Mariupol troops rally ahead of Russia V-Day
Final showdown to ‘deny Kremlin a win’
KYIV: Ukraine’s last soldiers in the port city of Mariupol face a brutal final showdown yesterday with besieging Russian forces, who are hoping to deliver a critical win ahead of the country’s victory day.
President Volodymyr Zelensky was also set to hold talks with G7 leaders via video conference to discuss the situation in his country, which fears a renewed intensity to Moscow’s offensive after the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks.
The complex — the final pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the devastated port city — has taken on a symbolic value in the war, with the last soldiers holed up in its sprawling network of underground tunnels and bunkers.
Taking full control of Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a land bridge between the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, and regions run by pro-Russian separatists in the east.
“The enemy is trying to finish off the defenders of Azovstal, they are trying to do it before May 9 to give [Russian President] Vladimir Putin a gift,” Oleksiy Arestovych, an aide to Ukraine’s president, said.
Ukraine’s far-right Azov battalion, leading the defence at the steelworks, said one of its fighters had been killed and six wounded when Russian forces opened fire during an earlier attempt to evacuate people by car.
Mr Zelensky said hundreds of people had been removed from the plant on Saturday and that preparations for another stage of evacuation comprising the wounded and medics were under way.
Civilians who have escaped have described passing through Russian “filtration” sites where several evacuees said they were questioned, stripsearched, fingerprinted, and had their phones and documents checked.
“They asked us if we wanted to go to Russia or to stay in [eastern Ukraine’s self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic] or stay and rebuild the city of Mariupol,” said Azovstal evacuee Natalia, who spoke on condition that her full name not be published.
“But how can I rebuild it? How can I return there if the city of Mariupol doesn’t exist anymore?”
Earlier, Kyiv’s defence ministry said Russian forces had resumed their assault on the site, despite talk of a truce to allow trapped civilians to flee.
Russia’s forces may be seeking to hand Mr Putin a win ahead of today’s Victory Day, when the country celebrates its 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany. With the date fast approaching, Ukrainian officials fear more intense missile and artillery bombardments and renewed assaults as Moscow scrambles for symbolic victories.
At home, Russia will mark the holiday in grand style, with eight Mig-29 fighter jets set to fly over Moscow’s Red Square forming the letter “Z” — the mark of Russia’s military assault in Ukraine. Seventy-seven aircraft are set to conduct a fly-past, including the rarely seen Il-80 Doomsday plane — built to withstand a nuclear attack.
But despite apocalyptic nuclear threats issued by Russian state media, the CIA said on Saturday it saw no indication Moscow was preparing to use tactical atomic weapons in the Ukraine conflict. CIA director Bill Burns also warned that Mr Putin believed he could not afford defeat in Ukraine and that he might be “doubling down” on the offensive.
More sanctions or at least a tightening of the punishments on Russia were expected to be discussed yesterday.