Some women and children were evacuated from the steel plant, the last stronghold in the bombed-out ruins of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the Ukrainian president in the capital in a show of US support.
Russia’s offensive in coastal southern Ukraine and the country’s eastern industrial center has forced Ukrainian forces to fight village by village and more civilians fleeing air strikes and artillery fire as the war reaches its doorstep.
Thousands are thought to be trapped with little food, water or medicine in blocked Mariupol. The United Nations worked to mediate the evacuation of about 1,000 civilians, who were pressed by about 2,000 Ukrainian fighters under stretched Soviet-era steelmaking, the only part of the city not occupied by the Russians.
Footage released early Sunday by the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shows Pelosi in Kyiv with a delegation from Congress, including Jason Crowe, Jim McGovern, Gregory Meeks and Adam Schiff. The visit was not announced in advance.
Meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress pic.twitter.com/QXSBPFoGQh
– @ ZelenskyyUa
In a video later released by Pelosi’s office, the speaker and Zelensky thanked each other for their support in the war.
“We will win and win together,” Zelenski said.
Pelosi added: “We are here until the victory is won.”
“Your battle is a battle for all”
“We believe we are visiting you to thank you for your struggle for freedom,” said Pelosi, who is the second in the US presidency after the vice president and the highest-ranking US leader to visit Ukraine since the start of the war.
“We are on the verge of freedom and your battle is a battle for all. Our commitment is to be by your side until the battle is over,” Pelosi added.
“Our delegation is traveling to Kyiv to send an unmistakable and resounding message to the world: America stands firm with Ukraine,” she said in a statement issued Sunday.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, right, awards the Order of Princess Olga, third degree, to US House of Representatives President Nancy Pelosi in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Saturday. Pelosi, second in the presidency after the vice president, is the highest-ranking US leader to visit Ukraine since the start of the war. (Press service of the Ukrainian president through AP)
The delegation continued its trip to southeastern Poland, and Pelosi said he would later visit the capital, Warsaw, to meet with President Andrzej Duda and other senior officials. Poland has received more than three million refugees from Ukraine since Russia began its war on February 24th.
“We look forward to thanking our Polish allies for their dedication and humanitarian efforts,” she said.
Russian forces have launched a major military operation to seize large parts of southern and eastern Ukraine after failing to seize the capital. Mariupol is a major destination because of its strategic location near the Crimean peninsula, which Russia took from Ukraine in 2014.
Two groups of civilians left the residential area around the Azovstal steel plant in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Saturday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
On Sunday, civilians who left an area near the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, accompanied by a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross, went to a temporary accommodation center in the village of Bezimenne, Ukraine. (Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters)
The ministry said a total of 46 civilians had left the area and received food and shelter. Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters and some civilians are believed to be hiding in the huge factory after the Russian siege of the port city. Many efforts to arrange a ceasefire to allow residents to leave the city have failed, with Moscow and Kyiv repeatedly blaming each other.
Meanwhile, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported on Saturday that 19 adults and six children had been taken out of Azovstal’s steel plant, but gave no further details.
“These are women and children”
A senior official with the Azov Regiment, Ukraine’s unit defending the plant, said 20 civilians had been evacuated during the ceasefire, although it was unclear whether he meant the same group. There was no confirmation from the UN.
“These are women and children,” Svyatoslav Palamar said in a video posted on the regiment’s Telegram channel. He also called for the evacuation of the wounded: “We do not know why they were not taken away and their evacuation to the territory controlled by Ukraine is not being discussed.”
Ukraine has blamed the failure of numerous previous attempts to evacuate ongoing Russian shelling.
UN humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu said the world body was negotiating with authorities in Moscow and Kyiv to evacuate Mariupol, but he could not provide details of the ongoing efforts “due to the complexity and smoothness of the operation.”
People board a bus during an evacuation from the Lyman in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on Saturday. (Eugene Maloletka / Associated Press)
Abreu did not confirm a video posted on social media that allegedly shows UN-marked vehicles in Mariupol.
In the town of Lyman in the Donetsk region, where at least half of the population fled Russian shelling, about 20 elderly people and children clutching bags, along with their dogs and cats, boarded a minivan with the words “evacuation of children” in Ukrainian. . He was on his way to the city of Dnipro when explosions were heard in the distance.
“Free us from what? Our life?
“The liberators came and freed us from what? Our lives?” said Nina Mikhailenko, a professor of Russian language and literature, targeting Russian forces.
It is estimated that about 100,000 people are still in the port city, including civilians trapped by about 2,000 Ukrainian fighters under a sprawling Soviet-era steel mill, the only part of the city not occupied by the Russians. .
Details of the scope of Saturday’s evacuations and the possibility of another Sunday were unclear given the number of countries involved in the talks and the volatile situation on the ground.
A woman cries as relatives and activists take part in a rally demanding international leaders organize a humanitarian corridor to evacuate Ukrainian military and civilians from Mariupol amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in central Kyiv, Ukraine, on Saturday. (Ephraim Lukacki / Associated Press)
Zelensky pronounces the address partly in Russian
In a video address late Saturday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky switched to Russian to urge Russian troops not to fight in Ukraine, saying even their generals expect thousands more to die.
The president warned that Russia was “gathering additional forces for new attacks on our military in the east of the country.” and accused Moscow of recruiting new soldiers “with little motivation and little combat experience” so that units gutted at the start of the war could be returned to battle.
“But why do Russian soldiers need this?” Why do their families need this? ”Zelenski said in Russian.
“Every Russian soldier can still save his own life,” Zelensky said. “It is better to survive in Russia than to die on our land.
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