Russia's invasion of Ukraine has entered its fourth week without capturing Kyiv or toppling Ukraine's government, but the bombardment of Ukrainian cities continues — a move western defense experts warn could be a sign of a cruel and intentional strategy.

The situation grew increasingly dire in the port city of Mariupol, where Russian forces pushed deeper Saturday in an area already experiencing what onlookers describe as a humanitarian crisis.

"Children, elderly people are dying. The city is destroyed and it is wiped off the face of the earth,” Mariupol police officer Michail Vershnin said in a video filmed Friday that was authenticated by The Associated Press..

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/19/ukraine-russia-invasion-putin-updates/7099086001/

Ukraine’s government is “openly neo-Nazi” and “pro-Nazi,” controlled by “little Nazis,” President Vladimir Putin of Russia says.

U.S. officials led by President Joe Biden are responsible for the “nazification” of Ukraine, one of Russia’s top lawmakers says, and should be tried before a court. In fact, another lawmaker says, it is time to create a “modern analogy to the Nuremberg tribunal” as Russia prepares to “denazify” Ukraine.

In case the message was not clear, the Kremlin’s marquee weekly news show aired black-and-white footage Sunday of German Nazis being hanged on what is now central Kyiv’s Independence Square. The men drop, dangling from a long beam, and the crowd cheers.

The language of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been dominated by the word “Nazi” — a puzzling assertion about a country whose president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish and who in the fall signed a law combating antisemitism. Putin only began to apply the word regularly to the country’s present-day government in recent months, although he has long referred to Ukraine’s pro-Western revolution of 2014 as a fascist coup.

The “Nazi” slur’s sudden emergence shows how Putin is trying to use stereotypes, distorted reality and his country’s lingering World War II trauma to justify his invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin is casting the war as a continuation of Russia’s fight against evil in what is known in the country as the Great Patriotic War, apparently counting on lingering Russian pride in the victory over Nazi Germany to carry over into support for Putin’s attack.

“This rhetoric is factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive,” scholars of genocide and Nazism from around the world said in an open letter after Putin invaded. While Ukraine has far-right groups, they said, “none of this justifies the Russian aggression and the gross mischaracterization of Ukraine.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/world/europe/ukraine-putin-nazis.html