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Russian forces began storming the steel mill that represented the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol on Tuesday, Ukrainian defenders said, just as a convoy carrying dozens of civilians evacuated from the plant over the weekend arrived in the relative safety of a town under Ukrainian control.
Osnat Lubrani, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said that thanks to the evacuation effort, “101 women, men, children and elderly people were finally able to leave the bunkers under the Azovstal steelworks. and see the light of day after two months”.
The news for those left behind was grimmer. Ukrainian commanders said Russian forces were storming the sprawling factory, which includes a maze of tunnels and bunkers.
RUSSIAN ARMY NOW TAKES MARIUPOL STEEL PLANT, UKRAINIAN FORCES SAY
“The enemy is trying to storm the Azovstal factory with large forces using armored vehicles. Our fighters are repelling all attacks,” said Denys Shlega, a Ukrainian National Guard brigade commander who was on in Azovstal.
It is estimated that 2,000 Ukrainian fighters are locked up in the factory. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said a few hundred civilians also remained there. And we did not know if a new evacuation would be organized.
On the Telegram messaging app, the deputy commander of the Ukrainian Azov regiment, Sviatoslav Palamar, said the Russians were mounting a massive assault on the factory with “the support of armored vehicles and tanks, with attempts to land troops from boats and large numbers of infantry.”
People wait to be processed upon arrival at a reception center for displaced people in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Monday, May 2, 2022.
(AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
“We will do everything possible to repel the assault, but we call for urgent action to evacuate the civilians who remain inside the factory and bring them back safely,” he said.
He added that throughout the night the factory was hit by naval artillery fire and airstrikes. Two female civilians were killed and 10 civilians were injured, he said.
The assault began nearly two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his army not to storm the factory but to cordon it off.
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It happened when the first convoy of evacuees from the factory arrived in the Ukrainian-held town of Zaporizhzhia, about 230 kilometers northwest of Mariupol. They were allowed to leave during a brief ceasefire over the weekend, in an operation overseen by the UN and the Red Cross.
At a reception centre, stretchers and wheelchairs were lined up, tiny children’s shoes hung from a shopping trolley and a pile of toys awaited the convoy. Health and psychology professionals were on standby.
The arrival of buses and ambulances was a rare glimmer of good news in the nearly 10-week conflict that has killed thousands, forced millions to flee the country, devastated towns and villages and altered the post-Cold War balance of power in Eastern Europe.
Natalia Pototska, 43, cries as her grandson Matviy looks on in a car at a center for displaced people in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Monday, May 2, 2022.
(AP Photo/Evgeny Maloletka)
“Over the past few days, while traveling with the evacuees, I have heard fragile mothers, children and grandparents speak of the trauma of living day after day under relentless bombardment and fear of death, and with a extreme lack of water, food and sanitation,” said the UN’s Lubrani. “They talked about the hell they have been through since the start of this war, seeking refuge in the factory ‘Azovstall.’
In addition to the 101 people evacuated from the steel plant, 58 joined the convoy in a town on the outskirts of Mariupol, Lubrani said. Some decided not to go as far as Zaporizhzhia, where a total of 127 people arrived on Tuesday, he said.
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The Russian military said earlier that some evacuees chose to stay in separatist areas. In the past, Ukraine has accused Moscow of taking civilians against their will to Russia or Russian-controlled areas, which the Kremlin has denied.
Mariupol became the symbol of human misery inflicted by war. The Russians’ two-month siege has trapped civilians with little access to food, water and electricity, as forces from Moscow pounded the city into rubble. The plant particularly pierced the outside world.
Civilians line up to receive humanitarian aid distributed at the Mariupol United Humanitarian Center in the territory under the government of the Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine on Monday, May 2, 2022.
(AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)
The pounding of the steelworks resumed after the weekend evacuation. Vadim Astafyev, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, said Ukrainian fighters had used the ceasefire to take new positions at the plant.
They “came out of the basements, took up firing positions on the territory and in the factory buildings,” he said. Russian troops as well as Moscow-backed separatist forces used artillery and aircraft “to destroy these firing positions”.
After failing to take kyiv in the first weeks of the war, Russia withdrew some of its forces and declared its main objective to be the capture of the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine, known as Donbass. .
UKRAINE STEEL PLANT EVACUATIONS UNDERLINE NEW OPTIMISTIC – AND REASON FOR CONCERN
Mariupol is in the region, and its fall would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free troops to fight elsewhere in the Donbass.
Michael Carpenter, US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said on Monday that the United States believed the Kremlin was planning to annex much of eastern Ukraine and recognize the southern city of Kherson as an independent republic. None of those decisions would be recognized by the United States or its allies, he said.
Andrii Fedorov hugs his son Makar as they reunite at a reception center for displaced people in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Monday, May 2, 2022.
(AP Photo/Francisco Sec)
Russia plans to hold mock referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of the Donbass that would “attempt to add a veneer of democratic or electoral legitimacy” and tie the entities to Russia, Carpenter said. He also said there were signs that Russia would hold an independence vote in Kherson.
Getting a full picture of the battle unfolding in the east has been difficult as airstrikes and artillery barrages have made it extremely dangerous for journalists to travel. Ukraine and Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east have introduced strict restrictions on reporting.
UNITED NATIONS SEEKING TO EVACUATE UKRAINIANS FROM MARIUPOL
But so far Russian troops and their allied separatist forces appear to have made only minor gains, taking several small towns as they attempt to advance in relatively small groups against fierce Ukrainian resistance.
In its daily Twitter statement on the war, the British military said it believed the Russian military was now “significantly weaker” after suffering casualties in its war against Ukraine.
“Recovery after this will be exacerbated by sanctions,” the ministry said. “Failures in both strategic planning and operational execution prevented him from translating numerical strength into decisive advantage.”
People with children wait at a center for displaced people in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Monday, May 2, 2022.
(AP Photo/Evgeny Maloletka)
Ukraine’s resistance has been greatly bolstered by Western weaponry, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday announced 300 million pounds ($375 million) of new military aid, including radar, drones and vehicles shielded.
In a remote speech to Ukraine’s parliament, he said Ukraine’s battle to fend off the Russians was the country’s “finest hour”, echoing the words of Winston Churchill during World War II.
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“Your children and grandchildren will say that Ukrainians taught the world that the brute strength of an aggressor counts for nothing against the moral strength of a people determined to be free,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at least 220 Ukrainian children had been killed by Russian forces since the start of the war.
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