Russian forces have committed a further war crime on Sunday as 400 women, children and elderly were sheltering inside a school in the besieged city of Mariupol.

Mariupol council have said thus far there has been no reports over the number of casualties and people are most likely trapped under the rubble.

In a video address to the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “To do this to a peaceful city, what the occupiers did, is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come.”

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Mariupol has almost been wiped of the map and has sustained fierce missile, rocket and shelling for many days, the city is totally surrounded by Russian forces.

In a video addressed to Western leaders, authenticated by the Associated Press, Mariupol police officer Michail Vershnin said: “Children, elderly people are dying.

“The city is destroyed and it is wiped off the face of the earth.”

Last week, the US President Joe Biden accused the Russian President Vladimir Putin of being a “war criminal.”

Meanwhile, his official Twitter account wrote: “Putin is inflicting appalling devastation and horror on Ukraine — bombing apartment buildings and maternity wards.

“Yesterday, we saw reports that Russian forces were holding hundreds of doctors and patients hostage.

“These are atrocities.

“It is an outrage to the world.”