Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia's siege of the port city of Mariupol was "a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come", while local authorities said thousands of residents there had been taken by force across the border.

"Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported onto Russian territory," the city council said in a statement on its Telegram channel late on Saturday.

Russian news agencies have said buses have carried several hundred people Moscow calls refugees from Mariupol to Russia in recent days.

The council also said...