The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Civilians evacuated from besieged plant
Along-awaited effort to evacuate people from a steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol got under way yesterday, the United Nations said.
UN humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu said the evacuation from the sprawling Azovstal steel plant was being done with the International Committee for the Red Cross and in co-ordination with Ukrainian and Russian officials.
As many as 100,000 people are believed to still be in blockaded Mariupol, including up to 1,000 civilians who were hunkered down with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters beneath the Sovietera steel plant – the only part of the city not occupied by the Russians.
Like other evacuations, it depends on Russia and its forces who man a long series of checkpoints before reaching Ukrainian ones.
People who have fled Russian-occupied areas have at times described their vehicles being fired on. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly accused Russian forces of shelling evacuation routes on which the two sides had agreed.
Russia’s high-stakes offensive in coastal southern Ukraine and the country’s eastern industrial heartland has seen Ukrainian forces fighting village by village and more civilians fleeing airstrikes and artillery shelling as war draws near their doorsteps.
Russia has embarked on a major military operation to seize significant parts of the south and east following its failure to capture Kyiv. Mariupol, a port on the Sea of Azov, is a key target because of its strategic location near the Crimea Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.
“All the leaders of the free world know what Russia has done to Mariupol. And Russia will not go unpunished for this,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said.
He warned that Russia was “gathering additional forces for new attacks against our military in the east of the country”.
Limited evacuations from the city took place on Saturday, but the details had been unclear given the number of parties involved in the negotiations.
Russia said a total of 46 people, a group of 25 and another numbering 21, were evacuated from areas near the Azovstal plant.
A top official with the Azov Regiment, the Ukrainian unit defending the steelworks, said on Saturday that 20 women and children were evacuated from the plant itself.
Civilians have sheltered in a maze of underground tunnels while the plant has been under siege.
In a video posted on the regiment’s Telegram channel, deputy commander Sviatoslav Palamar called for the evacuation of wounded Ukrainian fighters as well as civilians.
“We don’t know why they are not taken away and their evacuation to the territory controlled by Ukraine is not being discussed,” he said.
Getting a full picture of the unfolding battle in eastern Ukraine has been difficult because airstrikes and artillery barrages have made it dangerous for reporters to move around.