Boris Johnson hints UK armoured vehicles could be sent to help Mariupol evacuation
UK armoured vehicles could be sent to rescue refugees trapped in Mariupol as Boris considers ‘going up a gear’ to help the 160,000 people still in the besieged Ukrainian city
The Prime Minister made the claims at a Commons liaison committee todayThis could include sending Foxhounds and Land Rovers from the army to helpIt comes as 160,000 Ukrainians are still trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol
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Britain could send armoured vehicles to help evacuate 160,000 citizens still trapped in Mariupol, Boris Johnson said yesterday.
The Prime Minister is considering ‘going up a gear’ in support for Ukraine and wants to target the ‘human catastrophe’ in the besieged port city.
‘The question is, can we help the Ukrainians relieve Mariupol?’ he told the Commons liaison committee.
‘Would armour, would APCs [armoured personnel carriers] be useful for them [or] armoured Land Rovers? We are certainly looking at that.’
Dima, a three-year-old boy who was wounded during the shelling of Mariupol, lies in a bed in children’s ward of the hospital, in Zaporizhzhia. Britain could send armoured vehicles to help rescue people trapped in the beleaguered city
Among those that could be sent are the British Army Foxhound armoured vehicle (left) and military Land Rovers (right)
A Government source said later: ‘We’re open to sending them armoured vehicles if useful and if practicable to get them there, although the view is that will be difficult.
‘At a briefing last night it sounded like we’re not sure Mariupol can hold out much longer anyway.’
It comes as satellite images emerged yesterday showing a clearly marked Red Cross building with holes in its roof reportedly after Russian airstrikes.
French president Emmanuel Macron has tried to convince Vladimir Putin to stop his bombardment so France can conduct a mass evacuation with Turkey and Greece.
But the Kremlin said Putin told him during a one-hour phone call on Tuesday that he would stop only when all Ukrainian troops had surrendered.
While relief efforts stumbled, 70 women and medics were reportedly kidnapped from a bombed maternity hospital in Mariupol and taken to Russia.
The Azov regiment says Russian occupiers deliberately targeted a building of the International Red Cross
Boris Johnson told the Commons liaison committee he is considering ‘going up a gear’ in support for Ukraine
The city council said their identity documents were confiscated before they were loaded into vehicles and taken ‘to Russian cities far away’.
At least three people died in the hospital bombing on March 9 and it is feared Russia could force the medics to spread its propaganda that the atrocity was fake news.
More than 20,000 civilians have so far been taken away against their will, according to Ukrainian officials.
The strikes on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) building in Mariupol were deliberately targeted, Ukrainian commissioner for human rights Lyudmyla Denisova said yesterday.
‘Enemy aircraft and artillery fired on a building marked with a red cross on a white background, indicating the presence of wounded people or civilian or humanitarian cargo,’ she added.
It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties.
Russia is carrying out a campaign of terror on the city, which is estimated to have been 90 per cent flattened by bombardment.
In an atrocity two weeks ago, a strike on Mariupol’s theatre killed an estimated 300.
There are still 160,000 people trapped in the city and drone footage has revealed the level of destruction in the idyllic port city once home to 450,000.
Only one building seemingly remains unscathed amid the rubble – the city’s stunning Russian Orthodox Cathedral.
It suggests the attacks have been targeted as they have managed to avoid the historical building while destroying others such as the theatre where 1,300 were sheltering.
Civilians who have fled Mariupol have described it as a city with ‘death everywhere’.
One refugee, Mariia Tsymmerman, said: ‘I know a woman who killed her own dog to feed her children.’
The Ukrainian ministry of defence claimed last night that Russian troops in Mariupol repeatedly raped a woman in front of her six-year-old son and that she died later of her injuries.
It said: ‘Russian occupiers took turns raping a woman for several days.’ Highlighting the reality of ‘rape, violence, murder’, it added: ‘This is not a horror movie.’
France, Greece and Turkey are appealing to Putin to let them carry out a mass evacuation of the city but he told Mr Macron the bombardment would continue until defending soldiers surrendered.
French officials later claimed the Russian president had agreed to consider their plans.
ICRC director-general Robert Mardini said: ‘People are caught and trapped in the line of fire.
‘What we expect and what is needed for civilians is… a clear and explicit agreement by the two sides on safe evacuations of civilians.’
