First civilians leave Mariupol steel plant

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — People fleeing besieged Mariupol described weeks of bombardment and deprivation as they arrived Monday in Ukrainian-held territory, where officials and relief workers anxiously awaited the first group of civilians evacuated from the steel plant that is the last stronghold of Ukrainian fighters in the devastated port city.

Video posted online Sunday by Ukrainian forces showed elderly women and mothers with small children climbing over a steep pile of rubble from the sprawling Azovstal steel mill and boarding a bus.

More than 100 civilians from the bombed-out plant were expected to arrive in Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles (230 kilometers) northwest of Mariupol, on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

"Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vitally needed green corridor has started working," he said Sunday in a video message.

However, at least some of the people evacuated from the plant on Sunday were apparently taken to a village controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. The Russian military said that some chose to stay in separatist areas, while dozens left for Ukrainianheld territory. The information could not be independently verified.

In the past, Ukraine has accused Moscow's troops of taking civilians against their will to Russia. Moscow has said the people wanted to go to Russia.

The steel-plant evacuation, if successful, would represent rare progress in easing the human cost of the almost 10-week war, which has caused particular suffering in Mariupol. Previous attempts to open safe corridors out of the Sea of Azov city and other places have broken down, with Ukrainian officials repeatedly accusing Russian forces of shooting and shelling along agreed-upon evacuation routes.

Before the weekend evacuation overseen by the United Nations and the Red Cross, about 1,000 civilians were believed to be in the steel plant, along with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters. As many as 100,000 people overall may still be in Mariupol, which had a prewar population of more than 400,000.

In other developments, European Union energy ministers met Monday to discuss new sanctions against the Kremlin, which could include restrictions on Russian oil — though Russia-dependent members of the 27-nation bloc, including Hungary and Slovakia, are wary of taking tough action.

Zelenskyy said he hoped more people would be able to leave Mariupol in an organized evacuation on Monday. The city council told residents wanting to leave to gather at a shopping mall to wait for buses.

As in the past when official evacuations faltered, some people managed to escape from

Mariupol on their own, while others remained trapped.

"People without cars cannot leave. They're desperate," said Olena Gibert, who was among those arriving an a U.N.-backed reception center in Zaporizhzhia in dusty and often damaged private cars. "You need to go get them. People have nothing."

She said many people still in Mariupol wish to escape the Russia-controlled city but can't say so openly amid the atmosphere of constant proMoscow propaganda.

Anastasiia Dembytska, who took advantage of the brief cease-fire around the evacuation of civilians from the steel plant to leave with her daughter, nephew and dog, said her family survived by cooking on a makeshift stove and drinking well water.

She said could see the plant from her window, when she dared to look out.

"We could see the rockets flying" and clouds of smoke over the plant, she said.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel on Monday lashed out at Russia over "unforgivable" comments by its foreign minister about Nazism and antisemitism — including claims that Adolf Hitler was Jewish. Israel, which summoned the Russian ambassador in response, said the remarks blamed Jews for their own murder in the Holocaust.

It was a steep decline in the ties between the two countries at a time when Israel has sought to stake out a cautious position between Russia and Ukraine and remain in Russia's good stead for its security needs in the Middle East.

Asked in an interview with an Italian news channel about Russian claims that it invaded Ukraine to "denazify" the country, Sergey Lavrov said that Ukraine could still have Nazi elements even if some figures, including the country's president, were Jewish.

"So when they say 'How can Nazification exist if we're Jewish?' In my opinion, Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn't mean absolutely anything. For some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest antisemites were Jewish," he said, speaking to the station in Russian, dubbed over by an Italian translation.

In some of the harshest remarks since the start of the war in Ukraine, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called Lavrov's statement "unforgivable and scandalous and a horrible historical error."

"The Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust," said Lapid, the son of a Holocaust survivor. "The lowest level of racism against Jews is to blame Jews themselves for antisemitism."

Later, Lapid said Israel makes "every effort" to have good relations with Russia. "But there's a limit and this limit has been crossed this time. The government of Russia needs to apologize to us and to the Jewish people," he said.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has been more measured in his criticism of Russia's invasion, also condemned Lavrov's comments.

"His words are untrue and their intentions are wrong," he said. "Using the Holocaust of the Jewish people as a political tool must cease immediately."

Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem called the remarks "absurd, delusional, dangerous and deserving of condemnation."