Ukraine said only 50 civilians were evacuated from a bombed steel mine in the city of Mariupol on Friday, accusing Russia of violating a ceasefire designed to allow anyone trapped under the plant to leave under siege weeks later.
Mariupol has suffered the most devastating bombing of the 10-week war, and the sprawling Soviet-era Azovstal plant is the last part of the city, a strategic southern port on the Sea of Azov, still in the hands of Ukrainian fighters.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky described Russia’s blockade of Mariupol as torture and said that if Russia killed civilians or soldiers who might otherwise be released, his government could no longer hold peace talks with Moscow.
The UN-mediated evacuation of some of the hundreds of civilians who had taken refuge in the plant’s network of tunnels and bunkers began last weekend before being halted by renewed fighting.
On Friday afternoon, 50 women, children and the elderly were evacuated from the plant, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, adding that the operation would continue on Saturday. According to her, the Russian side was constantly violating the local ceasefire, which made the evacuation very slow.
A man and a girl who have taken refuge in the Azovstal steel plant go to a bus escorted by Russian troops in the village of Bezimen, Mariupol district, on Friday. (Alexei Alexandrov / Associated Press)
Russia has confirmed the number of evacuees and plans to continue the evacuation on Saturday, but did not comment on the accusation.
The mayor estimated that 200 people were trapped in the plant with little food or water.
In a video from the plant, published online late Thursday, a paramedic from the Azov Regiment gave his name as Hassan described people dying of wounds and starvation.
In this print photo, taken from a video released Wednesday by the press service of the Interior Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, smoke is rising from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine. The Donetsk People’s Republic is a breakaway state created by pro-Russian separatists in 2014 (Press Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Donetsk People’s Republic / Associated Press)
Authorities in Mariupol earlier accused Russian forces on Friday of violating a ceasefire at a steel plant by firing on a car involved in an evacuation effort, killing one Ukrainian fighter and injuring six.
Russia did not immediately comment on the city council’s statement online. It used to be said that there were humanitarian corridors.
About 2,000 Ukrainian fighters, according to Russia’s latest estimates, are also hidden in a huge maze of tunnels and bunkers under the Azovstal steel plant – and they have repeatedly refused to surrender.
Civilians travel for days to escape the “hellish landscapes”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday that the organization “must continue to do everything possible to get people out of these hellish landscapes”.
People fleeing Mariupol usually have to go through disputed areas and many checkpoints – sometimes it takes them days to reach relative safety in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhia, about 230km northwest.
- What questions do you have about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Send ask@cbc.ca an email
The battle in the last Ukrainian fortress of a city turned into ruins by the Russian attack seemed increasingly desperate amid growing speculation that President Vladimir Putin wanted to end the battle for Mariupol so he could present a triumph to the Russian people in time for Monday’s victory, which marks the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany and is the biggest patriotic holiday on the Russian calendar.
Before Victory Day, municipal workers and volunteers cleaned up the remains of Mariupol, a city now under Russian control in addition to the steel plant.
Bulldozers were collecting debris and people were sweeping the streets amid buildings carved by shelling. Workers repaired a model of a warship, and Russian flags were hoisted on poles.
A local civilian cooks next to his house in Mariupol on Wednesday. The sign behind the man reads: “Shelter, children.” The city, strategically located as a southern port on the Sea of Azov, has been left in ruins by Russian attacks. (Alexei Alexandrov / Associated Press)
Russia is struggling to succeed in Donbass
The fall of Mariupol will deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to build a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free troops for battles elsewhere in Donbass, the eastern industrial region the Kremlin now says. is its main goal.
His capture also has symbolic value, as the city was the scene of some of the worst suffering of the war and surprisingly fierce resistance.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces were still trying to take over the rest of eastern Ukraine, where the Russian Defense Ministry said it had destroyed an ammunition depot in Kramatorsk and shot down two Ukrainian warplanes. Ukraine has said it has captured 11 Russian snipers in the region around its second-largest city, Kharkiv.
It was not possible to independently verify the statements of any of the parties regarding the events on the battlefield.
WATCH A new operation is underway to remove civilians from the Mariupol steel mine:
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russian forces were only making “spraying” progress in Donbass.
In fact, prolonged opposition at the Mariupol plant is helping to thwart Russia’s plans for Donbass, the British Ministry of Defense said in an assessment on Friday.
The fighting at the plant “turns out to be at the cost of personnel, equipment and ammunition for Russia,” the statement said. “As long as Ukrainian resistance continues in Azovstal, Russian losses will continue to strengthen and thwart their operational plans in the Southern Donbass.”
Moscow has called its actions a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and free it from Western-backed anti-Russian nationalism. Ukraine and the West say Russia has started an unprovoked war. More than five million Ukrainians have fled abroad since the invasion began.
US President Joe Biden and other Western leaders plan to hold a video interview with Zelensky on Sunday, the White House said, in a demonstration of unity before Russia celebrates Victory Day. Biden is also expected to sign a new weapons package worth at least $ 100 million for Ukraine, US officials told Reuters.
Ukraine says electrician helped Russians gain access to steel plant
The Russians smashed to dust much of Mariupol, which had a pre-war population of more than 400,000, and a two-month siege trapped perhaps 100,000 civilians with little food, water, electricity or heat.
Civilians sheltering inside the plant may have suffered even more – searching underground without seeing the light of day for months.
A local passes houses destroyed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the southern port city of Mariupol on Thursday. (Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters)
The Russians managed to enter the plant on Wednesday with the help of an electrician who knew the location, said Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry.
“He showed them the underground tunnels leading to the factory,” Gerashchenko said in a video.
The Kremlin has denied that its troops stormed the plant, and Russia has also accused the militants of not allowing civilians to leave.
Add Comment