Mariupol steel plant bombed ‘all night’ as defenders face onslaught

Russian assault launched against Azovstal despite Putin earlier instructing troops to leave works alone

RUSSIAN forces launched a massive bombardment and infantry assault against the steelworks in Mariupol where determined Ukrainian soldiers have resisted their attacks for weeks.

Ukrainian and Russian sources all said that the assault was one of the biggest launched against the steelworks, now a besieged fortress for 2,000 soldiers and around 1,000 civilians.

The attack comes amid efforts to evacuate civilians from Mariupol, and just weeks after Vladimir Putin instructed his troops not to storm the Azovstal steel plant, claiming the port city had already been “liberated”.

“The entire night, we were blasted with air bombs. Two civilian women died, and now they are trying to take Azovstal by storm,” said Sviatoslav Palamar, the deputy head of the Azov battalion defenders.

Ukrainian media said that 10 people were also injured in the bombardment.

Immediately after, Russian infantrymen were ordered to storm the steelworks. A Russian defence ministry spokesman said that fighters of the Azov regiment were fighting back against the Russian assault and witnesses reported smoke and flames billowing out of the steelworks.

“They came out of the basement and took up firing positions around the plant. Now units of the Russian army and the Donetsk People’s Republic are using artillery and aircraft and are beginning to destroy these firing positions,” Vadim Astafyev, the Russian ministry of defence spokesman, said.

Mariupol has been the focus of the heaviest fighting since Mr Putin ordered the invasion on Feb 24.

The port city on the Sea of Azov has been turned into rubble with only the steelworks providing any defensive shelter for the city’s last Ukrainian defenders.

Several hundred civilians have now been evacuated from the steelworks to Ukrainian-controlled Zaporizhzhia, 140 miles north of Mariupol.

Previously, Ukraine’s government had accused the Russian government of blocking civilians from fleeing to territory that it controls.

Videos from inside the steelworks have shown the dire conditions that civilians have been living in for the past couple of months, with food and water running out. The people in the videos look shell-shocked, pale and thin.

Putin had told his army not to storm the steelworks because it was considered to be too difficult to capture but securing Mariupol is seen as a vital strategic lynchpin to free up Russian forces to take the Donbas region, now the Russian army’s main objective.

Western military intelligence has said that Russian forces are being repelled in Donbas by stiff Ukrainian resistance and that their frustration is growing.

This has meant that Russian forces have fallen back on their favoured attrition tactic of pounding targets with long-range artillery attacks.

These, though, are indiscriminate and have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians.

US defence officials have said Russia has 93 battalion tactical groups, each numbering around 700 fighters, in Ukraine – down from around 125 such groups at the start of the war.

“We were blasted with air bombs. Two women died, and now they are trying to take Azovstal by storm’

Britain’s defence intelligence experts estimate around 25 per cent of those remaining on the battlefield are “combat ineffective”.

The remaining units are believed to include 12 battalion tactical groups that have moved north from the fighting in Mariupol, although it will be weeks before they are capable of recommencing significant operations.

Western officials say Russian forces are moving forward by as little as three kilometres a day, and are showing great unease about operating without the shield of artillery fire.

The governor of the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka said yesterday that an artillery attack had killed several people.

“At least 10 people have been killed and 15 wounded as a consequence of shelling at the Avdiivka coke plant by the Russian occupiers,” Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donbas region, said on Telegram.

In the early evening yesterday, Andriy Sadoviy, the mayor of Lviv, said that several explosions had been heard in the western city. He was not specific on targets or whether there had been any casualties.

“Everybody is staying in their shelters. The power has been shut down,” he said, adding that vital train services in Lviv have been suspended.