The scale of Mariupol’s destruction is revealed in drone footage and satellite photos

ATLANTA — Shocking drone footage and satellite photos have emerged from Mariupol in southeast Ukraine showing the utter devastation wrought by the Russian bombardment there.

While small numbers of people escaped the besieged city on Monday after a series of failed evacuation attempts, as many as 2,500 civilians have died in Mariupol, Ukrainian officials estimate. The hundreds of thousands of people who remain are without electricity, water and heat.

Mariupol’s Regional Intensive Care Hospital and a number of apartment complexes are among the damaged buildings seen in a series of satellite images published by Maxar Technologies on Monday.

The hospital has a hole in its southern walls and debris can be seen scattered around, while the residential buildings show significant damage.

Satellite images of the Primorskyi neighborhood, around a mile south of the hospital, show homes smoldering after apparently suffering Russian strikes.

Limited information has emerged from the city since Russian forces encircled it on March 1, but the extent of the damage is now becoming clearer.

The drone footage which emerged Monday shows a destroyed apartment complex and thick plumes of smoke rising over the west of the city.

The video was posted on Telegram by the Azov Battalion, an ultra-nationalist militia that has since been integrated into the Ukrainian armed forces. CNN has geolocated and verified the authenticity of the video.

Multiple official attempts to establish safe corridors and evacuate civilians from Mariupol have failed in recent days. A large convoy of humanitarian aid that was meant to arrive on Sunday has still not reached the city as of Monday, according to officials.

“Most of the people are staying in the basements and shelters in inhumane conditions. With no food, no water, no electricity, no heating,” Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city mayor, said on Ukrainian television on Monday.

He added that people were melting snow and dismantling heating systems to get water to drink.

On Monday more than 160 private cars managed to leave Mariupol, according to the city council, but around 350,000 people are still trapped, said Andriushchenko.

Speaking about civilian casualties, Andriushchenko said the numbers obtained from the police and compiled by medical facilities were likely inaccurate. He said that as of Sunday, 1,800 people were confirmed to have been killed.

Speaking on Monday, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Office, said that the bombardment of Mariupol has caused more than 2,500 deaths.

CNN cannot independently verify these casualty figures.

Also on Monday, Zelensky accused Russia of committing war crimes in its attacks on the city and other parts of the country.

“Responsibility for war crimes of the Russian military is inevitable. Responsibility for a deliberate humanitarian catastrophe in Ukrainian cities is inevitable,” he said. “The whole world sees what is happening in Mariupol.”