An adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office said Russian forces were attacking the steel plant, the last stronghold of Ukrainian forces in the strategic port city of Mariupol.
Alexei Arestovich, an adviser to the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said at a briefing on Saturday that Russian forces had resumed air strikes on the Azovstal metallurgical plant and were trying to storm it.
“The enemy is trying to completely suppress the resistance of the defenders of Mariupol in the Azovstal region,” Arestovic said.
Arestovich’s statement came two days after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin that all of Mariupol, with the exception of Azovstal, had been “liberated” by the Russians.
Putin has ordered the Russian military not to storm the plant and instead block it in an apparent attempt to stifle the remaining pockets of resistance there.
Ukrainian authorities estimate that about 2,000 of their troops are inside the plant, along with about 1,000 shelters in the facility’s underground tunnels.
Arestovich said Ukrainian fighters were still holding out despite renewed attacks and trying to counter them.
The children are seen in a video released Saturday by the Ukrainian Azov Battalion as they take shelter in what the battalion said was a bunker at the Azovstal complex in Mariupol. (Azov / Reuters Battalion)
It is alleged that women and children are being held in the underground bunkers of the steel complex. In a video released by Ukraine’s Azov Battalion on Saturday, they said they wanted to return home to their families.
The video shows women wearing Azovstal’s uniform design, which Reuters confirmed coinciding with the images in the files. Reuters could not independently verify where and when the video was taken.
Mariupol has been largely reduced to smoldering ruins by weeks of bombing, and Russian state television has shown the flag of pro-Moscow separatists in Donetsk, hoisted at the city’s highest point, its TV tower. He also showed that the main building of the Azovstal steel plant was on fire.
WATCH Russia rejects ceasefire in Ukraine, civilians suffer war wounds:
Russia rejects ceasefire in Ukraine, civilians bear wounds from war
WARNING: This video contains graphics Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said Russia had rejected a proposal for an Easter truce in a war that killed thousands of civilians and left many others with life-changing wounds. 2:40
Under cover of darkness, Ukrainian forces have managed to deliver weapons to the besieged steel plants by helicopter, said Alexei Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.
Meanwhile, Russian troops continue to fight for full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up Donbass in eastern Ukraine. They are seeking to secure a “land route between these territories and occupied Crimea” by destroying the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol, the General Staff of Ukraine said in a morning update.
In the last 24 hours, Ukrainian forces repulsed eight Russian attacks in the two regions, destroying 9 tanks, 18 armored units and 13 vehicles, a tanker and three artillery systems, the General Staff said.
“The units of the Russian occupiers are regrouping. The Russian enemy continues to launch missile and bomb strikes on military and civilian infrastructure,” the General Staff said on its Facebook page.
“Not everyone survived”
Luhansk Governor Sergei Haidai said on Saturday that two people had died in a Russian shelling in the town of Popasna.
“In addition to the fact that the street fights in the city have been going on for several weeks, the Russian army is constantly shelling high-rise apartment buildings and private houses,” Haidai wrote in an Instagram message. “Yesterday alone, locals withstood five enemy artillery attacks. Not all survived.”
Orthodox Christians receive Easter blessings at a church in Lviv, western Ukraine, on Saturday. The bread they brought to the church was also blessed for the first meal they would eat on Easter. Many Ukrainians stick to tradition to help them cope with the war. (Jean-François Benoit / Radio Canada)
The British Ministry of Defense said that despite their increased activity, “Russian forces have not achieved much success in the last 24 hours, as Ukrainian counterattacks continue to hamper efforts.”
Russia has not yet established air or naval control due to Ukrainian resistance, and despite declaring victory for the Russian president in Mariupol, “heavy fighting continues, thwarting Russian attempts to take the city, thus further slowing desired progress in Donbass.” Ministry of Defense.
In total, the Kremlin has thrown more than 100,000 troops and mercenaries from Syria and Libya into the battle in Ukraine and has more forces in the country every day, Danilov said.
“We have a difficult situation, but our army is defending our country,” he said.
The 2nd apparent mass grave can be seen
The latest satellite images from Maxar Technologies have revealed something that seems to be the second place for a mass grave near Mariupol. There are several newly dug parallel trenches about 40 meters long on the site of the cemetery in the town of Vinogradne, Maxar said in a statement.
A day earlier, Maxar released photos of what appeared to be row after row of more than 200 freshly excavated mass graves next to a cemetery in the town of Manchush, near Mariupol. This provoked Ukrainian accusations that the Russians were trying to cover up the massacre of civilians in the city.
A firefighter sits on a swing next to a building destroyed by a Russian bomb in Chernihiv, Ukraine, on Friday. (Associated Press)
“This reaffirms that the occupiers are organizing the collection, burial and cremation of the dead in every district of the city,” Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, told Telegram.
Ukrainians have estimated that the graves seen in photos released Thursday could contain 9,000 bodies. The Kremlin did not respond to satellite images.
More than 100,000 people – less than the pre-war population of about 430,000 – are believed to have been trapped in Mariupol with little food, water or heat, and more than 20,000 civilians have been killed in a nearly two-month siege, according to Ukrainians. authorities.
Most attempts to evacuate civilians from the city have failed because of what Ukrainians said continued Russian shelling.
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