Evacuation of Mariupol stalled

EFFORTS to evacuate more civilians from the devastated Ukrainian port city of Mariupol ran into delays yesterday and hundreds of people remained trapped in the Azovstal steel works, the last stronghold of resistance to the Russian siege.

It was not clear what was causing the hold-up although a city official said earlier that Russian forces had resumed shelling the plant after a convoy of buses had left.

The plight of civilians trapped in Mariupol, which endured weeks of bombardment before Russian forces captured most of it, has been a focus of humanitarian concern. Thousands are believed to have been killed and those still stuck in the besieged Azovstal complex, whose network of bunkers and tunnels has provided shelter, were running out of water, food and medicine.

Towns in eastern Ukraine were coming under intense Russian bombardment, a regional governor said. A Russian rocket strike hit a main bridge across the Dniester estuary just west of the port city of Odesa in southwest Ukraine, authorities said.

EU energy ministers were to hold emergency talks in Brussels on Moscow’s demand that European buyers pay for Russian gas in roubles or face their supply being cut off.

A first group of evacuees from the steel works was to arrive in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia, 230km north-west of Mariupol, yesterday. But another convoy of civilians from the wider city had been delayed as the buses had not yet reached the pick-up point, the city council said. The civilians are from the city itself, not from the Azovstal steel works.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces are now in control of nearly all the Sea of Azov city, linking up Russian-held territory to the west and east. Moscow said last week it had decided against storming the steel works and would instead blockade it. But bombardments have continued. The Russian army said 126 people had left Mariupol in safe convoys over the weekend from the steel works and other districts for separatist-controlled Donetsk. Of these, 57 opted to stay in that area, while the others decided to leave for Ukrainian-held parts, it said.

The Russian military is now focusing on crushing resistance in Ukraine’s south and east after failing to capture Kyiv in the early weeks of the war. Its assaults have flattened cities, killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 5 million to flee the country.

Moscow is pushing for complete control of the Donbas region, where Russian-backed separatists held parts of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces before the invasion.