Mariupol police officer pleads with Biden, Macron for help after city ‘destroyed’

A Ukrainian police officer in Mariupol warns that the besieged port city has been “wiped off the face of the earth,” and pleads with the presidents of the United States and France to provide his country with a modern air defense system.

In a video post from a rubble-strewn street, Mariupol police officer Michail Vershnin tells US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron that they had promised assistance, “but what we have received is not quite it,” and urges them to save the civilian population.

“Children, elderly people are dying. The city is destroyed and it has been wiped off the face of the earth,” he says in a video, in which flames can be seen coming from several buildings while others were decimated.

“You have promised that there will be help, give us that help. Biden, Macron, you are great leaders. Be them to the end,” he says.