Vereshchuk: Attack on Ukraine city of Mariupol personal for Putin

Ukrainian Deputy PM, Iryna Vereshchuk, has revealed why the assault on Mariupol, a city in Ukraine, is personal for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Vereshchuk said the attack on Mariupol is personal to Putin because he failed to capture the city in 2014 at the time when Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

She insisted that Putin is destroying hospitals and theatres which housed displaced people because he wants to take control over Mariupol.

“I think Putin is wreaking personal revenge on the people of Mariupol after he failed to take over the city in 2014. It is collective punishment for their refusal of Russian tutelage,” Vereshchuk told French newspaper Libération (in French).

“If Putin wanted it, the Mariupol humanitarian corridor would already be open. The Russians are destroying the hospitals, the theatre which housed displaced people, […] the mosque, the churches, nothing stops them.”

Meanwhile, about 300,000 people are thought to still be trapped inside the besieged city without power, food or water amid intense bombardment.

The war between Ukraine and Russia started in February and Putin had ordered the invasion of Ukraine over disagreements on some political issues.