LVIV, Ukraine (AP) Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Saturday that Ukrainian statehood is in jeopardy and likened the Wests sanctions on Russia to declaring war, while a promised cease-fire in the besieged port city of Mariupol collapsed amid scenes of terror.

With the Kremlins rhetoric growing fiercer and a reprieve from fighting dissolving, Russian troops continued to shell encircled cities and the number of Ukrainians forced from their country grew to 1.4 million . By nighttime Russian forces had intensified their shelling of Mariupol, while dropping powerful bombs on residential areas of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said.

Bereft mothers mourned slain children, wounded soldiers were fitted with tourniquets and doctors worked by the light of their cellphones as bleakness and desperation pervaded. Crowds of men lined up in the capital to join the Ukrainian military.

The government has ordered men between the ages of 18 and 60 to stay and be available to fight. Some, like Volodymyr Onysko, have volunteered.

We know why we are here. We know why we defend our country, Onysko told Britains Sky News. We know what we are doing, and thats why we will win.

Putin continued to pin the blame for the war squarely on the Ukrainian leadership and slammed their resistance to the invasion.

If they continue to do what they are doing, they are calling into question the future of Ukrainian statehood, he said. And if this happens, it will be entirely on their conscience.