Russia steps up assaults before Victory Day
UKRAINE authorities have evacuated more civilians from a besieged Mariupol as Russian forces unleashed new bombardments before Victory Day festivities in Moscow today.
The Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol is the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the port city and its fate has taken on a symbolic value in the battle unleashed by Russia’s invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that more than 300 civilians had been rescued from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. They had been trapped in the tunnels beneath the plant, along with Ukrainian soldiers who are making their last stand.
Deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said all the women, children and elderly people had been evacuated. “This part of the Mariupol humanitarian operation is over,” she wrote on the Telegram.
Zelenskiy said in a late night address that authorities would now focus on evacuating the wounded and medics as well as working on humanitarian corridors for other residents of
Mariupol and surrounding settlements
Ukrainian fighters at the Azovstal plant have vowed not to surrender and Russian forces are seeking to declare a victory in the prolonged battle for the vast plant in time for today’s Victory Day celebrations in Moscow, which commemorate the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany in WWII.
Russia’s 10-week-old war on Ukraine has killed thousands, destroyed cities and driven five million Ukrainians to flee, but its military campaign has run into tough resistance, robbing it of an early victory.
Taking control of Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a land bridge between the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, and separatist, pro-Russian regions in the east.
As the battles continued, about 60 people who remain under the debris of a school in the village of Bilohorivka are feared dead, Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region, said yesterday.
He said Russia bombed the school on Saturday afternoon causing a fire that engulfed the building. About 90 people had been sheltering there. Thirty people were rescued, seven of whom were injured.
Strikes were also reported in Donetsk, in the north near Kharkiv and in the southern city of Mikoleyev.
According to the Ukrainian defence ministry, Russian forces were forced to demolish three bridges near Tsyrkuny and Ruski Tyshky outside Kharkiv, to slow the Ukrainian advance. |