Russia bogged down, blasting Ukrainian cities as war enters fourth week

Theatre blown up in besieged Mariupol, 53 civilians killed in Chernihiv, says governor; Putin lashes out at 'traitors and scum' at home

Russian forces in Ukraine are blasting cities and killing civilians but no longer making progress on the ground, Western countries said on Thursday, as a war Moscow was thought to have hoped to win within days entered its fourth week.

Local officials said rescuers in the besieged southern port of Mariupol were combing the rubble of a theatre where women and children had been sheltering, bombed by Russian forces the previous day.

"The bomb shelter held. Now the rubble is being cleared.

There are survivors. We don't know about the (number of) victims yet," mayoral adviser Petro Andrushchenko told Reuters by phone.

Russia denied