This July 20, 2022 article says the information you report, some of which was reported as you said by Russian state news Sputnik (like I’m going to consider THAT an honest source) on July 19th, was not true. Investigators were not allowed to veiw the site after the bombing as Russia soon controlled all of Mariupol. Below is a long article considering the various numbers of dead reported, likely 300 to 600, as evaluated by Amnesty Inernational and AP among others There is one clickable link to the calculating methodology. If you want to argue some of the details reported there, have at it, I am not going to argue details reported by Russian state media.
As a military analyst, riddle me this
Why would a military seeking to occupy a heavily Russian-ethnic city target civilians, women and children?
Aside from NATO and US-led coaltitions, of course.
I remember the anti-war crowd decrying a DESERT STORM US airstrike in Baghdad that reportedly killed over 100 civilians in a shelter…without mentioning that Saddam Hussein’s forces herded them there as shields for a military command post that was located there. I have no idea why the Russians would attack a civilian target when they took such pains ( and many casualties) to clear out the city of Mariupol building by building to root out the fanatic nationalists, often rescuing civilians purposely sealed or trapped in basements, trying to set up civilian evacuation corridors that were attacked by Uke nazi-ideology nationalist forces, setting up a siege of Azovstal instead of just using a mother-of-all bombs. Except the nazis had civilian hostages there…
I see credible reports ( to me) that the insanely nationalist racial-supremacist govt of Ukraine has the same disregard for the lives of its people, both military troops and civilians. Territory is all. The people living there..not so much. The death and injury toll of Uke military troops is a strong indicator of this. The treatment of civilians in areas “ liberated” by the Ukes..,another.
The Russian ethnic population…treated as subhuman, by Kiev, for years now. Estimated 14.000 dead in 8 years…before the Russian intervention. And Donetsk? Residential city shelled daily. For what? To terrorise and kill. Heavy heavy indoctrination of the people and children to hate Russia and Russians. This is now the loss of at least a generation that will ever live at peace in a multicultural nation within manmade political boundaries viewed as “ rules-based order” that must not be changed…unless we want it, of course. Ergo Kosovo and Kurdistan
To the last Ukrainian.
Someday if there is an honest accounting of history (by non-US historians) we are going to look absolutely shameful for our leaders’ actions,