ZAPOROZHYE, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces on Tuesday began storming a steel plant containing the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, Ukrainian defenders said just as dozens of civilians evacuated from the bombed plant over the weekend arrived safely. nights filled with the horror of constant shelling.
Osnat Lubrani, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said that thanks to the evacuation efforts, 101 women, men, children and the elderly could finally leave the bunkers under the Azovstal steel plant and see the light of day in two months. ” .
One evacuee said she went to sleep there every night, fearing she would not wake up.
“You can’t imagine how scary it is to sit in a shelter, in a wet, damp basement that bounces and trembles,” Elena Tsibulchenko said on her arrival in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhia, about 140 miles (230 kilometers) away. ) northwest of Mariupol, in a column of buses and ambulances.
She added: “We prayed to God for rockets to fly over our shelter, because if they hit the shelter, we will all be ready.”
The news of the abandoned was gloomier. Ukrainian commanders said Russian tank-backed forces had begun storming the vast enterprise, which includes a maze of tunnels and bunkers located 11 square kilometers (4 square miles).
How many Ukrainian fighters were hidden inside is not clear, but the Russians have estimated the number at about 2,000 in recent weeks, and 500 have been reported wounded. Several hundred civilians remain there, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said.
“We will do everything possible to repel the attack, but we call for urgent measures to evacuate the civilians who remain in the plant and for their safe removal,” said Svyatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment. the Telegram messaging application.
He added that the plant had been shelled by naval artillery and air strikes throughout the night. Two civilian women were killed and 10 civilians were injured, he said.
Lubrani of the UN expressed hope for further evacuations, but said nothing had been developed.
In other events on the battlefield, Russian troops fired on a chemical plant in the eastern town of Avdievka, killing at least 10 people, Donetsk Regional Governor Pavlo Kirilenko said.
“The Russians knew exactly where to aim – the workers had just finished their shift and were waiting for a bus at a bus stop to take them home,” Kirilenko wrote in a Telegram post. “Another cynical crime of the Russians on our land.
Explosions were also heard in Lviv, in western Ukraine, near the Polish border. The strikes damaged two substations and cut off electricity in some parts of the city, the mayor said. Lviv was a gateway for NATO-supplied weapons and a refuge for those fleeing fighting in the east.
A spokesman for Russia’s Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said Russian planes and artillery had hit hundreds of targets over the past day, including army fortresses, command posts, artillery positions, fuel and ammunition depots and radar equipment.
The attack on the Azovstal steel plant began almost two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military not to storm the plant to finish off defenders, but to seal it. The first – and so far only – civilians to be evacuated from the destroyed plant came out during a brief ceasefire over the weekend, in an operation monitored by the United Nations and the Red Cross.
Stretchers and wheelchairs were lined up at a reception center in Zaporizhia, small children’s shoes hung from a shopping cart and a pile of toys awaited the convoy. Medical and psychological teams were on standby.
The convoy’s arrival was rare good news in the nearly 10-week conflict, which killed thousands, forced millions to flee the country, devastated cities and towns and changed the balance of power after the Cold War in Eastern Europe.
“In recent days, traveling with evacuees, I have heard mothers, children and frail grandparents talk about the trauma of life day after day under relentless heavy shelling and fear of death, and with extreme lack of water, food and sanitation,” he said. Lubrani. “They talked about the hell they had been through since the beginning of this war, seeking refuge in the Azovstal plant.
Lubrani said many of the evacuees fled to the steel plant for safety and were trapped.
In addition to 101 people evacuated from the steel plant, 58 joined the convoy in a town on the outskirts of Mariupol, Lubrani said. About 30 people who left the plant decided to stay to try to find out if their loved ones were alive, Lubrani said. A total of 127 evacuees have arrived in Zaporozhye, she said.
The Russian military said earlier that some of the evacuees had chosen to stay in areas held by pro-Moscow separatists.
About a dozen people in the convoy are sick or injured, none in critical condition, according to Pascal Hand, head of the Ukrainian office of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Tsibulchenko rejected Russian allegations that Ukrainian fighters would not allow civilians to leave the plant. She said the Ukrainian military had told civilians they were free to go, but would risk their lives if they did.
“We have clearly understood that with these weapons of murder we will not survive, we will not be able to go anywhere,” she said.
Mariupol has become a symbol of the human misery caused by the war. A two-month siege by the Russians of the strategic southern port has trapped civilians with little or no food, water, medicine or heat as Moscow forces smash the city to pieces. In particular, the plant has captivated the outside world.
After failing to take Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, Russia withdrew from the capital and announced that its main goal was to take over Ukraine’s eastern industrial center, known as Donbass.
Mariupol is in the region and its fall will deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to build a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which it took from Ukraine in 2014, and free troops for battles elsewhere in Donbas.
But so far, Russian troops and their allied separatist forces appear to have made little progress in the eastern offensive, capturing several small towns as they try to advance in relatively small groups against strong Ukrainian resistance.
Ukraine’s resistance has been significantly boosted by Western weapons, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced 300 million pounds ($ 375 million) in new military aid, including radar, drones and armored vehicles.
In a speech delivered remotely to Ukraine’s parliament, he declared the battle the “best time” for Ukraine, echoing Winston Churchill’s words during World War II.
“Your children and grandchildren will say that the Ukrainians have taught the world that the brute force of the aggressor has nothing against the moral strength of a people determined to be free,” Johnson said.
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Associated Press journalists Inna Varenitsa and David Keaton in Kyiv, John Gambrel and Juras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstislav Chernov in Kharkov and PA officials around the world contributed to the report.
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