More than 350,000 people are sheltering in Mariupol as devastating Russian shelling continues to hammer the besieged city.

Ukrainian authorities say about 90% of buildings in the city have been damaged or destroyed, with many areas left unrecognisable.

Once a bustling port, now Mariupol is surrounded and its people left without food, water or electricity, while all the time fiery destruction rains down on them.

Cafes where couples fell in love are gone, shops where parents bought food for their families destroyed, even a hospital is ruined.

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Ivan Goltvenko managed to escape the city with his life, and he was able to help around 400 people to do the same.

But even then, his journey from the city was not without peril, with Russian troops and armour closing in, he said.

“We were evacuating from Mariupol at our own risk and peril,” he told Sky News.

“Russian tanks and infantry were moving towards us. We had to bribe them with booze and cigarettes.

“We had to use fields instead of roads, so we weren’t caught on Russian checkpoints. The road, which usually took two hours, took two days instead.”

Mr Goltvenko says he is ready to talk about what is happening in Mariupol because he wants people all over the world “to know the truth”.

“My house is ruined. The college where I met my wife is ruined,” he said.

“The cafe my family used to love visiting is ruined. All the main streets are ruined. The maternity hospital is ruined.”

He says Mariupol is “a city completely surrounded”.

Among the countless tales of heartbreak and loss stemming from the city under siege, one story has captured international attention: an attack on a theatre being used as a bomb shelter.

On Friday it was reported that 130 people had been rescued but that 1,300 people were still trapped under the rubble.

President Volodymyr 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.

Latest developments:

• Putin celebrates ‘special military operation’ in front of packed World Cup stadium
• Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko warns of a ‘war on civilians’ after 60 killed in the capital
• Battleships are lurking off the coast of port city Odesa and families are preparing for attack
• Boris Johnson told Sky News Putin is modelling himself on brutal Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin
• China’s Xi told of ‘consequences’ if he backs Russia in call with Biden

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Just a month ago, Mariupol was teeming with life. Now its streets are covered with debris, while its citizens face death every hour.

What was once a bustling settlement on the coast has been changed by the war in the most brutal of ways.

The valour and courage shown by Ukrainians in its defence has seen it declared a “Hero City of Ukraine”.

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Petro Andriushenko is an advisor to the mayor of Mariupol.

“We haven’t got water for our people, we haven’t got medicine, we haven’t got food, we haven’t got anything”, he told Sky News.

“And we can’t help our people, because it’s really, it’s absolutely blocked for Russian troops.”

The situation in Mariupol has grown more and more dire as the war has gone on, prompting international outcry and calls for safe passage for refugees.

Mr Andriushenko calls it a humanitarian catastrophe.

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