ZAPORIZHE, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces on Tuesday began storming a steel plant that was the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, Ukrainian defenders said just as a convoy carrying dozens of civilians evacuated from the plant over the weekend reached controlled by Ukraine.
Osnat Lubrani, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said that thanks to the evacuation efforts, 101 women, men, children and the elderly could finally leave the bunkers under the Azovstal steel plant and see the light of day in two months. ” .
The news of the abandoned was gloomier. Ukrainian fighters say Russian forces have begun storming the large enterprise, which includes a maze of tunnels and bunkers.
Svyatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment, said the Russians were launching a heavy assault with “support for armored vehicles and tanks, attempts to land troops from boats and a large number of infantry”.
The number of Ukrainian fighters hiding inside is unclear, but the Russians estimate the number was 2,000 weeks ago and there are reports of 500 wounded. Several hundred civilians remain there, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said.
“We will do everything we can to repel the attack, but we call for urgent measures to evacuate the civilians who remain at the plant and bring them safely,” Palamar said in a statement to the Telegram.
He added that the plant had been shelled by naval artillery and air strikes throughout the night. Two civilian women were killed and 10 civilians were injured, he said.
The attack began almost two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military not to storm the plant to finish off the defenders, but to seal it.
It came when the first convoy of evacuees from the plant arrived in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhia, about 140 miles (230 kilometers) northwest of Mariupol. They were allowed to leave the steel plant during a brief ceasefire over the weekend, in an operation monitored by the United Nations and the Red Cross.
Stretchers and wheelchairs were lined up at a reception center in Zaporizhia, small children’s shoes hung from a shopping cart and a pile of toys awaited the convoy. Medical and psychological teams were on standby.
The arrival of buses and ambulances was a rare glimmer of good news in the nearly 10-week conflict, which killed thousands, forced millions to flee the country, devastated cities and towns and changed the balance of power after the Cold War in Eastern Europe.
“In recent days, traveling with evacuees, I have heard mothers, children and frail grandparents talk about the trauma of life day after day under relentless heavy shelling and fear of death, and with extreme lack of water, food and sanitation,” he said. Lubrani from the UN. “They talked about the hell they had been through since the beginning of this war, seeking refuge in the Azovstal plant.
In addition to 101 people evacuated from the steel plant, 58 joined the convoy in a town on the outskirts of Mariupol, Lubrani said. Some have decided not to travel all the way to Zaporozhye, where a total of 127 arrived on Tuesday, he said.
The Russian military said earlier that some evacuees had chosen to stay in separatist areas. In the past, Ukraine has accused Moscow of leading civilians against their will in Russia or Russian-controlled areas, something the Kremlin has denied.
Mariupol has become a symbol of the human misery caused by the war. A two-month siege by the Russians of the strategic southern port has trapped civilians with little or no food, water, medicine or heat as Moscow forces smash the city to pieces. The plant has especially impressed the outside world.
The smashing of the steel plant resumed after the evacuation over the weekend. Vadim Astafiev, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said Ukrainian fighters used the ceasefire to get out of the ground and take up new firing positions at the plant.
Russian troops, along with Moscow-backed separatist forces, used artillery and planes “to destroy these firing positions,” he said.
After failing to take Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, Russia withdrew some of its forces and said its main goal was to take over Ukraine’s eastern industrial center, known as Donbass.
Mariupol is in the region and its fall will deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to build a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which it took from Ukraine in 2014, and free troops for battles elsewhere in Donbas.
Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said Monday that the United States believes the Kremlin plans to annex much of eastern Ukraine and recognize the southern city of Kherson as an independent republic. No move will be recognized by the United States or its allies, he said.
Russia plans to hold fictitious referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk districts of Donbass to “try to give the appearance of democratic or electoral legitimacy” and attach the subjects to Russia, Carpenter said. He also said there were signs that Russia would hold an independence vote in Kherson.
It was difficult to get a complete picture of the unfolding battle in the east, as air strikes and artillery shelling made the movement of reporters extremely dangerous. Both Ukraine and Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east have imposed strict reporting restrictions.
But so far, Russian troops and their allied separatist forces appear to have made little progress, capturing several small towns as they try to advance into relatively small groups against strong Ukrainian resistance.
In a daily statement on Twitter about the war, the British military said it believed the Russian army was now “significantly weaker” after suffering losses in its war against Ukraine.
“Recovery from this will be deepened by sanctions,” the ministry said. “Failures in both strategic planning and operational implementation have left him unable to translate numerical strength into a decisive advantage.”
Ukraine’s resistance has been significantly boosted by Western weapons, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announcing £ 300m ($ 375m) in new military aid on Tuesday, including radar, drones and armored vehicles.
In a speech delivered remotely in Ukraine’s parliament, he declared Ukraine’s battle to keep the Russians the “best time” in the country, echoing Winston Churchill’s words during World War II.
“Your children and grandchildren will say that the Ukrainians have taught the world that the brute force of the aggressor has nothing against the moral strength of a people determined to be free,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said at least 220 Ukrainian children have been killed by Russian forces since the start of the war.
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Associated Press journalists Inna Varenitsa and David Keaton in Kyiv, John Gambrel and Juras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstislav Chernov in Kharkov and PA officials around the world contributed to the report.
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