decimated by Russian shelling, with bombs hitting a school, maternity hospital, and a theater marked as a shelter with children inside. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that "tens of thousands" of civilians could be dead in Mariupol.
"Mariupol is destroyed — there are tens of thousands of dead," Zelenskyy said. "But even despite this, the Russians did not stop their offensive. They want to make Mariupol a demonstratively destroyed city."
Russia's defense ministry claimed on Wednesday 1,026 Ukrainian marines had surrendered in Mariupol, and that the port was fully under Russian control, Reuters reported.
After failing to take Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, Russian troops have largely withdrawn from the north of the country, instead targeting the east and the Donbas region.
If Putin's relentless campaign to take Mariupol succeeds, it would be the first major Ukrainian city to fall. Russia's defeat of Mariupol would not only cut off much of Ukraine's access to resources through maritime trade, but it would secure a land corridor between Crimea and the Donbas region.
"It's obvious that the Russians want Mariupol because of its strategic location there at the south of that Donbass area and right on the Sea of Azov," Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday.
"It also has great significance to the Ukrainian people because of what it represents to their economic lifeblood and because it is their city," he continued.