Ukraine latest: Russia resumes air strikes on Mariupol steel plant with 1,000 civilians sheltering inside
Russian forces have attacked a steel plant in the shattered Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said.
t is an apparent bid to eliminate the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic city the Kremlin claims its military has otherwise seized.
The assault was reported by an adviser to Ukraine‘s presidential office as an estimated 1,000 civilians sheltered in the Azovstal plant alongside the remaining Ukrainian fighters, while Russian forces pressed their offensive elsewhere in the eastern Donbas region amid fierce Ukrainian counterattacks.
The presidential adviser, Oleksiy Arestovich, said during a briefing that Russian forces had resumed air strikes on the massive seaside plant and were trying to storm it, which would represent a reversal from an order Russian President Vladimir Putin gave two days earlier.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu told Mr Putin on Thursday that the whole of Mariupol, with the exception of Azovstal, had been “liberated” by the Russians.
An injured soldier smokes a cigarette outside the hospital amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Kramatorsk, Ukraine. Picture: Reuters
At the time, Mr Putin ordered him not to send Russian troops into the plant but instead to block off the facility, an apparent attempt to starve out the Ukrainians and force them to surrender.
Ukrainian officials have estimated that about 2,000 of their troops are inside the plant along with the civilians sheltering in the facility’s underground tunnels. Mr Arestovic said the Ukrainian forces were trying to counter the new attacks.
Earlier on Saturday, the Azov Regiment of Ukraine’s national guard, which has members holed up in the plant, released footage of around two dozen women and children, some of whom said they had been in the mill’s underground tunnels for two months and longed to see the sun.
“We want to see peaceful skies, we want to breathe in fresh air,” one woman in the video said. “You have simply no idea what it means for us to simply eat, drink some sweetened tea. For us, it is already happiness.”
The regiment’s deputy commander, Sviatoslav Palamar, told The Associated Press the video was shot on Thursday, the same day Russia declared victory over the rest of Mariupol. The contents could not be independently verified.
Both Ukrainian and Russian authorities have said the Azovstal plant is the last remaining defence stronghold in Mariupol, which has strategic importance to Moscow and has been under siege since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
More than 100,000 people – down from a pre-war population of about 430,000 – are believed to be trapped in Mariupol with little food, water or heat, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The footage of Azovstal showed soldiers giving sweets to children who respond with fist-bumps. One young girl says she and her relatives “haven’t seen neither the sky, nor the sun” since they left home on February 27.
More than 20,000 civilians have been killed in Mariupol during the nearly two-month siege. Satellite images released this week showed what appeared to be mass graves near Mariupol, and local officials accused Russia of burying thousands of civilians to conceal the slaughter taking place there.
Ukrainian officials had said they were trying again on Saturday to evacuate women, children and older adults from Mariupol after many previous attempts failed. Deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on the messaging app Telegram that the effort was to get underway at noon, but it was not clear how the new assault on the plant would affect any possible evacuation.
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Russia has pulled a dozen crack military units from Mariupol to bolster the offensive elsewhere in the eastern Donbas region, while other troops continue to keep the remaining Ukrainian troops in the city pinned in the plant, Ukrainian officials said.
In Donbas, Russian troops pressed their offensive in an attempt to fully seize Ukraine’s industrial heartland but have made little headway as fierce Ukrainian counter-attacks have slowed their efforts, Ukrainian and British officials said on Saturday.
Ukrainian forces over the past 24 hours repelled eight Russian attacks in the two regions, destroying nine tanks, 18 armoured units and 13 vehicles, a tanker and three artillery systems, Ukraine’s general staff said.
“Units of Russian occupiers are regrouping. Russian enemy continues to launch missile and bomb strikes on military and civilian infrastructure,” the general staff said on its Facebook page.
Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai said on Saturday that two people were killed by Russian shelling in the city of Popasna. Separately, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov said on Telegram on Saturday that two people were killed and 19 more wounded by the Russian shelling. Mr Synehubov said that over the past day the Russian forces fired at the region’s civilian infrastructure 56 times.
“In addition to the fact that street fighting continues in the city (of Popasna) for several weeks, the Russian army constantly fires at multi-storey residential buildings and private houses,” Mr Haidai wrote on the messaging app Telegram. “Just yesterday, local residents withstood five enemy artillery attacks. … Not all survived.”
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said despite their increased activity, “Russian forces have made no major gains in the last 24 hours as Ukrainian counter-attacks continue to hinder the efforts”.
Russia still has not established air or sea control due to Ukrainian resistance, and despite Mr Putin’s declaration of victory in Mariupol, “heavy fighting continues to take place, frustrating Russian attempts to capture the city, thus further slowing their desired progress in the Donbas”, the Ministry of Defence said.
Overall, the Kremlin has thrown more than 100,000 troops and mercenaries from Syria and Libya into the fight in Ukraine and is deploying more forces in the country every day, said Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council.
“We have a difficult situation, but our army is defending our state,” he said.
In western Ukraine, regional governor Maksym Kozytsky announced a curfew for the Lviv area ahead of Orthodox Easter. Mr Kozytsky cited “new intelligence” and said the curfew would run from 11pm on Saturday to 5am on Sunday, and then every day between these hours until further notice.
“Unfortunately, the enemy doesn’t have such a concept as a major religious holiday,” Mr Kozytsky wrote.
Mariupol has taken on outsize importance in the war. Fully capturing it would deprive the Ukrainians of a vital port and allow Russia to create a land corridor with the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Taking over the city also would allow Mr Putin to throw more of his forces into the potentially climactic battle for the Donbas and its coal mines, factories and other industries.
The city has been reduced largely to smoking rubble by weeks of bombardment, and Russian state TV showed the flag of the pro-Moscow Donetsk separatists raised on what it said was the city’s highest point, its TV tower. It also showed what it said was the main building in flames.
Under the cover of darkness, Ukrainian forces have managed to deliver weapons to the besieged steelworks via helicopter, said Mr Danilov.
The latest satellite photos from Maxar Technologies revealed what appeared to be a second mass grave site near Mariupol. The site at a cemetery in the town of Vynohradne has several newly dug parallel trenches measuring about 131 feet long, Maxar said in a statement.
Earlier, Maxar released photos of what appeared to be rows upon rows of more than 200 freshly dug mass graves next to a cemetery in the town of Manhush, outside Mariupol. That prompted Ukrainian accusations that the Russians are trying to conceal the slaughter of civilians in the city.
The Ukrainians estimated that the graves seen in the photos released Thursday could hold 9,000 bodies.
Sarmat missiles
Russia said on Saturday it plans to deploy its newly tested Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of mounting nuclear strikes against the United States, by autumn.
The target stated by Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Roscosmos space agency, is an ambitious one as Russia reported its first test-launch only on Wednesday and Western military experts say more will be needed before the missile can be deployed.
The Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile is launched during a test at Plesetsk cosmodrome in Arkhangelsk region, Russia, in this still image taken from a video released on April 20, 2022. Picture: Reuters
The Sarmat is capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads and decoys, and of striking targets thousands of miles away in the United States or Europe.
This week’s test, after years of delays due to funding and technical issues, marks a show of strength by Russia at a time when the war in Ukraine has sent tensions with the United States and its allies soaring to their highest levels since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Rogozin said in an interview with Russian state TV that the missiles would be deployed with a unit in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, about 3,000 km (1,860 miles) east of Moscow.
He said they would be placed at the same sites and in the same silos as the Soviet-era Voyevoda missiles they are replacing, something that would save “colossal resources and time”.
The launch of the “super-weapon” was an historic event that would guarantee the security of Russia’s children and grandchildren for the next 30-40 years, Rogozin added.
Western concern at the risk of nuclear war has increased since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 with a speech in which he pointedly referred to Moscow’s nuclear forces and warned that any attempt to get in Russia’s way “will lead you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history.”
“The prospect of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is now back within the realm of possibility,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last month.
Ukrainian pullback
Ukrainian forces were pulling back from some settlements to regroup as an intensifying barrage pounded all cities in Luhansk region, its governor said on Saturday, with Russia pressing its offensive in the east.
The pullback to new defensive lines was to preserve units, the governor, Serhiy Gaidai, added in televised remarks.
“It’s unpleasant they’re leaving our settlements, but it is no catastrophe,” he added.
Russia said on Saturday it had shot down a Ukrainian fighter jet and destroyed three Ukrainian helicopters at an airfield in Kharkiv, a heavily bombarded city northwest of Donbas.
There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine regarding the Russian claims but the Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had destroyed 177 Russian aircraft and 154 helicopters since the start of the war.
A satellite image shows the expansion of new graves at a cemetery in Vynohradne, near Mariupol, Ukraine. Picture: Reuters
Cut off
Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of Russia’s central military district, was quoted by Russian state news agencies on Friday as saying full control over southern Ukraine would give it access to Transdniestria, a breakaway Russian-occupied part of Moldova in the west.
That would cut off Ukraine’s entire coastline and mean Russian forces pushing hundreds of miles further west, past the major coastal city of Odesa.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after Minnekayev’s comments that Russia’s invasion was just the beginning and that Moscow has designs on capturing other countries.
“We are the first in line. And who will come next?” he said in a video address late on Friday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on whether Russia had expanded its goals or on how Moscow saw the political future of southern Ukraine.
Zelenskiy said in his address that Ukraine’s allies were finally delivering weapons Kyiv has asked for.
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday he had authorised a further $800 million in military aid for Ukraine, including heavy artillery, ammunition and drones. Canada said on Friday it had provided more heavy artillery to Ukraine.
A Ukrainian service member pets a dog at a position, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Donetsk Region. Picture: Reuters
In the southern city of Mykolaiv, 87 civilians have died in the invasion, including one child, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said late Friday on his Facebook page. Nearly 400 people have been wounded. Reuters could not independently verify this.
https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/russia-resumes-air-strikes-on-mariupol-steel-plant-with-1000-civilians-sheltering-inside-41580171.html Ukraine latest: Russia resumes air strikes on Mariupol steel plant with 1,000 civilians sheltering inside