Humanitarian disaster unfolding in Mariupol

A Ukrainian serviceman guards his position in Mariupol, Ukraine. Speaking ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels to discuss the war in Ukraine, which entered its 26th day on Monday, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias called attention to the humanitarian crisis in the besieged port city of Mariupol, which hosts a sizeable ethnic Greek minority, adding that Chechen fighters had joined Russia’s offensive. He added that the Greek government was doing its best ‘to safeguard the future’ of the Greek diaspora in Mariupol. The city began to be built in the spring of 1780, on the east coast of the Azov Sea, by Greeks who had migrated from the Crimea. [Mstyslav Chernov/AP]