THERMO BOMBS HIT LAST STAND HEROES
Russian forces breach defence of steelworks
HEROIC Ukrainian troops making a last stand in Mariupol are feared to have been hit by a barrage of lung-busting thermobaric bombs.
The bombs, which use air to generate lethal explosions, are suspected to have been used in the attack on about 1,000 troops at the Azovstal steelworks.
Last night Ukraine said Russian forces had entered the site as Mariupol’s mayor revealed he had lost contact with those inside the vast complex.
Some 200 civilians are still trapped there and yesterday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sought United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ help to get them to safety.
He said: “The lives of the people who remain there are in danger. Everyone is important to us.”
Russia’s military said it would
open humanitarian corridors from the plant today, tomorrow and Saturday, to allow the civilians to leave.
At the weekend, 101 people, including 17 children as young as six months old, emerged from bunkers under the plant to see the daylight after two months.
Russia is thought to be desperate to wipe out the resistance ahead of its May 9 Victory Day military parade, marking the defeat of Germany in 1945.
It is also believed Russia may stage a parade in Mariupol, cleaning up corpses and faking welcomes from locals.
President Vladimir Putin could use the date to declare a limited victory.
Russia is still pounding targets across Ukraine, damaging three power substations in Lviv in the west in a bid to stop trains supplying foreign weapons, much of them from the UK, to Ukrainians.
In the eastern Donetsk region, in the Donbas, Russian attacks killed 21 on Tuesday, the highest number of known fatalities since the April 8 missile attack on the railway station in Kramatorsk.
The US believes Ukraine has pushed Russian forces 25 miles east of Kharkiv, which is key to the offensive there.