Russia attacks steel plant
RUSSIAN forces launched an offensive yesterday against the Azovstal steel plant, the last hold-out of Ukrainian forces in the battered southern port city of Mariupol, after a ceasefire that had allowed civilians to evacuate.
Russia’s defence ministry accused members of the Azov battalion and other Ukrainian troops of using a pause in fighting to take their combat positions at the plant. It was not clear what the attacks meant for the fresh attempt that had been planned yesterday to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal complex, from where Kiev said about 100 people had been brought out over the weekend.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Boris Johnson addressed Ukraine’s parliament, promising another £300 million (R5.9 billion) in military aid. He hailed Kiev’s resistance as its “finest hour”, and vowed to help ensure “no one will ever dare to attack you again”.
The European Commission proposed new sanctions on Moscow, including an embargo on Russian oil.
Fighting raged in the east and south of Ukraine, with Kiev reporting attacks in and around Kharkiv, in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.
At least nine people were killed yesterday in the Donetsk region, according to regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. The conflict has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 13 million, creating the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
The strategic southern port city of Mariupol has been under constant siege, with the last Ukrainian forces now confined to the sprawling Azovstal steel plant, where hundreds of civilians are also believed to be hiding in a maze of underground tunnels.
“The evacuation continues,” the presidency said, following an agreement with the UN and the Red Cross.
Elsewhere in Mariupol, residents are emerging from two months of hiding to find their city in ruins. The city is now largely calm, with daily life dominated by the hunt for essentials.
Russia’s defence ministry said yesterday its forces had struck a logistics centre at a military airfield in the region around the Black Sea port of Odessa, used for the delivery of foreign-made weapons. Storage facilities containing Turkey’s Bayraktar drones as well as missiles and ammunition from the US and Europe had been destroyed, it said.
In the east, the Ukrainian military said Russians were advancing towards Lyman and Sloviansk, a major urban hub in the eastern Donbas region whose capture would be significant. The US warned that Moscow was preparing to annex the eastern separatist regions of Lugansk and Donetsk.