Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces in Ukraine tried to storm a steel plant housing soldiers and civilians in the southern city of Mariupol on Saturday as they tried to crush the last corner of resistance on the ground with deep symbolic and strategic value. Moscow, This was said by Ukrainian officials.
The reported attack on the eve of Orthodox Easter came after the Kremlin said its military had taken over the entire destroyed city except the Azovstal plant, and after Russian forces struck other cities in southern and eastern Ukraine.
A 3-month-old baby was among six killed when Russia fired cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odessa, officials said.
The fate of the Ukrainians in the expanding seaside steel plant was not immediately clear; earlier in the day, a ukrainian military released a video that was reportedly filmed two days earlier, in which women and children hid underground, some for two months, saying they longed to see the sun.
“We want to see a peaceful sky, we want to breathe fresh air,” a woman said in the video. “You just have no idea what it means for us to just eat, drink some sweetened tea. For us, this is already happiness. “
As the battle for the port continued, Russia claimed to have taken control of several villages elsewhere in the eastern Donbass region and destroyed 11 Ukrainian military targets overnight, including three artillery depots. Russian attacks also hit populated areas of Ukraine.
Associated Press reporters also observed shelling in residential areas of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city; The district governor said Oleh Sinehubov said three people had been killed. In the Luhansk region of Donbass, Governor Sergei Haidai said six people died in the shelling of the village of Gorskoy
In Slavyansk, a city in the Northern Donbass. The AP witnessed the arrival of two soldiers at the city’s hospital, one of whom was mortally wounded. A small group of people gathered nearby in front of a church, where a priest blessed them with water on Holy Saturday.
While British authorities said the Russians had not won a significant new position, Ukrainian authorities announced a national curfew before Easter, a sign of an end to the war and a threat to the whole country.
Mariupol, part of the industrial region of eastern Ukraine known as Donbass, has been a key Russian target since the invasion began on February 24 and has gained enormous importance in the war. Completing its conquest will give Russia its biggest victory to date, after a nearly two-month siege led much of the city to smoldering ruins.
Occupying Mariupol will deprive Ukrainians of a vital port, free Russian troops to fight elsewhere, and allow Russia to build a land corridor with the Crimean peninsula that Moscow took from Ukraine in 2014. Russian-backed separatists control parts of Donbass.
An adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, Alexei Arestovich, said at a briefing on Saturday that Russian forces had resumed air strikes on the Azovstal plant and were trying to storm it. A direct attempt to seize the plant would be to overturn an order issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin two days earlier.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin on Thursday that all of Mariupol, with the exception of Azovstal, had been “liberated” by the Russians. At the time, Putin ordered him not to send Russian troops to the plant, but instead to block the facility, an apparent attempt to starve Ukrainians and force them to surrender.
Ukrainian authorities estimate that about 2,000 of their troops are inside the plant, along with civilians sheltering in the facility’s underground tunnels. Arestovich said Ukrainian forces were trying to counter the new attacks.
Earlier on Saturday, the Azov Regiment of the National Guard of Ukraine, which has members hiding in the plant, released footage of about two dozen women and children. The content cannot be verified independently.
If authentic, this will be the first video testimony to the lives of civilians still locked up in Mariupol’s underground bunkers. The video shows soldiers giving sweets to children who respond with punches.
A young girl says she and her relatives “have seen neither the sky nor the sun” since leaving home on February 27.
Regiment Deputy Commander Svyatoslav Palamar told the AP that the video was shot on Thursday. The Azov Regiment has its roots in the Azov Battalion, which was formed in 2014 by far-right activists at the beginning of the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine and has drawn criticism for some of its tactics.
More than 100,000 people – less than the pre-war population of about 430,000 – are believed to have been trapped in Mariupol with little food, water or heat, according to Ukrainian authorities, who estimate that more than 20,000 civilians have been killed. in the city during the Russian blockade.
Satellite images released this week show what appears to be a second mass grave near Mariupol, and local authorities have accused Russia of burying thousands of civilians to cover up the massacre.
The Kremlin has not responded to satellite images.
Ukrainian authorities have said they will try again on Saturday to evacuate women, children and the elderly from Mariupol. Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk told Telegram that efforts should begin at noon.
Like previous plans to remove civilians from the city, this one failed. Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said Russian forces had not allowed Ukrainian-organized buses to take residents to Zaporozhye, a city 227 kilometers (141 miles) northwest.
“At 11 a.m., at least 200 Mariupol residents gathered near the Port City shopping center, awaiting evacuation,” Andryushchenko wrote in the Telegram news release. “The Russian military approached the Mariupol residents and ordered them to disperse because there would be shelling now.
At the same time, he said, Russian buses had gathered about 200 meters away. Residents who boarded were told they were being taken to separatist-occupied territory and were not allowed to disembark, Andryushchenko said. His account cannot be verified independently.
During the attack on Odessa, the Russians fired at least six missiles, said Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister. Defense forces repelled some of the missiles, but at least one landed and exploded, he said.
“Residents of the city heard explosions in different areas,” Gerashchenko wrote in a Telegram post. “Residential buildings have been damaged. One victim is already known. He burned in his car in the yard of one of the buildings. ”
The head of the office of Ukrainian President Andriy Ermak later announced that the 3-month-old baby was among the five killed in the rocket attack.
In a night video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned all victims of the war, noting that Easter is a monument to Christ’s resurrection after his death by crucifixion.
“We believe in victory, in life over death,” he said. “No matter how fierce the battles, there is no chance of death winning life. Everyone knows that. Every Christian knows this. ”
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Fish reported from Slavyansk, Ukraine. Associated Press journalists Mstislav Chernov and Felipe Dana in Kharkov, Ukraine, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Inna Varenitsa in Kvov and Associated Press staff from around the world contributed to this story.
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