Videos posted online of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol – subjected to three weeks of Russian siege and shelling which the Red Cross says has caused “apocalyptic” destruction – show civilian areas left unrecognisable by the bombing.

More than 350,000 people are sheltering in the besieged southeastern port city, officials said, with no access to food or water.

One video showed a shopping centre reduced to ruins, with the windows shattered and rubble strewn across the ground. Another showed similar damage to a swimming pool, where women and children were said to be sheltering in its basement.

Sky News has located and verified these videos to the Portcity Shopping Mall (which emerged on social media on Friday) and the Neptun Swimming Pool (from two days ago). They show extensive damage to the buildings.

Ukrainian authorities say about 90% of buildings in the city have been damaged or destroyed.

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Russian forces ‘tightening the encirclement’

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Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that separatists in eastern Ukraine with help from Russian armed forces were “tightening the encirclement” around Mariupol, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported.

It said fighting was ongoing in the city, with Russian forces supporting troops of the Donetsk People’s Republic “fighting against nationalists in the city centre”, spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

He said: “The grouping of the troops of the Luhansk People’s Republic, with fire support from the Russian armed forces, have liberated more than 90% of the republic’s territory.”

Overnight, aviation and air defence systems of the Russian aerospace forces “shot down six more Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles in the air”, including one Bayraktar TB-2, he said.

Mr Konashenkov added: “Operational-tactical, army and unmanned aircraft hit 81 military facilities of Ukraine.”

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1,300 still trapped under bombed Mariupol theatre

Around 130 people have been rescued from a bomb shelter beneath a theatre ripped apart in an attack in Mariupol.

But 1,300 still remain trapped under the rubble, according to Verkhovna Rada commissioner for human rights Liudmyla Denisova.

Rescuers have been digging survivors out of the rubble of the building which was hit in a reported Russian airstrike – which Moscow has denied.

On Friday, Ukraine President Volodymr Zelenskyy said the rescue work was ongoing, but that ongoing shelling by Russian forces was preventing the establishment of effective humanitarian corridors to the encircled port city.

He said the “occupiers” were “burning their national wealth” on the war and “will destroy everything that Russian society has reached over the last 25 years and they will return to where they began to rise – in the 1990s”.

The president also appealed for more military assistance from the West, saying his country still does not have “adequate anti-missile advanced weapons and enough fighter planes”, as he also called for sanctions against Russia to become stronger.

Hundreds of men, women and children were thought to have been sheltering in the theatre’s basement for safety after their homes were destroyed during the invasion – and the word “children” had reportedly been displayed in large letters at the site, prior to the attack, warning warplanes of those inside.

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Britain’s Armed Forces minister James Heappey told Sky News there are concerns about the “barbaric tactics” being used by the Russians.

“The evidence that is being gathered points very much to war crimes and the culpability lies with the leader of the Russian government – the man who decided to do this in the first place,” he said.

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Ukraine says at least three killed in shelling of eastern cities

One person was killed and 11 others injured by Russian shelling of a multi-storey teaching building in Kharkiv, according to Ukrainian emergency services.

Shells also hit Kramatorsk on Friday, killing two people and wounding six, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in an online post.

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