More than 2,100 residents of Ukraine's besieged port city of Mariupol have been killed since hostilities began, the local authorities said today.

Russian shelling of this Ukrainian port city of 430,000 has been relentless, and the number of those who have died since the siege began has increased by 600 since the last count before yesterday's onslaught.

Putin's forces hammered the city's downtown area on Saturday, as 400,000 residents remained in hiding - many of them in freezing conditions with no food or water.  

'As of today, 2,187 Mariupol residents have died from attacks by Russia,' the city council posted on Telegram. 

'People are in a serious situation for 12 days.

There is no electricity, water, or heat in the city, there is almost no mobile communication, and the last supplies of food and water are running out.'

One man wrote online: 'Putin's scum killed my daughter in Mariupol today, saving us from the "evil Bandera" and "returning to the bosom of the Slavic peoples and the Russian world."'