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As it continued its barrage of the besieged city of Mariupol, Russia demanded that Ukrainians put down their arms and raise white flags on Monday in exchange for safe passage out of town, Associated Press reported.

Ukraine angrily rejected the offer, which came hours after officials said Russian forces had bombed an art school that was sheltering some 400 people.

While the fight for control of the strategically important city remained intense, Western governments and analysts see the broader conflict shifting to a war of attrition.

Russian Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev said it would allow two corridors out of Mariupol, heading either east toward Russia or west to other parts of Ukraine.

Mariupol residents were given until 5 a.m. Monday to respond to the offer. Russia didn’t say what action it would take if it was rejected.

But Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said no, according to the Associated Press.

“There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms. We have already informed the Russian side about this,” she told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda. “I wrote: `Instead of wasting time on eight pages of letters, just open the corridor.’”

Mariupol Mayor Piotr Andryushchenko also rejected the offer, saying in a Facebook post he didn’t need to wait until morning to respond and cursing at the Russians, according to the news agency Interfax Ukraine. 

The Russian Ministry of Defense said authorities in Mariupol could face a military tribunal if they sided with what it described as “bandits,” the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported. 

Previous bids to allow residents to evacuate Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities have failed or have been only partially successful, with bombardments continuing as civilians sought to flee.

Speaking in a video address early Monday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said about 400 civilians were taking shelter at the art school when it was struck by a Russian bomb, Associated Press reported.

“They are under the rubble, and we don’t know how many of them have survived,” he said. “But we know that we will certainly shoot down the pilot who dropped that bomb, like about 100 other such mass murderers whom we already have downed.”

Tearful evacuees from the devastated Azov Sea port city have described how “battles took place over every street.”

The fall of Mariupol would allow Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine to link up. But Western military analysts say that even if the surrounded city is taken, the troops battling a block at a time for control there may be too depleted to help secure Russian breakthroughs on other fronts. 

Three weeks into the invasion, Western governments and analysts see the conflict shifting to a war of attrition, with bogged down Russian forces launching long-range missiles at cities and military bases as Ukrainian forces carry out hit-and-run attacks and seek to sever their supply lines.

Ukrainians “have not greeted Russian soldiers with a bunch of flowers,” Zelenskyy told CNN, but with “weapons in their hands.”

Moscow cannot hope to rule the country, he added, given Ukrainians’ enmity toward the Russian forces.

The strike on the art school was the second time in less than a week that officials reported an attack on a public building where Mariupol residents had taken shelter. On Wednesday, a bomb hit a theater where more than 1,000 people were believed to be sheltering, according to the Associated Press.

There was no immediate word on casualties in the school attack, which The Associated Press could not independently verify. Ukrainian officials have not given an update on the search of the theater since Friday, when they said at least 130 people had been rescued and another 1,300 were trapped by rubble.

Ukrainian authorities said Sunday that Russia’s military bombed an art school sheltering some 400 people in the embattled port city of Mariupol, where Ukraine’s president said an unrelenting Russian siege would be remembered for centuries to come, Associated Press reported.

It was the second time in less than a week that city officials reported a public building where residents had taken shelter coming under attack. A bomb hit a Mariupol theater with more than 1,300 believed to be inside on Wednesday, local officials said. 

There was no immediate word on casualties from the reported strike on the art school, which The Associated Press could not independently verify. Ukrainian officials have not given an update on the search of the theater since Friday, when they said at least 130 had been rescued. 

Mariupol, a strategic port on the Azov Sea, has been under bombardment for at least three weeks and has seen some of the worst horrorsof the war in Ukraine. At least 2,300 people have died, some of whom had to be buried in mass graves, and food, water and electricity have run low.

“To do this to a peaceful city, what the occupiers did, is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation. “The more Russia uses terror against Ukraine, the worse the consequences for it.”

In recent days, Russian forces have battled their way into the city, cutting it off from the Azov Sea and devastating a massive steel plant. The fall of Mariupol would be an important but costly victory for the Russians, whose advance is largely stalled outside other major cities more than three weeks into the biggest land invasion in Europe since World War II, according to the Associated Press.

In major cities across Ukraine, hundreds of men, women and children have been killed in Russian bombardments, while millions of civilians have raced to underground shelters or fled the country.

In the capital, Kyiv, at least 20 babies carried by Ukrainian surrogate mothers are stuck in a makeshift bomb shelter, waiting for parents to travel into the war zone to pick them up. The infants — some just days old — are being cared for by nurses who cannot leave the shelter because of constant shelling by Russian troops who are trying to encircle the city.

In the hard-hit northeastern city of Sumy, authorities evacuated 71 orphaned babies through a humanitarian corridor, regional governor Dmytro Zhyvytskyy said Sunday. He said the orphans, most of whom need constant medical attention, would be taken to an unspecified foreign country, Associated Press reported.

Russian shelling killed at least five civilians, including a 9-year-old boy, in Kharkiv, an eastern city that is Ukraine’s second-largest.

The British Defense Ministry said Russia’s failure to gain control of the skies over Ukraine “has significantly blunted their operational progress,” forcing them to rely on stand-off weapons launched from the relative safety of Russian airspace.

A rocket attack on the Black Sea port city of Mykolaiv early Friday killed as many as 40 marines, a Ukrainian military official told The New York Times, making it one of the deadliest single attacks on Ukrainian forces.

In a separate strike, the Russian Defense Ministry said a Kinzhal hypersonic missile hit a Ukrainian fuel depot in Kostiantynivka, a city near Mykolaiv. The Russian military said Saturday that it used a Kinzhal for the first time in combat to destroy an ammunition depot in the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine, according to the Associated Press.

Police have arrested two persons in possession of undeclared foreign currency notes from the Tribhuvan International Airport on Friday.

The arrestees have been identified as Sahansil Bajracharya Shakya (56) of Kathmandu and Ranjita Shrestha (23) of Borlang-8, Gorkha and currently residing in Kathmandu.

According to SP Himalaya Kumar Shrestha, Shakya was about to board a flight to Dubai and Shrestha was preparing to board a flight to Australia when police apprehended them during the security check.

Shakya was nabbed with Euro 7, 100, Canadian Dollar 1, 900, Omani Riyal 33, Saudi Riyal 13 while Shrestha was arrested with Australian Dollar 19, 600, USD 46.

Both of them have been sent to the Revenue Investigation Department in Lalitpur for investigation.

Nepal recorded 37 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 2, 798 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 28 returned positive. Likewise, 1, 263 people underwent antigen tests, of which 9 tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 382 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 3, 241 active cases in the country.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) index plunged by 14. 67 points to close at 2,616.58 points on Sunday.  

Similarly, the sensitive index increased by 3. 01 points to reach 494.38 points.

A total of 4,287,569 units of shares of 224 companies were traded for Rs 2. 27 billion.

Likewise, all sub-indices saw red in today’s market except for Investment.

Meanwhile, Rastra Utthan Laghubitta Sanstha Limited was the top gainer today with its price surging by 10.00 percent. Likewise, Mailung Khola Jal Vidhyut Company Limited was the top loser with its price dropped by 3.76 percent.

At the end of the day market capitalization stands at 3.70 trillion.

The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology said that there is a possibility of a light rain coupled with thunderstorm and lightning in some of the hilly areas in the country on Sunday with the impact of the Westerly low pressure system.

There will also be partially to generally cloudy in hilly areas of provinces including Sudurpaschim, Karnali, Gandaki and Province 1 tonight, while a few mountainous areas are likely to witness a light snowfall, the Department said.  Similarly, the sky will be clear in the rest of the areas.

The Kathmandu Valley today recorded a minimum 14.4 degree Celsius and maximum 31.5 degree temperature, according to the Meteorological Forecasting Division.

Likewise, Jumla recorded the lowest 4.0 degree Celsius today followed by the highest 36.6 degree in Biratnagar across the country. RSS

Nepali Congress said that the meeting of the Central Working Committee will decide whether to forge alliance with the parties of ruling alliance in the local level elections.

Party President and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has called the meeting of the Central Working Committee at the party’s central office for 2 pm on Friday.

Party spokesperson Prakash Sharan Mahat said that the meeting would decide whether to forge an electoral alliance or not.

“The meeting will decide whether or not to forge an electoral alliance,” Mahat said. “All the parties’ objective is to win more seats in the elections,” he further said.

Saying that the party leaders and cadres have been indulging in the debate whether or not to forge the electoral alliance, he said that there is no need to engage in such a debate.

He said that the party leaders have differing views on whether to forge alliance with the parties of ruling alliance or not.

But, Prime Minister Deuba has already told CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Nepal that he would take the decision whether or not to forge an electoral alliance by holding discussions with the party leaders.

Nepali Congress spokesperson Prakash Sharan Mahat said that the party would finalize the names of candidates for the upcoming local level elections by mid-April.

Speaking at a press conference organized in Salyan on Sunday, Mahat said that the party would finalize the names of candidates for the forthcoming local polls by mid-April.

He said that the party has formed parliamentary committees at the central, state, district and municipal levels to decide the candidates to be fielded by the party at various levels.

Leader Mahat said that the centre would look into any dispute that could not be resolved by the party’s lower level committee.

Meanwhile, Mahat also made public the general criteria of the candidates of local level.