Russia attacks steelworks in Mariupol with tanks
Russian troops have apparently started attacking Mariupol’s steelworks from all sides. The attackers are also said to have used tanks. Many civilians are still holding out in the bunker.
Russia has launched a full-scale attack on the last bastion of Ukrainian militants in Mariupol. Russian ground troops and tanks attacked the Azov steelworks in the south-eastern Ukrainian port city for the first time on Tuesday, as the Azov regiment entrenched in the plant explained in the online service Telegram. Meanwhile, Russian attacks continued in the rest of Ukraine.
Russian troops tried to land “a large number of infantrymen with boats,” Azov regiment deputy commander Svyatoslav Palamar said in a video message. He called for an attempt to be made “immediately” to bring the civilians still stuck in tunnels on the factory premises to safety. Two women were killed and around ten other civilians injured in the bombardment that preceded the attack.
According to Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko, about 200 civilians remain at the site. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday evening, a total of 156 civilians were brought from the facility to Ukrainian-controlled Zaporizhia during evacuations by the UN and the Red Cross. Another evacuation campaign is planned for Wednesday, “if the security situation permits,” said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Wereshchuk.
Attacks continue in eastern Ukraine
The Russian Defense Ministry accused the Azov regiment of taking advantage of a ceasefire called to evacuate civilians to move into new positions on the sprawling factory site. They would now be attacked.
AFP reporters on Tuesday saw dozens of people rescued from the plant, including a baby, disembark buses at a reception center in Zaporizhia, 230 kilometers away.
Meanwhile, in other areas of eastern Ukraine, Russia continued its attacks with undiminished severity. According to media reports, parts of the city of Lviv in the west of the country were without electricity after three power plants were damaged by rockets, according to Mayor Andriy Sadowyj.
Missile attacks on Odessa
Rocket attacks were also reported from Vinnytsia in the center, Odessa in the southwest and Kirovograd, also in the center of the country. For the first time since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression on February 24, the Transcarpathia region near the border with Hungary was also attacked with a rocket, as regional governor Viktor Mikita reported in the online service Telegram.
At least 10 people were killed and 15 injured in a Russian attack on a coke plant in Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. According to him, five other people were killed by shelling in the city of Lyman, four in Wugledar, and there was one fatality each in the villages of Welyka Nowosilka and Schandrygolowe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Western countries on Tuesday to stop arms sales to Ukraine. In a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Putin accused the Ukrainian armed forces of war crimes that the EU “ignored,” according to the Kremlin. The West could “help end these atrocities” by putting pressure on Kyiv “and stopping arms supplies to Ukraine,” Putin said.
According to the Elysee Palace, Macron called on Putin in the first joint telephone conversation since the end of March to allow the evacuation of civilians from the Azov steelworks in Mariupol to continue. The French head of state emphasized that the rescued must be given the choice of where to be taken “according to international humanitarian law”. The Russians had previously stated that some of the people rescued from the plant had “voluntarily” stayed in the pro-Russian separatist area.
