UN bid to save 200 civilians trapped in ‘hellscape’ plant
A THIRD bus convoy was attempting to get the last 200 civilians out of Mariupol steelworks – as defenders said “goodbye”.
The Russians continued to shell the plant but two convoys earlier successfully evacuated nearly 500 from the besieged compound and its surrounding areas, the UN said.
A third evacuation was starting yesterday with UN chief Antonio
Guterres saying everything was being done to “get people out of these hellscapes”.
“I hope that continued coordination with Moscow and Kyiv will lead to more humanitarian pauses to allow civilians safe passage,” he added.
Evacuated civilians, accompanied by a members of the Red
Cross and UN, arrived at a temporary centre at Bezimenne in eastern Ukraine.
But fighting at the Azovstal plant, the final enclave of Ukrainian resistance, continued.
“They won’t surrender,” Kateryna Prokopenko said after speaking by phone to her husband,Azov Regiment commander Denys Prokopenko.
He told her he would love her forever.
“I am going mad from this. It seemed like words of goodbye,” she said.
Soldiers inside also confirmed they would fight to the death after holding out against vastly superior numbers for 71 days.
Mykhailo Vershynin, one of the defenders, said: “For two days, the Russian troops have been actively storming the plant, they’ve been pushing the defenders back with the support of aviation, artillery and heavy weapons.
“We have not been able to get the wounded out.
“The main thing is that we still have civilians in the bomb shelters at the plant.”
Two hundred miles away, children continued to play in a kindergarten basement as air raid sirens sounded at Kamianske, central Ukraine.
But in a cryptic message during a speech to the Chatham House think-tank, Mr Zelensky said: “There are some politicians in Europe still who are not ashamed of their relations after all Russia did in Europe.
“The response of the world should be instantaneous. For the most part the challenges posed by Russia have not received adequate responses.”
Mr Zelensky described the invasion as “torture and hatred” before adding “it’s inhuman and degrading”.
And he challenged German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to visit Kyiv again to show unity – and for this to coincide withVictory Day in Russia on May 9, which marks the country’s triumph over Adolf Hitler.
Mr Zelensky said: “He can make this very powerful political step by coming on May 9. Sometimes in history, we have to make certain steps for unity.”