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Disturbing video shows elderly Ukrainian man BLASTED to death by Russian tank in Mariupol

The footage, shot in Mariupol on Tuesday, March 15, shows a Russian tank hidden among the ruins of a building

A recently-surfaced video has captured the moment an elderly man was blasted to death by a Russian tank on the streets of Mariupol. Ukrainian forces released the clip, calling the incident a "murder". They have referred it to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

The footage, shot in Mariupol on Tuesday, March 15, shows a Russian tank hidden among the ruins of a building. It then opens fire on a civilian, reportedly an elderly man, killing him on the spot. The shell was seen hitting the building behind him, with flame and smoke exploding.

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In a similar video that surfaced earlier this month, a Russian ‘special peacekeeping’ tank blew up a car in a completely unprovoked attack. An elderly civilian couple was killed inside the car in the attack. A clip doing the rounds on social media shows a car moving into the frame before halting as a Kremlin tank fires on the vehicle twice, blowing it into pieces. NATO has claimed that Moscow could possibly be targeting civilians trying to flee Ukraine as part of Putin's reign of terror.

Mariupol has been under fire for over two weeks now. Entire neighborhoods are in tatters. Thousands of people have reportedly died and 2,50,000 are trapped without power or water. Russian troops recently bombed a theater said to be sheltering up to 1,200 people, with the word 'children' written outside the building. The Mariupol Drama Theatre was being used to house people and shelter them from shelling, with meals being provided. 

Mariupol has witnessed constant shelling, leading to around 20,000 Ukrainians fleeing. Reportedly, an estimated 2,300 citizens have been killed in the area. Satellite images reportedly showed that the word 'children' was written in visibly large white letters in Russian outside both the front and back of the building. Rescuers are now searching for survivors. The number of casualties is still unknown. 

"The theatre building served as shelter for hundreds of Mariupol residents who had lost their homes as a result of Russian armed forces bombing and shelling the city," Ukraine's foreign ministry said in a statement. "The bomb strike demolished the central part of the theatre building, causing large numbers of people to be buried under the debris. The assessment of the exact number of persons affected is currently impossible due to ongoing shelling. By delivering a purposeful bomb attack to the place of mass gathering of civilians Russia has committed another war crime. Putin’s regime has long since crossed the line of humanity."

This attack comes days after Russia bombed a maternity and children's hospital in the city of Mariupol as part of an airstrike. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack a war crime, where at least three people were killed. Zelenskyy posted a footage of the wreckage caused by the strike. Just hours before the hospital was attacked, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said that as many as 3,000 babies were surviving without food or medicines. Although Moscow had promised a ceasefire in the city so that civilians could be safely evacuated, it failed to keep its word.