Desperate effort to rescue people from steel plant
KYIV, Ukraine — A furious bid was under way Friday to rescue hundreds of civilians still trapped in the besieged Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian soldiers sheltering in a maze of underground tunnels have prevented Russian forces from fully capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “torturing to death” those still inside the sprawling complex. Others in his government, though, still hold out hopes of plucking more to safety.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, confirmed that 50 “women, children and elderly people” managed to leave the sprawling complex, and she and the Russian Interdepartmental Humanitarian Response Center, a government agency, said rescue efforts would continue on Saturday.
The latest evacuees were in addition to roughly 500 other civilians who got out of the plant and city in recent days.
Friday’s rescue effort — the third of its kind in the past week by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross — comes amid renewed ground assaults on the sprawling steelworks by Russian troops, despite earlier pledges that they would only seal it off.
At the same time, fighting continued in eastern Ukraine, where the Kremlin’s forces have redoubled their efforts to capture the Donbas region, which is home to many ethnic Russians. Ukraine has battled against pro-Russia separatists in the area for eight years, and there are suggestions that Ukrainian soldiers could try to mount a counteroffensive to push back Russian troops from around the key city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest.
The attacks on the Mariupol steelworks are believed to be intensifying in order to subdue the last remnant of armed resistance in the southern city before Monday’s Victory Day celebrations in Russia marking the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. The annual patriotic event is highlighted by a military parade in Moscow’s Red Square and other cities, and the fall of Mariupol would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a symbolic victory at a time when most Western allies are uniting behind Ukraine.
In the latest show of such support, first lady Jill Biden left the U.S. for a trip to Romania and Slovakia to visit U.S. troops and meet with Ukrainian refugees, whose ranks have swelled to more than 5.7 million since Russia invaded their homeland Feb. 24.
Meanwhile, a new human rights report cited “compelling” evidence of atrocities against Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops when a region near the capital, Kyiv, was occupied during roughly the first month of the war. Amnesty International cited proof of abuses including execution-style killings and torture. Russia has said evidence uncovered by international investigators is phony.
With Ukraine pleading for more military aid, Germany confirmed that it would send seven of its most advanced self-propelled howitzers — huge artillery guns mounted on tracked armored vehicles. The assistance comes after Germany lifted its policy of not sending heavy weapons to conflict zones last week.
Ukraine desperately needs the West to maintain pressure on Moscow now that fighting is concentrated in the east, where Russian forces and Russiabacked separatists aim to widen their hold after their failure to capture the capital, Kyiv.