Russia attacks after ceasefire

RUSSIA launched an assault on the encircled Azovstal steel works in Mariupol, Ukraine’s last redoubt in the port city, after a ceasefire broke down yesterday with some 200 civilians trapped underground despite a UN-brokered evacuation.

Russian rockets pounded other parts of eastern and southern Ukraine and targeted dumps of advanced Western military hardware, and Britain said Ukraine’s Western-backed government would defeat Russia’s invasion and secure its freedom.

Russia has turned its fire power on Ukraine’s east and south after failing to take the capital of Kiev in March. The offensive has been met with commitments by Western powers for tougher sanctions as well as supplies of heavier weapons to Ukraine.

The European Commission was finalising a ban on buying Russian oil. The US Congress is considering a $33 billion (R521bn) military aid package, and the UK this week vowed an additional $375 million (R7.4bn) in defence assistance.

“This is Ukraine’s finest hour, that will be remembered,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said to Ukraine’s parliament via videolink.

Russian forces tried to storm Azovstal yesterday, the head of Mariupol’s patrol police said. Russia’s defence ministry said Ukrainian forces had used a ceasefire to establish new firing positions, and that Russia-backed forces were now “beginning to destroy” those positions.

Further along the Black Sea coast, high-precision missiles struck an airfield near the port of Odessa where drones and ammunition supplied to Ukraine by the US and European allies were stored, Russia’s defence ministry said. Ukraine confirmed a rocket strike in Odessa. The war is also focused on the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, parts of which were already held by Russian-backed separatists. Russia’s troops are trying to encircle a large Ukrainian force there.

Mariupol is a major target for Russia as it seeks to cut Ukraine off from the sea and connect the Russiancontrolled territory in the south and east.

Russian shelling killed at least nine civilians in Donetsk yesterday.