UN seeks deal to evacuate Mariupol
Mayor says people in steel plant don’t have much time
KYIV, Ukraine — The United Nations doggedly sought to broker an evacuation of civilians from the increasingly grim ruins of Mariupol on Friday, while Ukraine accused Russia of showing its contempt for the world organization by bombing Kyiv while the U.N. leader was visiting the capital.
The mayor of Mariupol said the situation inside the steel plant that has become the southern port city’s last stronghold is dire, and citizens are “begging to get saved.” Mayor Vadym Boichenko added: “There, it’s not a matter of days. It’s a matter of hours.”
Ukraine’s forces, meanwhile, fought to hold off Russian attempts to advance in the south and east, where the Kremlin is seeking to capture the country’s industrial Donbas region. Artillery fire, sirens and explosions were heard in some cities.
The missile strike Thursday in Kyiv came barely an hour after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a news conference with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“This says a lot about Russia’s true attitude toward global institutions, about attempts of the Russian leadership to humiliate the U.N. and everything the organization represents,” Zelenskyy said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s way of giving “his middle finger” to Guterres.
In an apparent reference to the Kyiv bombing, Russia’s military said it had destroyed “production buildings” at the Artem defense factory.
The missile strike came as life in Kyiv seemed to be getting back a little closer to normal, with cafes and other businesses starting to reopen and growing numbers of people going out to enjoy the arrival of spring.
Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst and head of the Kyiv-based Penta Center think tank, said the attack carried a message: “Russia is sending a clear signal about its intention to continue the war despite the international pressure.”
Getting a full picture of the east has been difficult because airstrikes and artillery barrages have made it extremely dangerous for reporters to move around. Both Ukraine and the Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east also have introduced tight restrictions on reporting from the combat zone.
Moscow announced the start of the renewed offensive in the eastern Donbas region nearly two weeks ago but so far, Russia’s troops and the separatist forces don’t appear to have scored any major territorial advances.
In the bombed-out city of Mariupol, around 100,000 people were believed trapped with little food, water or medicine. An estimated 2,000 Ukrainian defenders and 1,000 civilians were holed up at the Azovstal steel plant.
The Soviet-era steel plant has a vast underground network of bunkers able to withstand airstrikes. But the situation has grown more dire after the Russians dropped “bunker busters” and other bombs.
“Locals who manage to leave Mariupol say it is hell, but when they leave this fortress, they say it is worse,” said Boichenko, the mayor.
U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said the organization was negotiating with authorities in Moscow and Kyiv to create safe passage.
Ukraine has blamed the failure of numerous previous evacuation attempts on continued Russian shelling.
This time, “we hope there’s a slight touch of humanity in the enemy,” the mayor said.
Also Friday, two towns in central Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region were hit by Russian rockets, the regional governor said. There was no immediate word on casualties or damage.
Fighting could be heard from Kramatorsk to Sloviansk, two cities about 11 miles apart in the Donbas. Columns of smoke rose from the Sloviansk area and neighboring cities. At least one person was reported wounded in the shelling. The governor of Russia’s Kursk region said that a border post came under mortar attack from Ukraine and that Russian border forces returned fire. He said there were no casualties on the Russian side.
In the village of Ruska Lozava, near Kharkiv, hundreds of people were evacuated after Ukrainian forces retook the city from Russian occupiers, according to the regional governor. Those who fled to Kharkiv spoke of dire conditions under the Russians, with little water or food and no electricity.
“We were hiding in the basement. It was horror. The basement was shaking from the explosions. We were screaming, we were crying and we were praying to God,” said Ludmila Bocharnikova.