Soldiers bid loved ones final farewells

KYIV: With supplies running low, amputations conducted in a ramshackle clinic, and corpses piling up, the fighters trapped at the besieged steel plant in Mariupol are battling to hold on as Russian forces tighten their grip on the Ukrainian city’s last holdout.

A smattering of Ukrainian units making their last stand are sheltering in the labyrinth of Soviet-era bunkers and tunnels snaking beneath the sprawling steelworks along with an untold number of wounded and dead soldiers.

“Lots of soldiers are in serious condition in the hospital. They are injured with no medicine. Food and water are running out,” said military medic Yevgenia Tytarenko, whose husband and colleagues remain trapped in the factory.

Tytarenko’s husband Mykhailo texted her a defiant message. “I’ll be standing until the end,” he wrote.

Commanders have issued their final goodbyes to loved ones as supplies dwindle and the Russians close in, while the possibility of extracting the fighters looks increasingly unlikely, said Tytarenko.

“Commanders have already said their farewells to their wives. One of them messaged his wife: ‘Don’t cry. We’ll be back home in any case – alive or dead’,” said Tytarenko.

Without refrigeration, the bodies of the dead have been packed in plastic bags and are rotting, but the fighters remain committed to preventing them from falling into the hands of the Russian forces.

“Almost everywhere, they are carrying corpses with them,” said Tytarenko.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured) suggested that “diplomatic options” were being mulled to rescue the soldiers.