Major rescue after steel plant attack

Russian forces launched a major assault on Tuesday (local time) on the Azovstal steel plant, the last holdout of Ukrainian forces in the devastated southern port city of Mariupol, as 101 civilians who had been trapped in the site for weeks were brought to safety.

The United Nations and Red Cross said 101 people were evacuated from the maze of Soviet-era tunnels underneath the sprawling Azovstal plant as part of a five-day operation.

“Without a doubt, we will continue doing everything we can to get all our people out of Mariupol, out of Azovstal,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. “It’s hard, but we need everyone, everyone who remains there – civilian and military.”

But Russian forces on Tuesday resumed attacks on the plant as one of a series of assaults across Ukraine, including in the eastern Donetsk region, where authorities said 21 civilians were killed.

Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov military unit, said Russia was assaulting the Azovstal plant with armoured vehicles and tanks and was also attempting to bring “a large number” of infantry by boat.

Mr Zelensky said that the Russians’ latest strikes showed that they don’t have “some kind of military goal”.

“They cannot overpower

Ukraine. But what is within their power still is to set fire to a children’s amusement park … or to blow up a bridge or a grain storage,” he said.

The Russian army confirmed its forces and pro-Moscow separatists were targeting Azovstal with artillery and planes, accusing Azov members and other Ukrainian troops of using a pause in fighting to take up combat positions.

The residents of Mariupol, a strategic port in southern Ukraine, have been living in desperate conditions without food or water and cut off from communications from the outside world.

The city is now largely calm but daily life is dominated by the hunt for the most basic of essentials, according to the survivors.

The war in Ukraine has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 13 million, creating the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.

Western countries have backed Ukraine with cash and weapons while imposing unprecedented sanctions against Russia in a bid to make President Vladimir Putin pull back.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday pledged more aid as he became the first foreign leader to address Ukraine’s parliament since the conflict began.